By examining the popular, yet puzzling calligraphy-saying Nande hutu 难得糊涂, literally translated as “hard to attain muddleheadedness” of Qing-scholar Zheng Banqiao, this multidisciplinary study takes the reader on an in-depth exploration of the Chinese art of not knowing. The book traces the historical development of this saying and related wisdoms to reveal a culturally conditioned, multi-layered inclination to different forms of not knowing. In contemporary society, this inclination forms part of a living art: in some respects, a passive, evasive strategy for self-preservation; in other respects, a strategy for coping with intrapersonal, interpersonal and social complexities; and in still other, more political respects, a pragmatic "policy of the ignorant masses".
Drawing on an extensive range of primary sources and original research, the book skillfully combines philosophical and socio-historical analysis with theory from Chinese philosophy, philosophical psychology and the relatively new field of indigenous psychology, to provide an in-depth understanding of how this saying and its underlying wisdom has shaped, and continues to shape, the Chinese psyche and behaviour.
Two laudatory book reviews have already been published, see:
Shen, Y. (2022). Ignorance is Bliss: The Chinese Art of Not Knowing By Mieke Matthyssen. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. 380 pp. ISBN: 9783030739010 (cloth). The Journal of Asian Studies, 81(3), 578-580. doi:10.1017/S0021911822000705
and
Chen, N. (2022). Ignorance Is Bliss: The Chinese Art of Not Knowing, written by Mieke Matthyssen, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 49(3), 313-315. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15406253-12340073
A third book review is forthcoming in Asian Studies, see https://journals.uni-lj.si/as/.