ABSTRACT
Zhuangzi tells us about what is said that it is ‘exceptionally not yet determined.’ We have here a quite explicitly stated doctrine, although one that is not easy to interpret-one that itself is ‘exceptionally undetermined’! Though it is explicit, we are still left with the ponderous task of interpreting it, of abducing and developing the sense of the discourse: what is said is exceptionally not yet determined. One way of understanding meaning is as ‘what one says.’ So, saying that what one says is exceptionally unsettled may be interpreted as saying that meaning is exceptionally indeterminate. When one engages in discourse, one has something to say, but what one says is, in some way, not quite fixed. But if what one says is not fixed, not yet settled, indeed, ‘exceptionally undetermined,’ has one really said anything? Is an indeterminate discourse no discourse at all? Does one really have to be completely clear in order to say something? Do distinctions really have to be clearly determined dichotomies as the Mohists tell us, or can one still say something even if one’s distinctions are exceptionally vague?
