Discussion on Making All Things Equal (Qi Wu Lun)

The chapter's argument begins from a diagnosis of philosophical deadlock. Confucians and Mohists each affirm what the other denies, and each calls the other 'wrong.' Zhuangzi's question is whether any third party could adjudicate: if the judge agrees with one side, he is biased; if he disagrees with both, he has no basis; if he agrees with both, he is incoherent. What Qi Wu Lun rejects is the assumption that there is a perspective-neutral standard of 'right' (shi) and 'wrong' (fei) available to resolve such disputes. The positive proposal is the 'fulcrum of Dao' (daoshu), a position from which one can see each perspective as arising from its circumstances without being bound to any. The sage does not abolish judgments but 'illuminates' them, using the light of Dao rather than the fire of partisanship .

The fulcrum is a metaphor for a stance rather than a place. In the chapter, Zhuangzi describes the sage as standing at the 'axis' or 'pivot' of Dao, from which all perspectives can be seen in their relativity. A 2018 philosophical study argues that this position does not entail skeptical relativism or subjective idealism; rather, Zhuangzi acknowledges an objective reality while denying that any single human perspective can capture it fully . The fulcrum is the point from which one can respond to each situation appropriately without being fixed in a doctrine. The sage does not stop making distinctions—the chapter itself makes many—but holds them lightly, allowing them to shift with circumstance rather than treating them as absolute .

The chapter is explicitly aimed at the ru (Confucian) and Mo (Mohist) controversies over right and wrong. Zhuangzi does not intervene in these debates by taking a side; he steps back to ask what kind of activity the debaters are engaged in. His analysis suggests that each school's judgments are shaped by its own conceptual scheme, and that the attempt to prove one scheme superior to another by argument is circular. This does not mean Zhuangzi thought all positions were equally true in a simple sense. He mocks the futility of trying to map reality from a single angle, while acknowledging that there is a reality to be mapped. The chapter's critique is directed less at the content of Confucian or Mohist doctrines than at the confidence with which their proponents claimed universal validity .

The chapter concludes with Zhuangzi's dream that he was a butterfly, followed by his waking uncertainty about whether he is Zhuangzi who dreamt of being a butterfly or a butterfly now dreaming of being Zhuangzi. The passage illustrates the chapter's central theme: the boundaries between states and identities are not as stable as we assume. Zhuangzi calls this 'the Transformation of Things' (wuhua). The point is not to deny that there is a difference between Zhuangzi and the butterfly—the text explicitly says there must be some distinction—but to show that the distinction is not fixed in the way ordinary judgment assumes. The dream passage enacts the chapter's argument in narrative form, unsettling the reader's confidence in the stability of perspective .

Interpretive disagreement centers on whether Zhuangzi is a skeptic, a relativist, or a realist. A 2018 study in Tetsugaku argues that Zhuangzi was a realist: he acknowledged an objective world even while denying that human perspectives can fully capture it, and the 'fulcrum of Dao' is the position that recognizes the whole within each particular . Brook Ziporyn's translation renders qi as 'equalizing,' which some critics see as implying that humans actively make things equal—precisely what the chapter criticizes. A 2017 NTU thesis challenges A.C. Graham's influential reading of yinshi ('that's it which goes by circumstance') as a distinctively sage-like attitude, arguing instead that all judgments are yinshi, and the difference between sage and debater is attitudinal, not structural . These disputes matter because they determine whether Qi Wu Lun is a form of relativism or a sophisticated realism.

Qi Wu Lun is chapter 2 of the received Zhuangzi and belongs to the seven 'Inner Chapters' traditionally attributed to Zhuang Zhou himself. However, this attribution has been questioned. Esther Klein's research argues that the existence and coherence of a distinct 'Inner Chapters' unit in the Warring States period is not well supported by early evidence, and that the text's compilation history is more complex than the traditional picture suggests . A.C. Graham's stratification of the text into layers remains influential, though contested. Burton Watson's Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (Columbia University Press, 1964) is the most widely used English translation of the Inner Chapters, prized for its readability. Brook Ziporyn's more recent translation (2009) is philosophically sophisticated but linguistically controversial. A.C. Graham's Chuang-tzu: The Inner Chapters (1981) remains essential for scholarly study .