The Fish Trap

A fish trap exists for fish; once you have the fish, you forget the trap. A rabbit snare exists for rabbits; once you have the rabbit, you forget the snare. Words exist for meaning; once you have the meaning, you forget the words. Where can I find a person who has forgotten words, so that I may speak with him?

Zhuangzi does not attack language itself. He attacks attachment to linguistic tools after they have done their work. A word, concept, or framework can be indispensable at one stage and obstructive at the next. Trouble begins when we fall in love with the trap, defend the snare, and forget that speech was meant to serve understanding rather than replace it.

The fish trap is for catching fish. The rabbit snare is for catching rabbits. Once the fish or rabbit has been obtained, the device can be forgotten. From there Zhuangzi makes the turn: words exist for meaning, and once meaning is grasped, words too may be forgotten. Then comes the final paradoxical flourish — where can I find someone who has forgotten words so I can speak with him? The line is famous because it appears to defeat itself. If words are to be forgotten, why say so in words? But the self-referential tension is part of the point. Zhuangzi is not proposing silence as a superior replacement for language. He is describing the instrumental character of language. Words are not sovereign objects of devotion. They are means. Their value lies in whether they bring someone into contact with what they are for. External Things repeatedly asks how human beings become trapped by the devices they invent. The trap and the snare fit this theme perfectly. A tool is useful precisely because it is not ultimate. Once it becomes an object of fixation, it ceases to function well. The same is true of doctrines, formulas, and verbal distinctions. They can catch something real, but only if one remembers that the catching is not the thing caught. A modern reader may misread the passage as anti-intellectualism or as permission to treat careful language as disposable. That is too crude. Zhuangzi is himself a master of language, and this sentence is carefully made. The issue is not whether words matter. The issue is whether you know when they have become a substitute for contact. Explanation can become possession. Terminology can become status. The longing to 'speak with the one who has forgotten words' points toward a rare freedom: using language fully without becoming owned by it.