1, "Tao" is the essence of "Qi" and "Qi", and subtlety is the essence. Laozi has long had the idea of "Tao" or "Qi". He once put forward the view that "Tao is a thing, but it is only vague" ... it has essence, its essence is true, and there is faith in it "(Chapter 2 1). Tao is subtle, true and effective, and contains the bud of essence theory. Song Shuo and Yin Wen often put "Tao" and "Qi" together and said, "The essence is also essence."
2. Essence is the origin of all things in the universe. Song Shuohe inherited Laozi's view that Tao is the greatest and smallest unity, and thought that essence "comes and goes, its detail has nothing inside, and its greatness has nothing outside" (Internal Strength) is the origin of all things in the universe. Everything, too small to be indivisible and too big to have no edge, contains essence. The essence of "giving birth to grains below and stars above" (Internal Skill) constitutes all things in the universe.
3. Essence constitutes the human body, and the human body produces life and wisdom. Essence is the substance that constitutes the human body, but it mainly gives human life and wisdom. Yin Wen's thought is the pioneer of Taoist school in the Warring States Period. His theory integrates Confucianism, Mohism and Taoism, and widely absorbs the strengths of various schools. This is the style of study of Huang Lao under the leadership of Xia Ji. Because its ideological source and content are closely related to Song Shuo, later generations called it "Song Yin School" together with Song Shuo. The Song and Yin schools advocated tolerance and forgiveness as the general principles for dealing with interpersonal relations, and they insisted on "standing without dispute, forging without enmity" and "striving to save the people without humiliation". They advocate that "it is forbidden to attack troops to save the world" between countries, that is, it is forbidden to attack and cut, that is, to stop military affairs, that is, to oppose the annexation war between governors. According to Mencius, Qin Chu organized an army, that is, Song Shuo once wanted to "discuss it" in Qin Chu. Their purpose of "saving the people" and "saving the world" is to "wish world peace and live people's lives". In order to achieve the goal of benefiting the world, in terms of internal cultivation, they advocate "taking the shallowness of lust as the inner meaning", and think that human nature is to want less rather than more, "people and I should raise enough" and "five liters of rice is enough". Therefore, Xunzi criticized them for "seeing less, not necessarily more." Some people say that "Song Zi is obsessed with desire and doesn't know what to get", that is, he only knows that few people want it and doesn't know how to satisfy people's reasonable desires.
Song Yinpai put forward that "taking everything as the starting point is farewell", and believed that only by getting rid of the prejudice of treating humiliation as humiliation and feeling desire as desire can we know the truth of things. They tried to define the boundaries between honor and disgrace, fame, good and evil subjectively, and demanded that "honor and disgrace should be divided according to the internal and external points". Honor and disgrace are external things and should not interfere with inner peace. Even if you are in prison, you are not ashamed. Zhuangzi thinks that they are "known all over the world without remonstration, and there is no depression in the world". Praise from all over the world, they are not encouraged by it; The whole world has been criticized, and it is not even more frustrating. They believe that if everyone can be "insulted", although insulted, but not ashamed, so that they will not fight with each other, they can "save the people" and the world will be peaceful.
The "limited passion" of Song Yinxue School should be influenced by Confucianism and Mohism. However, the "forbidden attack and sleeping soldiers" is obviously the inheritance of Mohism's "non-attack". The thought of Song Yinxue School has many characteristics of Mohism, so that Xunzi juxtaposed Mo Zhai and Song Shuo in Two sons of Fei. Song Shuo and Yin Wen made great contributions to epistemology. Xin Xue, Bai Xin and Internal Strength mainly focus on epistemology. In other words, it is said in Zhuangzi that the capacity of the heart is called the journey of the heart. It plays an important role in the development of the epistemology of the Warring States philosophers.
The important role of Song Shuo and Yin in understanding: everyone wants to know, but he tries to find out why. Know, have also; It is known that this is also the case. (1) That is, people want to get a correct understanding, but they don't investigate how the correct understanding is obtained. Knowledge is the knowledge of the object to be known, and it depends on the heart to obtain this knowledge. The mind mentioned by Song Shuo and Yin Wen is to discuss how the mind correctly understands things. They put forward the idea of knowing things from the heart: the heart is in the body, and the throne is also. Eyes and ears, audio-visual officer. (2) That is to say, the heart is in a commanding position in the human body, and the sensory organs such as ears and eyes are in a subordinate position. Song Shuo and Yin Wen said: If a person has desire, he can't see what he sees, but he can't hear what he hears. In other words, if the mind is disturbed by material desires, the ears and eyes of the sensory organs will lose their functions. They think: if you don't solve this problem, how will you know? (4) Even if you don't cultivate your mind, how can you get a correct understanding?
Therefore, Song Shuo and Yin Wen put forward the method of calming the mind with emptiness. They said: if you fix this, you can't (for example) be empty. 5 The best way to cultivate one's self-cultivation is guilty conscience. They explained that emptiness had nothing to hide. In other words, don't keep what you already know in your heart, but throw it aside, otherwise it will affect your understanding of new things. The so-called quiet is to calm your heart. Song Shuo and Yin Wen think that if the heart is like a gentleman, you should not move things first, so as to abide by their rules. If you move, you will lose your position, and if you are still, you will be complacent. 6. If the mind itself is vacillating, it is impossible to observe things. Only when you are calm can you concentrate on things, so that you can understand things correctly. Knowing things well, Song Shuo and Yin Wen believe that the mind should be like a pictograph of a shadow, and should respond to harmony. ⑦ Reflect things purely and objectively like looking in a mirror.
Based on this understanding, Song Shuo and Yin Wen put forward the theory of nominal materialism.
They believe that things are inherently shaped and shapes are inherently named. The name cannot be exaggerated or extended. (1) In other words, the names of things should be commensurate with reality. They said: the name is autonomous, and the strange name is abolished. (2) Being worthy of the name is the correct name, and this name is naturally adopted by people. An untrue name is called an incorrect name, and this name is naturally eliminated by people. Song Shuo and Yin Wen's theory of nominal materialism was earlier than the Warring States period.
The epistemology of Song Shuo and Yin Wen also put forward the theory of distinction. The so-called embarrassment refers to the narrowness or limitation of knowledge. They advocate that everything begins with parting, that is, understanding things begins with overcoming people's subjective one-sidedness. Song Shuo and Yin Wen's farewell theory is preserved in Lv Chunqiu Quyou. There is an interesting story: a man in the state of Qi wanted gold wares. He got up early in the morning, put on his clothes and went to the seller. He snatched the gold from his master, who caught him red-handed and tied him up. The master asked him, why did you dare to take the gold when someone was around? The man replied, I don't see anyone here, only gold. This story is very helpful for understanding. Song Shuo and Yin Wen believed that this Qi man was so reckless because of his special subjectivity. Therefore, they say: people will stop and then know.
Both Song Shuo and Yin Wen's epistemology admit that human knowledge is the reflection of objective things. It is believed that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary. This is obviously the epistemology of materialism. But they think that people's understanding is only a negative reflection of objective things, completely ignoring people's subjective initiative. Therefore, it has the nature of mechanism.
However, the epistemology of Song Shuo and Yin Wen is an important intermediate link in the history of pre-Qin philosophy, which plays a connecting role. Mozi attached importance to the role of sensory experience in cognition and formed materialistic empiricism, but ignored rational cognition. Song Shuo and Yin Wen overcame the one-sidedness of Mozi's empiricism and emphasized the important role of mind in cognition, but they overemphasized the purely objective reflection of things and ignored the subjectivity of cognition, thus going to the other extreme and denying people's subjective initiative. Mencius emphasized people's subjective initiative, but led the epistemology of Song Shuo and Yin Wen to idealism. Later, Xunzi inherited the materialistic epistemology of Song Shuo and Yin Wen, criticized Mencius' idealism, and at the same time absorbed his emphasis on people's subjective initiative, so Xunzi's epistemology finally reached the height in the history of pre-Qin philosophy. Therefore, Song Shuo and Yin Wen (5) manage (3) the mind. Epistemology is also an important link in the development history of pre-Qin thought, which plays a connecting role. Song Shuo's ideological form and name are rich in content, and he also occupies a place among famous thinkers in pre-Qin period. Xunzi criticized Song Zi for "confusing reality with name" and "confusing name with reality" in the chapter of Correcting Names, and refuted it from the perspective of form and name.
As far as these two propositions are concerned, Song Zigen demonstrated that "insult" is not "insult" according to the relativity between names (concepts), that is, the name of "insult" is not the name of "insult", so he can see "insult" but not "insult"; Based on the relativity between things and names (propositions), that is, the fact that there is a specific "little desire", this paper demonstrates the universality of "little desire" to all people. It is precisely because Song Shuo demonstrated his thoughts with the method of form and name that Xunzi also refuted them from the angle of form and name, which is the same as Xunzi's refutation of the proposition of name related to form and name analysis, such as "Yamahara Ping" and "Killing thieves but not killing people". The thought of form and name and its analysis and demonstration methods have made great progress in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Both Kong Laomo and the early legalists had more or less tangible contents, especially Mohism and Legalism. Judging from Song Shuo's proposition argument, he is undoubtedly deeply influenced by Mohist ideology of form and name. However, in the Yin Wen thought embodied in Yin Wenzi, there are few traces of Mohist thought. From the analysis of the world things that can be found in Yin Wenzi, Yin Wen's thought shows a distinct spirit of legalism.
On the basis of Farewell, Yin Wen expounded the social and political thoughts of Legalists. "Yin Wenzi" said: "If you decide this birthright, everything will not be chaotic. Therefore, an old friend should judge the length according to the degree, collect less according to the quantity, weigh the weight, clarify the statutes, make the list true and false, rule by law, treat troubles with simplicity, prevent dangers with ease, make things easy with difficulty, and make everything one. Baidu obeys the law. Under such a clear system of names and laws, there will be "farmers, businessmen, apprentices and old officials." "Yin Wenzi" further said that "everything in the world must be prepared. Blame one person, be virtuous and talented. If a person can prepare for the affairs of the world, he should be left and right, and there must be someone who has both. If there is neither, you will be cured. " The necessity and rationality of legalist social division of labor thought are profoundly expounded. He also said that "rationality is not conducive to rulers, and gentlemen speak; If there is something that can't be done, a gentleman will do it ... Not out of fame and politics, not out of farmers and crops. Wu Zhou has already done it. Therefore, knowing the Lord is not the reason for extraterritoriality, and the villain must speak his mind. The villain also knows that words are harmful to governance, but he can't help but say it; I know it hurts, but I have to do it. Therefore, the speaker distinguishes between right and wrong of Confucianism and Mohism; All he did was seek fame by fighting for a false and one-sided resistance. So the Ming king killed it. "It is advocated that everyone should be based on the name law, do his duty well, do what he should do well, don't pursue theory and talent excessively, and take whether it is conducive to social governance and practical affairs as the criterion; All theories and talents that are not conducive to social governance and practical affairs should be known without words, but not done, otherwise they will be punished by law. This thought of "only doing things" and not "seeking fame" and its fierce attitude towards Confucianism, Mohism and maverick are no different from Han Fei's legalist extremism. This is also a new interpretation of legalists in the article "The World", that is, "a gentleman does not find fault, does not cheat, and thinks that it is not beneficial to the world, and is clear and not for himself".
Yin Wen also thoroughly reformed Song Shuo's idea of "equality", cleared the absolute equalitarianism abolished by Mohism and gave it new meaning. "Yin Wenzi" wrote, "The wise and the foolish don't abandon each other, but they are inseparable. It is the egalitarianism of legalists to realize inequality and inequality on the basis of determining various differences in birthright. Furthermore, it is the equality thought of Taoist naturalism, that is, "the poor are humble and do not complain, the rich are rich and arrogant, fools are weak and fearless, and the wise and brave are immortal." It is already an unattainable and highest ideal society. However, even in this highest ideal society, there is still a difference between poverty and wealth.
Yin Wen studied under Song Shuo in his early years and accepted Song Shuo's thoughts, which had a great social influence at that time. He has not yet formed his own independent theoretical system, nor does he have much prestige in society. After Song Shuo's death, Yin Wen had doubts about Song Shuo's thoughts. For example, in Yin Wenzi, there is a passage in which Song Shuo and Tian Pian and Meng Peng discuss "the rule of saints" and "the rule of holy law" and criticize Song Shuo for not knowing the rule of law. Therefore, he thoroughly cleaned up and reformed Song Shuo's thought, and changed Song Shuo's basic thought from Mohism to Legalism, thus making the school initiated by Song Shuo develop to a new stage.