“Freedom In”: A Daoist Response to Isaiah Berlin

Abstract

In his seminal essay “Two Concepts of Liberty,” Isaiah Berlin categorized freedom into positive or negative liberty: “freedom to” or “freedom from.” He provided a powerful critique against the metaphysical nature of positive liberty, arguing that it is oppressive, in contrast to the conception of negative freedom, defined as lack of interference. Meanwhile, conversations around the concept of freedom in Daoist philosophy often hover around categorizing it as either positive liberty in its spiritual form—what Berlin calls the “retreat to the inner citadel”—or a type of negative liberty, being free from society’s interference. In this work, I argue that it may instead be more fruitful to explore the Chinese commentarial tradition for two reasons: (1) the problem of Berlin’s liberalist framework is problematic due to its inherently Anglo-European context, and concurrently, (2) there have been rich discussions of the sociopolitical aspects of the Zhuangzi 莊子, especially by its leading Chinese commentator Guo Xiang 郭象, which have not been accounted for. Drawing from Guo Xiang, I render a reading of the concept of “free and easy wandering” (xiaoyao 逍遙) in the Zhuangzi as it directly relates to self-realization (zide 自得) and having no heart-mind (wuxin 無心), which makes for a more holistic understanding of freedom as self-determination. In particular, I argue that freedom in the philosophy of the Zhuangzi can be more aptly understood as “freedom in,” which is more viable and just than both “freedom to” and “freedom from.”