Hui Shi (370–310 BCE ), or Huizi ("Master Hui"), was a Chinese philosopher during the Warring States period. A representative of the School of Names (Logicians), he is famous for ten paradoxes about the relativity of time and space, for instance, "I set off for Yue (southeastern China) today and came there yesterday." Said to have written a code of laws, Hui was a prime minister in the state of Wei.

Philosophy

The Yiwenzhi attributes a philosophical work to Hui Shi, but it is no longer extant, probably being lost prior to the Tang dynasty. For this reason, knowledge of his philosophy relies on the several Chinese classic texts that refer to him, including the Zhan Guo Ce, Lüshi Chunqiu, Han Feizi, Xunzi, and most frequently, the Zhuangzi. Nine Zhuangzi chapters mention Hui Shi, calling him "Huizi" 26 times and "Hui Shi" 9 times. "Under Heaven" (chapter 33), which summarizes Warring States philosophies, contains all of the latter 9 references by name. Belonging to the School of Names, Hui Shi's philosophy is characterised by arguments centred around the relativity of the concepts of sameness (同 tong) and difference (異 yi). He frequently used analogies and paradoxes to convey his arguments.

The Ten Theses

The final chapter of the Zhuangzi, Tian Xia (天下 'Under Heaven') claims that Hui Shi held ten main opinions, referred to as "The Ten Theses" or "The Ten Paradoxes", and lists them as follows: The list in the Tian Xia does not, however, explain how Hui Shi argued these theses. Though the theses seem haphazard, and the list lacking in logical structure, Chris Fraser argues that they can be divided into four natural groups:

Miscellaneous Paradoxes

Another passage from the Tian Xia attributes 21 more paradoxes to Hui Shi and other members of the School of Names, which they are said to have used in their debates. Compared to the Ten Theses listed above, they appear even more absurd and unsolvable: The last statement in particular, "if from a stick a foot long you every day take the half of it, in a myriad ages it will not be exhausted" is notable for its resemblance to the Dichotomy paradox described by Zeno of Elea. Zeno's paradox takes the example of a runner on a finite race track, arguing that, because runner must reach the halfway point before they can reach the finish line, and the length of the track can be divided into halves infinitely many times, it should be impossible for them to reach the finish line in a finite amount of time. The Mohist canon appears to propose a solution to this paradox by arguing that in moving across a measured length, the distance is not covered in successive fractions of the length, but in one stage. Due to the lack of surviving works, most of the other paradoxes listed are difficult to interpret.

Fondness for Analogies

A dialogue in the Shuo Yuan portrays Hui Shi as having a tendency to overuse analogies (譬 pi, which can also be translated as "illustrative examples") with Hui Shi justifying this habit with the claim that communication is impossible without analogies: "A client said to the King of Liang, “In talking about things, Hui Shi is fond of using analogies. If you don’t let him use analogies, he won’t be able to speak.” The King said, “Agreed.” The next day he saw Hui Shi and said, “I wish that when you speak about things, you speak directly, without using analogies.” Hui Shi said, “Suppose there’s a man here who doesn’t know what a dan is. If he says, ‘What are the features of a dan like?’ and we answer, saying, ‘The features of a dan are like a dan,’ then would that communicate it?” The King said, “It would not.” “Then if we instead answered, ‘The features of a dan are like a bow, but with a bamboo string,’ then would he know?” The King said, “It can be known.” Hui Shi said, “Explanations are inherently a matter of using what a person knows to communicate what he doesn’t know, thereby causing him to know it. Now if you say, ‘No analogies,’ that’s inadmissible.” The King said, “Good!”" A. C. Graham argues that this philosophical position suggests some affinity between Hui Shi and the Mohists, in their shared opinion that "the function of names is to communicate that an object is like the objects one knows by the name"

Relation to Zhuangzi

Most of the other Zhuangzi passages portray Hui Shi (Huizi) as a friendly rival of Zhuangzi. Hui Shi acts as an intellectual foil who argues the alternative viewpoint, or criticizes the Daoist perspective, often with moments of humor. The best known of the Zhuang-Hui dialogues concerns the subjectivity of happiness. According to these ancient Daoist stories, Zhuangzi and Hui Shi remained friendly rivals until death. Chad Hansen (2003:146) interprets this lament as "the loss of a philosophical partnership, of two like-minded but disagreeing intellectual companions engaged in the joys of productive philosophical argument."