L'imaginaire de l'arbre dans le Zhuangzi
The present study delineates the meanings and the specificity of the imaginary of the tree in the Zhuangzi, a proto-Daoist work co-written by multiple authors beginning in the 4th century BCE. The tree imaginary evinces the Zhuangzi’s novelty by presenting a vision of wisdom radically opposed to the prevailing values of the time. Indeed, its principal function is to restore the status of nature vis-à-vis culture. More precisely, the tree imaginary gives expression to the struggle against anthropocentrism by advocating a return to the human being’s natural, instinctive, and authentic qualities – over and against specifically human creations.  In the aim of de-compartmentalizing different ways of philosophizing, the present study bases its theoretical framework on the work of Gilbert Durand, particularly Les structures anthropologiques de l’imaginaire and L’imagination symbolique. Durand restores the imagination’s place in the field of philosophy by destroying the ostensible dichotomy between rationality and the imaginary. He defines the latter as a dialectical activity of the mind as well as the main factor in achieving psycho-social equilibrium.  The Zhuangzi’s tree imaginary calls into question the moral rules governing society as well as discursive logic. The authors criticize the former because they run counter to natural impulses ; the latter, because it produces oppositions that fail to account for reality. The tree also evokes the free blossoming of the natural particularities of each person, a process which goes hand in hand with the acceptance and encouragement of difference. This free flourishing becomes possible only if one transforms the way one regards one’s environment and oneself so as to recognize the value of each being above and beyond one’s own perspective. In other words, this process – designated here by the term “plural vision” – implies embracing and comprehending a plurality of perspectives. Lastly, the tree points to the ultimate stage of wisdom, i.e., mystical strolling, understood as an inner experience of emptying oneself in order to put oneself in unison with the constitutive emptiness of the Dao 道, the immanent generative, transformative, and unifying principle of all things. This experience must be understood in terms of feeling an inner emptiness that is fully free and joyful.   Insofar as the tree illustrates nature par excellence, the present study’s originality consists in revealing the proto-ecological import of the Zhuangzi by bringing out a conceptual kinship among the key themes of the tree imaginary and the aim of better adapting the human being to the environment. Indeed, by completely opposing anthropocentrism and the instrumental vision of nature, the principal themes of the Zhuangzi’s tree lay out a bio-centric vision that can foster a way of being and acting in harmony with nature.
Zhuangzi Chinese philosophy Imaginaire Imagination Nature Mysticism Philosophy Tree