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Abstract

The papers in this dissertation provide philosophical interpretations of two early Daoist texts, the Laozi ⽼⼦ or Daodejing 道德經 and the Zhuangzi 莊⼦, on themes related to creation and creativity. The papers utilize conceptual and formal resources from analytic philosophy and empirical science in order to bring the views contained in those texts to bear on contemporary philosophical debates. The first paper, “The Metaphysics of Creation in the Daodejing,” offers an original interpretation of the Daodejing as containing a distinctive account of creation. In my reading, the Daodejing envisions the creation of the cosmos by Dao (1) as a movement from the absence of phenomenal forms to phenomenal forms and (2) as a movement from nothingness to existence. I interpret creation as a unique metaphysical operation that explains how (1) and (2) are possible. The second paper, “A Daoist Theory of Creativity,” interprets the Zhuangzi in order to offer a theory of the creative process. I extract from the text the thesis I call “representational underdetermination,” according to which, given a certain circumstance, there are mutually incompatible but equally good ways of representing it. I utilize representational underdetermination to formulate a notion of a perspective as a total way of mapping representations over a circumstance. Then, I build on such a notion a model of the creative process. The third paper, “The Logic of Ideal Agency in the Zhuangzi,” reconstructs the argumentative logic behind the picture of ideal agency contained in the Zhuangzi. I claim that the text envisions reality as characterized by ubiquitous change. Given such a view of reality, I consider (1) what are the conditions the satisfaction of which makes one an ideal agent, and (2) what are the capacities that realize ideal agency. I answer (1) by interpreting ideal agents as being maximally adaptive and identify a criterion for adaptability. I answer (2) by identifying in the text an agential stance that is purportedly attained by emptying one’s mind of its contents.