Hui Shi facts for kids

Hui Shi (born around 370 BCE, died around 310 BCE), also known as Huizi ("Master Hui"), was a very smart Chinese philosopher who lived a long time ago during a period called the Warring States period. He was part of a group of thinkers known as the School of Names, who loved to play with words and ideas, especially about logic and how we understand the world. Hui Shi is famous for his clever and sometimes puzzling ideas, often called "paradoxes," which made people think differently about things like time and space. For example, he once said, "I set off for Yue (a place in southeastern China) today and came there yesterday."

Hui Shi's Ideas and Writings

Hui Shi's own writings are no longer around today. But we know a lot about him because other important Chinese classic texts mention him. The book that talks about him the most is called the Zhuangzi.

The Zhuangzi mentions Hui Shi many times, sometimes calling him "Huizi." One part of the Zhuangzi (Chapter 33, "Under Heaven") even lists ten of Hui Shi's most famous ideas.

Hui Shi's Ten Puzzles

The "Under Heaven" chapter of the Zhuangzi shares ten of Hui Shi's special ideas, which are often called his "ten paradoxes" or "theses." These ideas were meant to make people think deeply and question what they thought they knew. Here are a few examples:

• About Size: "The biggest thing has nothing bigger than it. The smallest thing has nothing smaller than it." This makes you think about what "biggest" and "smallest" really mean.
• About Distance: "Something that has no thickness can still be a thousand li (a long distance) long." This is a puzzle about how we measure things that seem impossible to measure.
• About Levels: "Heaven is as low as earth; mountains and marshes are on the same level." This challenges our usual ideas about high and low.
• About Time: "The sun at noon is the sun setting. The thing born is the thing dying." This idea suggests that moments are always changing, and one state is always becoming another.
• About Sameness and Difference: "All things are similar and all things are different." This makes us think about how we group things together and how we see them as unique.
• About Travel: "I set off for Yueh today and came there yesterday." This is one of his most famous and mind-bending paradoxes about time and travel.
• About Connection: "Linked rings can be separated." This challenges our ideas about what is truly connected or unbreakable.
• About the World's Center: "I know the center of the world: it is north of Yen and south of Yueh." This is a playful way of saying the center is wherever you are, or that it's hard to define.
• About Unity: "Let love embrace the ten thousand things; Heaven and earth are a single body." This idea encourages us to see everything in the universe as connected.

With these kinds of sayings, Hui Shi wanted people to have a bigger, more open view of the world and to think more carefully about how they used words and logic.

Hui Shi and Zhuangzi: Friendly Rivals

Many stories in the Zhuangzi book show Hui Shi as a good friend and intellectual rival of another famous philosopher named Zhuangzi. They often had debates and discussions, with Hui Shi usually taking a different point of view or questioning Zhuangzi's ideas. These conversations often had a touch of humor.

One famous story is about them walking by the Hao River:

Zhuangzi and Hui Shi were walking along the dam of the Hao River. Zhuangzi said, "Look how the minnows (small fish) swim around freely! That's what fish really enjoy!"

Hui Shi said, "You're not a fish – how do you know what fish enjoy?"

Zhuangzi replied, "You're not me, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"

Hui Shi said, "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know. But you're definitely not a fish – so that still proves you don't know what fish enjoy!"

Zhuangzi said, "Let's go back to your first question. You asked me how I know what fish enjoy. When you asked that, you already knew I knew it! I know it by standing here beside the Hao River."

This story shows how they loved to debate and challenge each other's ideas about knowledge and understanding.

According to these old stories, Zhuangzi and Hui Shi remained friendly rivals throughout their lives. After Hui Shi died, Zhuangzi felt a great loss. He compared their philosophical partnership to a skilled carpenter and a plasterer who worked perfectly together. Zhuangzi said that after Hui Shi was gone, he had no one left to have such deep and challenging conversations with. It was like losing a special partner for thinking and arguing.

Images for kids

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  Hui Shi (left) and Zhuangzi (right) debate the joy of fish