Yin Wen s thoughts

Yin Wen (c. 360 BC – 280 BC), honored as "Yin Wenzi". Qi people. A famous philosopher of China's Warring States Period.

It is as famous as Song Yu and belongs to the Taoist school of Jixia. Their ideological characteristics are mainly Taoism, and Confucianism and Momo are combined with their own Taoism, and they widely accept and accept the doctrines of various schools, which is exactly the style of Huang Lao's learning. It was the forerunner of the Song Yin school in the Warring States period.

Yin Wen lived in Jixia during the reign of King Xuan of Qi and was a representative of the Jixia school. At the same time as Song Yu, Peng Meng, and Tian Piao, he was a famous scholar at that time, and his classmate Yu Gongsun Long. Gongsun Long was a well-known master at that time, able to speak well, and "white horses are not horses" as a representative argument, known for sophistry.

Yin Wen's doctrine was very praised by Gongsun Long at that time.

The only one that has been circulated in the world is the book "Yin Wenzi". "Yin Wenzi", the old list of famous artists, this book is only one volume of "Hanshu Art and Literature", which is published at the beginning and end of the Wei and Huang dynasties, and Shanyang Zhongchang's division is divided into two articles of "The Great Road", with quotations and stories mixed, and each paragraph has its own beginning and end. "Hanshu Art and Literature Chronicles" recorded an article "Yin Wenzi", which is listed among famous artists.

His book has a lot of mistakes in the late Han Dynasty, and when Emperor Wen of Wei of the Three Kingdoms, Shanyang Zhongchang tried to write the first and second parts. Wang Qixiang, a close friend of Changsha, revised and interpreted it again, and made it into "Yin Wenzi's School Interpretation", which was divided into two volumes and attached Yiwen.

The first part discusses the theory of form names, and the second part discusses the way of governing the country, which can be regarded as the practical application of the theory of form names. Its ideological characteristics are dominated by famous scholars, and it integrates Taoism and does not exclude Confucianism. From the Tao to the name, from the name to the law, the upper inheritance of Laozi, the lower Qi Xunzi, Han Fei.

Yin Wenzi's idea of form and name theory has been valued by those who study the history of Chinese logical thought, and his thinking on the relationship between the referentiality and connotation of language is quite interesting. The article is good at using fables to reason, although it is not as famous as "White Horse and Not Horse", but it is very interesting, in which it tells about a man who named his son "thief" and "beaten", and as a result, he was beaten. Putting aside the "way", "name" and "shape" that make people look like seeing flowers in the fog, it is also a gain to look at the naughtiness of the ancients.

Yin Wenzi advocates that rulers should be in silence and should conduct comprehensive verification of things. Its doctrine is similar to that of Huang Lao's criminal name. Although the book "Yin Wenzi" is short, it records a lot of goodness, and the text is simple, profound, and intriguing.

In the early 20th century, some scholars believed that the present Yin Wenzi was a pseudo-author, but in the 1970s and 80s, some scholars believed that the material in the book was mostly credible when studying Yin Wenzi's thought. After the 90s, the theory of fake books was more comprehensively refuted.