{"id":476,"date":"2020-07-02T08:23:57","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T22:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/?p=476"},"modified":"2020-07-02T08:29:49","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T22:29:49","slug":"hui-shi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/2020\/07\/02\/hui-shi\/","title":{"rendered":"Hui Shi"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dialectician Hui Shi (Huizi) (??, 370-310 BC) is mentioned in several ancient works, like the Hanfeizi and the Xunzi that have been mentioned before, but especially in the Zhuangzi<\/em>. In that work he is presented as a friend of Zhuang Zhou and a foil for his jests. In c. 17 it is claimed that he was the chancellor to king Hui of Wei, which, if true, would make him one of the more successful of the classical philosophers \u2013 at least until he had to flee that state to avoid falling into the power of the rising Qin state. Other texts paint an unflattering portrait of arrogance and frivolity and wilful error, but that is probably no more than ad hominem abuse intended to prevent his arguments being considered seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ten Theses<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

In c. 33 of the Zhuangzi<\/em>, amongst many other bizarre claims attributed to the Dialecticians, are Ten Theses attributed to Hui Shi:<\/span><\/p>\n

Hui Shih was a man of many devices and his writings would fill five carriages. But his doctrines were jumbled and perverse and his words wide of the mark. His way of dealing with things may be seen from these sayings:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. “The largest thing has nothing beyond it; it is called the One of largeness. The smallest thing has nothing within it; it is called the One of smallness.”<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. “That which has no thickness cannot be piled up; yet it is a thousand\u00a0li<\/em>in dimension.”<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. “Heaven is as low as earth; mountains and marshes are on the same level.”<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. “The sun at noon is the sun setting. The thing born is the thing dying.”<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. “Great similarities are different from little similarities; these are called the little similarities and differences. The ten thousand things are all similar and are all different; these are called the great similarities and differences.”<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. “The southern region has no limit and yet has a limit.”<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. “I set off for\u00a0Yueh\u00a0today and came there yesterday.”<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. “Linked rings can be separated.”<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. “I know the centre of the world: it is north of\u00a0Yen\u00a0and south of Yueh.”<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. “Let love embrace the ten thousand things; Heaven and earth are a single body.”<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    With sayings such as these, Hui Shih tried to introduce a more magnanimous view of the world and to enlighten the rhetoricians.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

    At first sight these don\u2019t seem very philosophically promising, and of course, we don\u2019t have the explanations of Hui Shi himself to give them context or meaning. On the assumption that there is a meaning to them, various interpretations have been suggested. Of course any reasonable interpretation will have to satisfy a few obvious criteria: it has to be plausible that the interpretation could have been intended by the author \u2013 for example, it can\u2019t have the theses stating obvious absurdities, and it can\u2019t depend upon a degree of philosophical sophistication far beyond or beneath the level known to have been reached at the time; it should integrate the theses making them coherent as a group; it should be consistent; it should respect what the theses actually say while making allowance for poor phrasing by the original authors, mischaracterization by the recorders, or simple errors in remembrance.[2]<\/a> An interpretation which seems reasonable in these terms is presented here, but it is far from the only possibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

    What The Ten Theses Mean<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

    There\u2019s no reason to believe that the theses are presented by Zhuangzi in any deliberate order, but they do seem to fall into three groups dealing with distinct matters. The first two theses seem to be concerned with technical matters of the theory of space.<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. If we suppose that the largest thing has something beyond it, then if we added that to the largest thing we would make something larger than the largest thing. The One of largeness is the whole universe. We do not doubt that the whole universe exists. <\/span>
      \n Similarly, if the smallest thing had anything within it then that thing would be smaller than the smallest thing. The smallest thing, or the One of smallness, we would have to think of as being a dimensionless point. There must be a smallest thing, therefore the dimensionless point exists.<\/span>
      \n This is an important claim for mathematical considerations, and we know that the Chinese (the later Mohists in particular) did have a notion of the dimensionless point and saw it as somehow fundamental to the consideration of all spatial dimensions. In what way \u2018fundamental\u2019 is not known, but they may<\/em> have held that all other dimensions were constructed<\/em> from points.<\/span><\/li>\n
    2. If it is supposed that a line, say, is constructed from dimensionless points (just as we are taught in our own primary schooling,) then we have a problem in understanding how any accumulation of things of zero length can give rise to something with a length of a thousand li<\/em>. If it turns out that such a construction is impossible, then the possibility of spatial dimensions is rendered once more a mystery.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The next seven theses seem to be concerned with matters of relativism, conventionalism, etc., and the impossibility of using the evidence of what can be said about the world as a guide to what is true of the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Terms like \u2018high\u2019 and \u2018low\u2019 are strictly relative. We are used to this when we say that \u2018Heaven is higher than Earth\u2019 but when we say \u2018Heaven is high\u2019 we need to say high in relation to what. It\u2019s like saying that \u2018Dumbo is a small elephant\u2019 or \u2018Jerry is a big mouse\u2019 they make sense if we understand that \u2018small\u2019 is in reference to other elephants or \u2018big\u2019 is in reference to other mice, but without those references the terms are meaningless. With respect to what is Heaven high or Earth low? With respect to where the observer is standing? But where is the observer? Different observers are going to be justified in making different judgements. If I am in Heaven then it is at my level and if I am on Earth then it<\/em> is at my level. It is possible for different people to say that Heaven or Earth is at their level and in fact all statements about the heights and lows of Heaven and Earth can be true.<\/span>
        \n The point of this might be to say that none of our judgements of such qualities have justifications in the way things really are.<\/span><\/li>\n
      2. From the moment one is born one is moving towards ones death. To be moving towards ones death is to be dying. Therefore from the moment one is born one is dying. The same applies to the sun: from the moment it reaches its highest point it is moving towards the Western horizon. It is setting. In fact, this would be just as true, and more like its pair in the thesis, if we spoke of the sun setting from the moment it rose.<\/span>
        \n The point of this observation seems to be that our temporal distinctions amongst events are conventional and have no justification in the ways things really are.<\/span><\/li>\n
      3. \u2018The ten thousand things\u2019 just means everything. It\u2019s easy to see that anything is similar in some<\/em> respect to any other thing \u2013 at the very least they are similar in both being things. But it\u2019s also clear that anything is different from any other thing \u2013 otherwise they would be the same<\/em> thing. So everything is similar and everything is different. The similarities and differences that account for multiple things existing in the world are the Great similarities and differences.<\/span>
        \n On the other hand, we group together things that have a lot of similarities (like \u2018dogs\u2019 for example) to form a class of things, and we distinguish them from other classes of things (like tables, for example) by the differences that we see. These similarities and differences are less than the Great similarities and differences: we call them the Small similarities and differences. <\/span>
        \n The point of this may be to minimize the significance of the classifications that we make amongst the 10,000 things by suggesting that they are merely conventional and not reflective of reality.<\/span><\/li>\n
      4. That \u2018the South has no limit\u2019 was apparently a saying of the time[3]<\/a> and simply meant that as far as was known there was no end to the South, no natural ocean or desert or mountain frontier. But even if that were the case the South could not be limitless because it would then be infinite in extent and would have to include all the regions of the world. (If it didn\u2019t contain all the regions of the world then there would be limits between the South and them.) On the other hand, the fact that we want to distinguish the South from other regions does not indicate how those limits should be set. Perhaps once again the point is being made that our divisions of the world are arbitrary and not grounded in reality.<\/span><\/li>\n
      5. Indexical terms \u2013 like the terms \u2018this\u2019 and \u2018that,\u2019 or like the relative terms mentioned above \u2013are notoriously difficult to handle in semantic analysis. In this case it was true to say, when I left home, that \u2018Today I set off for Yueh;\u2019 but it is equally true to say now, having arrived and reflecting upon the journey, that \u2018Yesterday I came there.\u2019 The problem is that I can\u2019t arrive before I leave and yet the two true sentences indicate that I did. <\/span>
        \n The point of such a paradox may have been to demonstrate that these sorts of indexical terms, which allow contradictory statements to be true, cannot properly describe the world, and therefore statements using \u2018this,\u2019 \u2018that,\u2019 \u2018now,\u2019 \u2018then,\u2019 \u2018here,\u2019 \u2018there\u2019 etc. to make distinctions amongst things in the world cannot be true (or trusted.)<\/span><\/li>\n
      6. The matter of the linked rings has been the hardest to make sense of, but if we wished to continue the general theme of relativism and conventionalism in language we could say that the claim is that from one point of view two interlocked rings are a single thing in as much as it is true that where one part goes the other part must go too; but from another point of view the interlocked rings are, as we say, rings<\/em> (plural,) two separate things. Thus plurality or unity is a matter of perspective and not a matter of how the world really is.<\/span><\/li>\n
      7. For each person the centre of their world is just where they are, thus some who are north of the Northern state of Yen will find the centre there, and some south of the Southern state of Yueh will find it there. This is just another version of the problem of indexicals that we say in the 7th<\/sup> thesis and with the same significance.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        The last of the theses gives us a practical consequence that must follow from accepting the preceding seven theses.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. If we are not justified in supposing that language accurately represents the way that the world really is, and if we are not justified in supposing that the divisions of the world that language describes are the real divisions of the world, and if we are perhaps not justified in believing then that there are<\/em> any divisions that we can know of, then<\/em> our attitude to the ten thousand things must be completely impartial. How could we justify preferring some things to others? That would be to suppose a real division.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          One might have thought that this demonstration of the significance of their investigations for ethical practice might have gained the Dialecticians some credit in the eyes of the other schools, but unhappily it was not so.<\/span><\/p>\n

          [1]<\/a> Zz 33 (Watson, B. (1968) The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu<\/em>. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 374)<\/span><\/p>\n

          [2]<\/a> The reason these conditions are given at some length is that they apply to a great deal of what historians of philosophy study. It\u2019s worth reminding oneself of this from time to time.<\/span><\/p>\n

          [3]<\/a> Fung Yu-Lan (1964) A Short History of Chinese Philosophy<\/em>, NY: Macmillan, p. 86<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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