Hui Shi
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Hui Shi (惠施 Also Hui Shih) (4th century B.C.) Documents of the teachings of Hui Shi are only preserved in the Zhuangzi Chuang Chou. He is arguably the greatest influence on Zhuangzi's philosophy and the inspiration for the relativism found there. Their debates probably helped Zhuangzi hone his philosophical position. The sayings attributed to Hui Shi are recorded in the internal history of thought found in the "In the Social World" chapter of the Zhuangzi where it is alleged that his collected writings "fill five carts".
He served as a minor official—something Zhuangzi himself shunned and the meeting between them furnishes one of the many moments of humor in the text. Hui Shi was evidently some years older than Zhuangzi, and died before the latter since there is a famous story of Zhuangzi's mourning his absence as the "material on which he [Zhuangzi] did his best work". The account surrounding the aphorism is unrealistically hostile and he is removed from the sequence of influences on Zhuangzi, perhaps replaced by Lao Tsu whose legendary dialogues with Confucius form a major theme of the later "Outer Chapters" of the text.
[edit] Quotations
Among the aphorisms noted by Chuang Chou credited to Hui Shi is:
A great similarity compared with a small similarity is very different. This state of affairs should be described as a small similarity-in-dissimilarity. The myriad things in Nature are both completely similar and completely dissimilar. This state of affairs should be described as a great similarity-in-dissimilarity. (大同而与小同异,此之谓小同异;万物毕同毕异,此之谓大同异)