Different Routes the Same Destination: “Oneness with Dao through Skill” in the Zhuangzi
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The research is appropriate. The problem statement and research significance are clearly stated. The author does comprehensive and detailed discussions. All the arguments and points are reasonable and acceptable.
I only have a few suggestions:
1. It is not necessary to explain each term word by word in the main text. It makes the article becomes lengthy.
For example on pages 3 to 5, the interpretation of the terms 副墨、洛诵、瞻明.....is too long. The author could be listed by creating a table. In addition, the discussions in section 4 should be shortened.
2. In conclusion section, the author should summarize the discussion point in main text and outline the research findings.
Author Response
- Summary
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions in track changes in the re-submitted files.
- Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Comments 1: It is not necessary to explain each term word by word in the main text. It makes the article becomes lengthy.For example on pages 3 to 5, the interpretation of the terms 副墨、洛诵、瞻明.....is too long. The author could be listed by creating a table. In addition, the discussions in section 4 should be shortened.
Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with this comment. The analysis of Chinese characters is one of the article's features. The first Chinese dictionary appeared after Zhuangzi, and many words in the Zhuangzi are interpreted in the dictionary by quoting the Zhuangzi, making the meaning of these words very debatable. Therefore, this article discusses the meaning of Chinese characters from the radical, Oracle Bone Inscriptions and inscriptions on ancient bronze objects, which makes for a lot of pinyin and Chinese characters in the article. The verbatim explanation for this paragraph of fumo is that it is difficult to grasp and that there are many various perspectives; however, it does have the problem of too many quotes, which leads to a lack of fluency in the article. As a result, I eliminated some of the cumbersome expressions and some quotes, and limited the quotes to 1-2 to emphasize the point. And, as you mentioned, I inserted tables in the fumo part, which helped to clarify the essay. The table can be found in lines 213-224 of the revised article, where I highlighted the parts I changed (except for the deletions). Even after removing some less crucial quotes, section 4 still ended up being a bit long, so I ultimately chose to divide it into two sections to ensure that each section's space was evenly distributed.
Comments 2: In conclusion section, the author should summarize the discussion point in main text and outline the research findings.
Response 2: Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with this comment. The conclusion seems a little hurried, so I rewrote it to include a summary of the text's important ideas. The revisions may be found on lines 850 to 881.
Reviewer 2 Report
My favorite elements of this paper were the detailed comments and analysis of important Chinese characters and quotes. Some of this was original thinking and offered new insights.
The overall point of the paper seems familiar. The author says most research on skill is about technological or aesthetic issues, but there is plenty of English language literature on the ethics and living approach to Zhuangzi's skills. Some of the chapters in Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi make similar points. The examples in the paper are mostly the ones I would expect to see in this topic, and other have commented on them before. The most interesting and original treatment was the analysis of "Nanpo Zikui asked the Woman Crookback...", starting on line 120.
Some more signposting or outlining in the introduction could help the reader stay oriented in the paper's organization into four Sections, and Section 4 has four internal headings, two critiques and two analyses of the process.
The idea of "transcendence" is in the title and in the conclusion, but it is not clear to me that this is what Zhuangzi is after. Seems to me it is about obtaining 得 dao, and not whether dao is something transcendent.
A PDF is attached with short comments and editing suggestions.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
The paper will need at least on more round of editing to smooth out the expression.
The English meaning is clear enough, but someone will need to carefully edit the grammar and mechanics of incorporating hanzi and quotes into the sentences. The journal should have a consistent style guide that will help clean up all these oddly-placed quote marks and parentheses.
Because the author incorporates so many quotes and character analysis, it can interrupt to flow of the sentences and makes some paragraphs hard to follow.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
