Zhuangzi has a saying about "useful use" and "useless use". At the end of "Zhuangzi: Human World", it says: "Everyone knows the uses of useful things, but no one knows the uses of useless things." In the past, those who interpreted Zhuangzi mostly focused on Zhuangzi's praise and promotion of "useless things". It is true that Zhuangzi wants people to start from the knowledge of "useful uses" to the knowledge of "useless uses", but this is not the whole of Zhuangzi's thought. "Useful use" and "useless use" both observe things from the standpoint of "use". In addition, there are also things that are not viewed from the standpoint of "use". From the perspective of never observing and treating things from the standpoint of "use", "uselessness" also has limitations. Zhuangzi not only requires people to break through the barriers of "useful uses" in order to achieve knowledge and grasp of "useless uses", but also requires people to break through the barriers of "use" in order to achieve the goal of not observing things from the perspective and standpoint of "use" And wait for things. Not observing and treating things from a "useful" perspective and standpoint is the highest ideological realm expected by Zhuangzi. Therefore, from the perspective of Zhuangzi's philosophy, there are three levels of divisions regarding things and their uses: "useful use", "useless use", and "useless".

1. "Usefulness"

People view things from a practical and utilitarian standpoint. To people, there is a difference between "useful" and "useless" things.

The so-called "use" refers to the use of a thing to meet certain specific needs of people, that is, the specific function and actual value of something, or use value. A useful thing must have a use, because a useful thing is called a useful thing. The use of useful things is referred to as "the use of useful things". Useful uses are specific and well-known to people, such as the use of trees, the use of gourds, the use of cows and horses, etc.

Compared with the usefulness of things, they are useless. Uselessness is something that does not have the properties to satisfy people's actual needs. Because it does not have the properties to meet people's actual needs, this thing can also be regarded as useless. Huizi complained to Zhuangzi:

The king of Wei gave me the seeds of a big gourd, and I planted it, and when it was grown, it was worth five stones. To hold water slurry, it is so strong that it cannot lift itself up. If you cut it open and use it as a gourd, it will fall into nothingness. It's not a big thing, but I'll throw it away because it's useless. ("Zhuangzi? Xiaoyaoyou". Only the title of the chapter is quoted below)

In Huizi's view,