Two Questions About Forgetting or Forgetfulness—A Cross-Cultural Engagement with Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Ricoeur, the Virtue Ethicists and the Daoist Zhuangzi

In answering the following two important questions about forgetting or forgetfulness—Can a “happy forgetting” be possible? Can forgetfulness, including (non-Western) Daoist-Zhuangzian forgetfulness, be a virtue?—this article takes a cross-cultural approach, using both Western thought and Asian materials, especially the Zhuangzi, to seek viable responses. The aim is to widen our horizons to include different Western and non-Western traditions of forgetfulness and assimilate them into our contemporary discourse on human forgetting and its ethical dimensions.