or Kuo Mo-jo orig. Guo Kaizhen born November 1892, Shawan, Luoshan county, Sichuan province, China died June 12, 1978, Beijing Chinese scholar and writer. In his youth he abandoned medical studies to devote himself to foreign literature, producing a popular translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1922). He wrote prolifically in every genre, including poetry, fiction, plays, nine autobiographical volumes, translations of Western works, and historical and philosophical treatises, including a monumental study of ancient inscriptions. Initially a liberal democrat, he became a Marxist in the 1920s, and his work was banned by the Guomindang. Following the 1949 revolution, he was named to the highest official literary positions and later to the presidency of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
or Kuo Hsiang died 312, China Chinese Neo-Daoist philosopher. He was a high government official who adapted and completed another philosopher's unfinished commentary on the writings of Zhuangzi. Interpreting dao ("the way") as nothingness, he argued that it cannot produce being and cannot be a first cause. He concluded that there is no agent of causality in the universe; all things spontaneously produce themselves, and everything has its own nature. Happiness comes from following that distinctive nature, and dissatisfaction and regret come from failing to follow it. He also interpreted Daoist "nonaction" to mean spontaneous action rather than sitting still, a deviation from original Daoism that agreed with Zhuangzi's thought