Call this the great similarity-difference. The ten-thousand thing-kinds are ultimately alike and ultimately different.
Natural kinds are both living and dying.The sun is both in the middle and descending.Heaven is as low as the earth mountains are level with marshes.Some of Hui Shi’s reported teachings include:
Whether an ant is large or small varies as we compare it with other ants or other animals. Where we draw a comparative contrast is relative to our purpose and point of view. Comparatives also mark distinctions, but it is less plausible that the distinctions are in-the-world. Hui Shi tried to undermine the Mohist’s semantic proposal by drawing attention to comparatives. The realists said real-world similarities and differences ground the “picking out” that divides the world into thing-kinds.
We can view Hui Shi’s linguistic theory best against the background of the Mohists’ linguistic realism. Zhuangzi had a longstanding friendship with the monist dialectician, and he mourned Hui Shi’s death as depriving him of the person “on whom he sharpened his wits.” The only verifiable intellectual influence on Zhuangzi was Hui Shi (370–319 bce), a language theorist. The relation between Laozi and Zhuangzi within Taoism is a growing puzzle. They typically draw on literary skills and religion more than linguistic philosophy. Thinkers of related but distinct theoretical orientations probably wrote the remaining “Outer Chapters.” Some of the latter expand on but others contradict themes in the Inner Chapters. His technical mastery of ancient Chinese linguistic theory in some of these suggests that Zhuangzi studied and thought deeply about semantics. Zhuangzi (c.360 bce) may have written up to seven chapters (The “Inner Chapters”) of The Zhuangzi collection.
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