Genealogy as Meditation and Adaptation with the Han Feizi

This paper focuses on an early Chinese conception of genealogical argumentation in the late Warring States text Han Feizi and a possible response it has to the problem of genealogical self-defeat as identified by Amia Srinivasan (2015)—i.e., the genealogist cannot seem to support their argument with premises their interlocutor or themselves can accept, given their own argument. The paper offers a reading of Han Fei’s genealogical method that traces back to the meditative practice of an earlier Daoist text the Zhuangzi and its communicative strategy, offering a conception of genealogy aimed at undoing fixations on political systems in order to bring about a more adaptive state—specifically genealogy that does not require epistemological commitment to its premises.