以往庄学研究对庄子自由观的一般讨论没有“意志的主体”，也没有“不惧”或“不惧死”的勇敢行动为核心思想内容。庄子哲学被理解为主张超出自我的主体性（包括意志），以无我，无心，无知为修养论的终极目标，得到理想人生形态的方法。在这种人生观中，被动的“安”，“顺”，“静”，“应”和“自发”行为取代“意志品格”，“自主选择”，“自力”，“决心”等人为，带来主体性的特征。本论文拒绝对庄子这种“神秘境界”，“天然境界”，“审美境界”，“技术论”的主流解释，一种“逃避”意志，选择责任的庄子形象，以具体自我的主体性（行动的主体）为新理论出发点。这就是因为任何现实化和人为化的自由观不可能脱离于意志层面因为意志是“实现”意愿，意向，价值理想的工具。中国古代哲学（以儒家伦理思想为来源）也注意到了“主体之志”的重要性，晋人嵇康说得最清晰，“人无志，非人也”。在理论上，庄子没有儒家对“志”的肯定或者魏晋时期力命之辩，以志抗命这类哲学讨论。可是，庄子对自由的向往和追求也不脱离这种有意志的主体性，只不过是一种“选择”或者“决定”，以人为主动性的责任，现实生活中的作用为必不可少的内容。换言之，庄子的修养论并不是主体的消解（无我）而是一种“不要”（否定）的选择，不要与外在现实世界—人，形，生— 任何“奴隶”或“留恋”关系；庄子的自由观不限于想象而体现在两种具体，“拒绝”的选择— 隐逸生活方式的选择（人际关系，社会问题的超越，政治责任的否定），直面（不惧）死的选择（安全，生理问题的超越，生存意志的否定）。《德充符》首段的论述指出，庄子肯定“不惧之实”，“有勇之实”的理想，精神境界，以勇士式的“不惧”为自由境界的核心内容；庄子把死亡畏惧问题与勇敢美德，自由问题联系起来。“勇敢地直面自己的死亡”这个论题应该算得上本文的独特理论层面因为一般庄学研究一方面拒绝庄子哲学中勇敢的可能性（庄子的理想人格没有自由意志，也没有死亡的概念，处于“无知”中，以醉人式的“不惧”为模式）；另一方面，中国学术界通过孟子儒家的勇敢观（以道德为本，道德自觉的意志）而解释这里庄子对勇敢的明显肯定。庄子有自己（以生理畏惧为本）的勇敢观；“不惧之实”理想和“勇士”意象的使用都表明，庄子的理想人格不是“自发地行动”而应该有“意志品格”，“自主选择”的人为特点（“隐士”已经有的主体自由）。笔者通过庄子式勇敢的讨论再探讨庄子哲学中的一些基本论题：养生论（以“贵生”为怕死）与齐生死论（不怕死）的紧张关系；齐生死论或“直面死”的实践问题（以主体之志为出发点）；无意志的“道”与有勇敢要求的“人”之间的根本冲突；以坚定的决定为“常心”或“内不化”的具体意义（心形关系问题），等等。本论文所谓“敢死”，“直面死之自由”或者“死亡的自己化”意味着，庄子对独立人格极为重视，这种“自己决定自己”（徐复观），“任我”的自主理想包括传统庄学所忽视的“意志”，“形”和“生”三个理论层次。这种以勇敢为核心的自由观以“自力”而不是以“顺命”为本，以死亡畏惧问题而不是以快乐问题为中心。

The typical scholarly discussions of the Zhuangzi’s view of freedom don’t take the willful agent or death-defying courage as essential ingredients. The Zhuangzi’s philosophy is usually understood as exhorting transcending the agency of the self (including the will), positing “no self”, “no heart-mind”, “no knowledge/consciousness” as the ultimate end of the process of self-cultivation and achieving the ideal form of human life. According to this view, passive “resignation”, “following along”, “stillness” , “responding” and “spontaneity” ultimately replace active “volition”, “choice”, “self-reliance”, “resoluteness” and other such human and agent-related characteristics. This author renounces the leading “mystical”, “natural”, “aesthetic” and “skill” interpretations of the Zhuangzi, all of which present a Zhuangzi who “escapes” volition and the burden of choice, by starting precisely from the agency of the concrete self (the acting agent) as a theoretical foundation. Any realistic and human view of freedom cannot separate itself from treating the will since it is the latter which “realizes” or transforms into reality desires, aspirations and ideals. Ancient Chinese philosophy (having Confucian ethical thought as origin) also noticed the importance of the willful subject; Ji Kang makes the most explicit avowal, “A will-less human being is not a human being”. Theoretically, Zhuangzi does not confirm the importance of the will in the Confucian manner nor does he explicitly oppose will to fate in the manner of Ji Kang. However, it is being argued that Zhuangzi’s desire for and pursuit of freedom also cannot bypass this willful agency, his freedom is merely a “choice” or a “decision”, having the burden of human initiative or activity, concrete effect in the real life as irreplaceable content. Zhuangzi’s self-cultivation is not the disintegration of the agent (the so called three “no”s) as much as a willful rejection (“I don’t want”) of all “slavish” constraints of or attachments to the external world – human relationality, the body and life. Zhuangzi’s freedom is not limited to the imagination (a private fantasy) but manifests itself in two, concrete choices of “refusal” – the choice of the hermit’s lifestyle (the overcoming of human relations and social life, the denial of political responsibility) and the choice to confront fearlessly death (the overcoming of safety and physiology, the denial of the will to life). Chapter 5’s first section shows that Zhuangzi affirms “the realization of fearlessness”, “the realization of courage” as an ideal, spiritual state; the courageous warrior’s act of careless “fearlessness” is essential in understanding the Zhuangzi’s spiritual state of freedom since fear of death, the virtue of courage and freedom are clearly connected. “Confronting courageously one’s own death” should be considered this dissertation’s unique theoretical niche since contemporary Zhuangzi scholarship on one hand refuses indirectly to admit the possibility of courage in Zhuangzi’s philosophy (Zhuangzi’s ideal human beings do not possess “free will” nor a clear conception of death, they live in a state of vague “unknowing”, possessing the fearlessness of the drunk); on the other hand, the Chinese scholarly world explains this passage’s clear confirmation of human courage through the Confucian Mencius’ view of courage (with the moral life as object). Zhuangzi has his own view of courage (with physiological fear of death as object); the confirmation of the “fearlessness” as an ideal and the use of the “courageous warrior” metaphor show that the Zhuangzi’s ideal human being also has the human characteristics of “volition” and “choice”, the conditions of courage, the free agency possessed by the “hermits” as much as assumed by the warrior metaphor. Starting from the ideal of courage, this author reassesses some basic questions in Zhuangzi’s philosophy: the tension between the cultivation of life (with fear of death as motivating factor) and the equalization of life and death (with not fearing death as motivating factor); the problem of practice and action in the theory of equalization of life and death as reinterpreted through the concept of fear, the willing agent’s practical confrontation with death; the fundamental conflict between the will-less Dao and the human being called to be courageous; resolute decision-making and action as the concrete meaning of the “constant heart-mind” and “no inner change” (the question of the relationship between heart-mind and body). This thesis’ espousal of “daring to die”, “the freedom of confronting death” or “the appropriation of death” entail, the Zhuangzi’s extreme value to the independent person and the ideal of self-control or self-determination include the “will”, the “body” and “life” ignored by traditional scholarship. The Zhuangzi’s view of freedom is distinguished by courageous self-reliance and choice, the freedom to appropriate even one’s own death (i.e. physiological dependence). The ideal of “fearlessness” illustrates how the weak-willed author (Zhuangzi) posits the courageous warrior’s act of “not caring for one’s body and life” (Cheng Xuanying) as an essential step in the search for spiritual freedom. The courageous appropriation of death is spiritual freedom.