If what we usually get to read from Zhuangzi is edited by Guo Xiang, where are the originals?

I can imagine that there are epistemological aspects in both Laozi’s and Zhuangzi’s writings. Laozi understands there are limits to what he can understand and put into words, and Zhuangzi can think of himself in different forms of life, rather than of his humaneness as an “absolute truth”. But isn’t the initial motivation of Laozi and Zhuangzi to understand what can’t be seen? In my imagination, before Taoism, people lived in a world of rites and shamanism, in a world of relations among people, and among people and ghosts.

Doesn’t curiosity come before the understanding of your own limits?

2. About authorship and dating: my understanding is that the Laozi was written/compiled at around mid 4th century AD from various ancient sources. But it would not be later than 300BC, because the oldest known edition, the Guodian version uncovered from an archaeological site in 1993, has been dated as prior to 300BC. The dating of the Zhuangzi is quite a different story. The dates you quoted have commonly been accepted by modern scholars. However, we have to remember that the oldest edition of the Zhuangzi that is available for us today was compiled by Guo Xiang. Earlier editions are no longer available. There was strong evidence to suggest that apart from writing the annotation, Guo Xiang had also taken the liberty to completely rearrange the book to reflect his own philosophy. So the Guo Xiang annotated edition that we use today may be significantly different in ideological content from the intention of the original author. You have to bear that in mind when you quote from the Zhuangzi.