Wang Bi

Wang Bi

Wang Bi (226-249 years), the word Fu Si, Shanyang Gaoping (now Weishan County, Shandong Province) people. Ancient Chinese Confucian classics, philosophers, Wei Jin metaphysics representative and one of the founders.

He is wise, fond of Laozi, and eloquent. " He was once a shangshulang, whose literary name is world-famous. His works mainly include four parts: Laozi's annotation and Laozi's introduction to Laozi, and Zhouyi's annotation and Zhouyi's introduction to Zhouyi. Among them, Laozi Zhilue and Zhouyi Lue Yi are the articles of Wang Bi's overall analysis of Laozi and Zhouyi. He united with He Yan and Xia Hou Xuan to advocate metaphysics and pure talk. He was upright and arrogant. He "laughed at people for his strong points, so he was ill at that time." he made friends with Zhong Hui and he Yan.

In 249, he died at the age of 23, leaving a wife and a daughter.

Life of the characters

Wang Bi was born in a bureaucratic family. His great grandfather was Liu Biao, one of the "eight Juns" at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. According to the records of Bo Wu Ji, Bo Wu Zhi Ren Ming Kao and Wang Bi BIE Zhuan quoted from Zhong Hui Zhuan, Wei Shu, the annals of the Three Kingdoms, Wang Kai, the grandfather of Bi, and his brother Wang can avoided the chaos in Jingzhou at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and attached themselves to Liu Biao, who attached great importance to his talent. He wanted to marry his daughter to Wang Kai, but he didn't think her appearance was ugly. Kay has style. Kaisheng gives birth to ziye and Yesheng gives birth to bi. BI was the great grandson of Liu Biaozhi.

In the 22nd year of Jian'an (217), Wang can conquered Sun Quan from Cao Cao and died on his way. Wang can's second son was sentenced to death. After Wang can died, he took Wang Ye as his successor. Wang can became Wang Bi's successor. Wang can is a famous litterateur, one of the "seven sons of Jian'an". His talent and learning are outstanding and his youth is famous. From the age of 14 to Chang'an, Cai Yong, a famous writer and university scholar, gave Wang can ten thousand volumes of books and articles in his family collection. The books loaded with several trucks were later owned by Wang Ye. This provides a very favorable condition for Wang Bi's growth.

Wang Bi's family tradition also had a great influence on his growth. Wang Gong, the sixth ancestor of Wang Bi, is famous all over the world. Wang Chang, the fifth ancestor of Wang Bi, is one of the "eight Juns" in the late Han Dynasty. His father, Wang Ye, and his successor Wang can have a great influence on the growth of Wang Bi

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He was very smart when he was young. When he was in his teens, he was a good Lao Tzu, and he had outstanding eloquence. He was as famous as Zhong Hui. When he was not weak, he was known by the officials and literati at that time. When he met with Lang peihui of the Ministry of official affairs, peihui felt strange when he saw him. He asked, "if a man has nothing, he is sincere in all things. However, the sage is not willing to speak, but Lao Tzu says that he has nothing to do with himself." Wang Bi replied, "if a saint has nothing, he can't be taught. Lao Tzu is a man of his own, so there is no shortage in his constant speech. ". Later, it was also known to Fu Peng. At that time, he Yan was the Minister of the Ministry of officials, and he was also surprised by Wang Bi's talent. Liu Tao, a native of Huainan, was good at discussing and was recommended by scholars. Every time he talked with Wang Bi, he was often impressed by Wang Bi.

He Yan thought that there was no happiness, anger, sorrow and joy in saints. His theory was very ingenious, and Zhong Hui and others agreed. Wang Bi thinks that the sages have more gods than human beings, and the five emotions are the same as human beings. "Because the gods are so strong, they can express themselves in harmony and communicate with each other; because the five emotions are the same, they can't respond to things without sorrow and happiness. However, the feeling of sages should be in accordance with things, but not in terms of things. Now that there is no tiredness in it, it is said that there is no longer something to deal with, and there is a lot to lose. ".

After he annotated Zhouyi, xunrong, a native of Yingchuan, questioned Wang Bi about the meaning of "Dayan" in his book of songs. Wang Bi replied and wrote a letter satirizing Xun Rong: "Fu Ming is enough to find the most subtle, but not the nature. The amount of Yan Zi is what Confucius expected. However, he can't be happy when he meets him, and he can't be sad when he loses him. He often talked with people who thought that they could not follow the principle of love, but now they know that nature cannot be changed. Although the amount of the foot has been determined in the mind, but more than ten days later, how much Acacia. Therefore, we know that there is no big mistake for Niefu to Yanzi.

During the Zhengshi period, no one served as the Chamberlain of Huangmen. He Yan had already appointed Jia Chong, Pei Xiu and Zhu Zheng, and discussed the appointment of Wang Bi. At that time, Ding Mi competed with He Yan and recommended Wang Li of Gaoyi to Cao Shuang. So Cao Shuang took Wang Li as his successor and Wang Bi as his successor. After taking office, he met with Cao Shuang. Cao Shuang held back, but Wang Bi only talked with him, so he was despised by Cao Shuang. At that time, Cao Shuang was in dictatorship and appointed cronies. Wang Bi is well-known and does not have a good reputation. After Wang Li died, Cao Shuang replaced Wang Li with Wang Shen, so Wang Bi could not stay under his door, and he Yan sighed. Because they are very young and not good at official business, they are even less noticed.

In 249, Cao Shuang was killed and Wang Bi was implicated in the case and lost his post.

In the autumn of the same year, he died of Pandora. He was only 23 years old.

Main achievements

Notes on Zhouyi

Wang Bi's life was short, but his academic achievements were outstanding. His works include Laozi's annotation, Laozi's guide, Zhouyi's annotation, Zhouyi's brief examples, Analects of Confucius' explanation, three volumes of Zhouyi's Dayan Lun, one volume of Zhouyi's qiongwei Lun, one volume of Yibian, etc. However, its achievement lies not in the quantity of works, but in its quality, in its originality. In his annotation of Zhouyi, he changed the traditional method of Han people's separation and triviality, instead of using image numbers, he used Laozi to interpret Zhouyi with Laozi's thoughts, and expounded his own philosophical views, thus opening up a new academic trend - "Zhengshi Xuanfeng". Wang Bi's Yi ology has a huge system and profound content. Wang Bi established a complete and abstract metaphysical philosophy based on Laozi and Zhuangzi. His critical research on the metaphysical study of the Yi ology swept away the pedantic study style of the Yi ology in the pre Qin and Han Dynasties. The new viewpoints and opinions put forward in his ontology and epistemology had a far-reaching impact on the development of Chinese ideological history in the future. Mr. Wang Xiaoyi's evaluation is: Wang Bi has played the strongest voice of the times in philosophy. "Although he flashed by like a meteor and lived for only 23 years, he illuminated the whole era with his incredible talent and wisdom, and pointed out the theoretical course of metaphysics in Wei and Jin Dynasties.".

In the aspect of Yi ology, Wang Bi's annotation of Yi has an important position and influence. Wang Bi annotated the book of changes from the perspective of speculative philosophy. He annotated the upper and lower chapters of the classic, including six volumes, and annotated classical Chinese, biography of Yu and biography of Xiang. As for Xici, Shuogua, xugua and Zagua, they didn't bet, but later Han KangBo continued to do so.

Wang Bi's contribution to the annotation of Yi lies in abandoning Fei's theory of classics and turning the theory of image number into speculative philosophy. This is a leap in the history of Yi studies. For example, they regard the eight trigrams as the images of heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain and Ze, use "horse" to represent the meaning of "Jian" in Qian trigram, and use "cow" to represent the meaning of "Shun" in Kun trigram.

Wang Bi pointed out in the book of changes - Ming Xiang: "righteousness lies in health, why horse?"? If you're not good enough, why should you be good enough? Why should Kun be an ox? Why do you want to be a horse? " It also criticizes the mechanical explanation of object number. He stressed: "the image of the husband, the meaning is also; the speaker, the image of the name is also.". As far as the meaning is concerned, as far as the words are concerned. " That is to say, to express one's mind through image, to express one's mind through speech, to seek metaphysics. In this way, the rational interpretation of Yi from the perspective of words and meaning is a big step forward than the mechanical analogy.

Secondly, from the standpoint of Confucianism, Wang Bi made the study of Yi metaphysical. The fundamental thought of the metaphysicians is "based on nothing". Wang Bi said: "the Tao is not called, it is not impassable, it is not inevitable. Kuang is called Tao. No body, no image. " (Interpretation of the Analects of Confucius)

Wang Bi interprets Yi with ontology. For example, Yuci says, "great is Qianyuan. The beginning of all things is the unification of heaven." Wang Bi noted: "heaven is the name of form; health is the use of form. The husband's form is also the burden of things. It's the first thing to have the shape of heaven, and to be able to keep it intact forever. Isn't it healthy to unify it? " He believes that the meaning of "Qian" is "Jian", and the tangible "Tian" is nothing more than the appearance of "Jian". All things start from heaven, and in the final analysis, the "unification" is based on the "utmost health". Health is intangible and metaphysical.

In a word, Wang Bi replaced the tedious notes of predecessors with concise argumentation, abandoned the study of image number and the superstition of prophecy with abstract thinking and theoretical analysis, and created a new trend in the study of Confucian classics. The scholar of "Siku Guan" in Qing Dynasty commented: "the book of changes is a Book of divination, so the last school's immersion is a mere divination. Wang Bi took advantage of his extreme weakness to attack it, so he was able to fight against Han Confucianism and set up a new school of his own. " (summary of the general catalogue of Sikuquanshu, Zhengyi of Zhouyi)

Philosophical thought

The concept of "Wu" exists in the form of attribute concept in Wang Bi's analytical system, that is, "Wu" is the speech of the attributes of "Dao" and "Yi"; second, Wang Bi established the methodological principle of grasping "Dao" and "Yi" in the distinction between "Ming" and "Cheng" and "predicate". So far, through our analysis, we can further reflect on such a problem worthy of discussion in the academic circles from the ontological thought established by Wang Bi: theoretically speaking, the first level concept of Wang Bi's ontological analysis is the "reason" of "things are not presumptuous, they must be based on their reason", and the "Zong" and "Yuan" of "unity has Zong and Hui has yuan". That is to say, Wang Bi thinks that "Dao" and "Yi" are the order and order of all things, and "Dao" is "Li"; as the basis and source of all things, they are "Zong" and "Yuan". Therefore, Wang Bi's ontological thought is an ontological thought which contains the form of Li based theory and Qi based theory. In Wang Bi's view, "Tao" can not be named, but can only be called. The establishment of ontology in the process of cognition is exactly the connotation of mind based theory. Therefore, Wang Bi's ontology is right

Chinese PinYin : Wang Bi