尹文子

Yǐnwénzǐ 尹文子

The Master Yǐn Wén

by 尹文 (Yǐn Wén, fl. 4th c. BCE; Jìxià 稷下 academician of Qí 齊); collated and divided into upper and lower piān by 仲長統 (Zhòngcháng Tǒng, 180–220, late Hàn / Wèi)

About the work

A short philosophical treatise in one juan and two piān (Dàdào shàng 大道上 and Dàdào xià 大道下), attributed to the Jìxià 稷下 academician Yǐn Wén 尹文 of Qí 齊, a contemporary of Sòng Xíng 宋鈃, Péng Méng 彭蒙, and Tián Pián 田駢, and traditionally affiliated with the Míngjiā 名家 (“School of Names”). The received text comes with a preface by a “Mr. Zhòngcháng of Shānyáng 山陽仲長氏” — generally identified as Zhòngcháng Tǒng 仲長統 (180–220) — dated to the end of the Huángchū 黃初 era (roughly 226), which states that he received the work from Móu Xībó 繆熙伯 (i.e. Móu Xí 繆襲, 186–245), found it corrupt, and re-arranged it into upper and lower piān. Catalogued under Záxué zhī shǔ 雜學之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Yǐnwénzǐ in one juan, composed by Yǐn Wén of the Zhōu, has at the front a preface by a Mr. Zhòngcháng of Shānyáng 山陽 dated the end of the Huángchū era of [Wèi], stating that he arranged and edited it into upper and lower piān. The Wénxiàn tōngkǎo 文獻通考 records it in two juan; the present text is also titled Dàdào shàng piān 大道上篇 and Dàdào xià piān 大道下篇 — agreeing with the preface — yet runs through as one juan. This must be a later combination.

The Zhuāngzǐ · Tiānxià chapter pairs Yǐn Wén with Tián Pián 田駢. Yán Shīgǔ 顏師古, in his commentary on the Hàn shū, calls him a man of King Xuān of Qí’s reign 齊宣王 [r. 319–301 BCE]. Examining Liú Xiàng’s Shuōyuàn 說苑, which records the exchange of Yǐn Wén with King Xuān: Yán’s claim must rest on this. But the Lǚshì chūnqiū 呂氏春秋 also records his exchange with King Mǐn 湣王 [r. 300–284 BCE]. Perhaps he was an old fixture of the Jìxià at the court of King Xuān who survived into the reign of King Mǐn.

His book originally derives from the Míngjiā 名家 (“School of Names”). Its general drift is to chart the way of governance, intending self-cultivation in emptiness and quietude, while at the same time taking the myriad affairs and creatures and one by one synthetically scrutinizing their reality. Hence his language oscillates between HuángLǎo 黃老 and ShēnHán 申韓 [Shēn Bùhài 申不害 and Hán Fēi 韓非]. Zhōu’s Shèbǐ 涉筆 [Zhōu Mì 周密] says that he proceeds “from the Way to names, and from names to law” — and that gets at the truth.

Cháo Gōngwǔ’s 晁公武 Dúshū zhì 讀書志 takes him to be reciting the methods of Zhòngní 仲尼 [Confucius], and his statement to that effect is indeed excessive and rightly mocked by Gāo Sìsūn’s 高似孫 Wěilüè 緯略. But Sìsūn’s measuring him by Confucian principle and calling him “incoherent” is also imprecise. The Hundred Schools contended in voice, the Nine Streams stood ranked side by side: each honoured what he heard and went where he knew. From Lǎozǐ and Zhuāngzǐ down, each is the speech of a single school. Reading his prose, one takes from it its breadth and force of disputation — that is sufficient. How can one bind it to a single template?

The “Xī Bó” 熙伯 named in the preface must be the zì of Móu Xí 繆襲. The “Mr. Zhòngcháng of Shānyáng” — it is not known who. Lǐ Xiànchén 李獻臣 takes it to be Zhòngcháng Tǒng 仲長統, but Tǒng died at the end of the Jiàn’ān 建安 era [220], which does not agree with “end of Huángchū” [226]. Cháo Gōngwǔ on this account doubts the histories to be in error — but this comes too close to forced harmonization.

Respectfully revised and submitted, first month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀 (note: 均 in the original is a typographical slip for 昀), Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Yǐn Wén 尹文 (fl. late 4th c. BCE) was a Jìxià 稷下 academician at the court of Qí 齊, contemporary with Tián Pián 田駢, Péng Méng 彭蒙, and Sòng Xíng 宋鈃. The Hàn shū · Yìwén zhì (Míngjiā 名家 division) lists Yǐnwénzǐ in one piān with the note that he served Kings Xuān 宣 and Mǐn 湣 (rr. 319–284 BCE). Modern scholarship places his floruit roughly 350–284 BCE, and he is identified — on the basis of the Zhuāngzǐ · Tiānxià characterization — as a syncretic thinker mediating between Míngjiā dialectics, HuángLǎo 黃老 quietism, and proto-Legalist xíngmíng 刑名 (form-and-name) doctrine.

The text catalogued here is, however, not the Hàn zhì one-piān original. It comes prefaced by a notice ascribed to “Mr. Zhòngcháng of Shānyáng 山陽” (山陽仲長氏 — the Sìkù editors and modern scholars accept the long-standing identification with Zhòngcháng Tǒng 仲長統, 180–220) dated to the end of the Wèi Huángchū 黃初 era (i.e. c. 226), which states that he received the manuscript in a corrupt state from Móu Xí 繆襲 (zì Xībó 熙伯, 186–245) and re-arranged it into the surviving two piān (Dàdào shàng / xià). The chronological problem — Zhòngcháng Tǒng’s death in 220 cannot be reconciled with a date of “end of Huángchū” — was already noted by the Sìkù editors. Modern scholarship (Yú Jiāxī 余嘉錫, Luó Gēnzé 羅根澤) variously regards the preface as a WèiJìn forgery and the text itself as a HànWèi recompilation conserving genuine pre-Qín material — Sòng Xíng / Yǐn Wén school doctrines preserved more directly here than anywhere else in the transmitted corpus.

The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore −300, notAfter 220) reflects the received recension: the earliest stratum is genuinely Warring-States (corresponding to the school doctrine attributed to Yǐn Wén and Sòng Xíng), but the present arrangement and a portion of the text are not later than the early third century CE, when Móu Xí and Zhòngcháng Tǒng (or someone using their names) supplied the surviving framework.

The work is included in the Hàn shū · Yìwén zhì (under Míngjiā, 1 piān), the Suí shū · Jīngjí zhì, the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo (in 2 juan), Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì, the Sìkù, and the Dàozàng (KR5f0007).

Translations and research

• Lukáš Zádrapa, “Yin Wenzi: A Late Pre-Han Treatise on Names,” in his work on early Chinese theory of language (Charles University, Prague). Treatment of the text’s míngshí 名實 (name-and-actuality) doctrine.
• Joseph Needham and Wáng Líng, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 184–186, on the Yǐnwénzǐ and Logician proto-science.
• A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Open Court, 1989), with discussion of the Sòng Xíng / Yǐn Wén school as known from the Tiānxià chapter.
• Hú Jiācōng 胡家聰, Jì-xià zhēngmíng yǔ Huáng-Lǎo xīnxué 稷下爭鳴與黃老新學 (Zhōngguó Shèhuì Kēxué, 1998). Standard modern Chinese monograph on the Jì-xià schools, with sections on Yǐn Wén.
• Wáng Qǐxiáng 王啟湘, Zhōu Qín míngjiā sānzǐ jiàoquán 周秦名家三子校詮 (Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1957; repr. 2008). Critical edition with collation of the Yǐnwénzǐ alongside the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ and Dèngxīzǐ.
• Páng Pú 龐樸, Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ yánjiū 公孫龍子研究 (Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1979) and related articles, with comparative material.

A complete English translation does not exist; partial renderings appear in Joseph Needham (op. cit.) and in Graham (op. cit.).

Other points of interest

The text is the principal surviving document — together with the Tiānxià chapter of the Zhuāngzǐ — for the lost Sòng Xíng / Yǐn Wén school, which Mèngzǐ briefly engaged (Mèngzǐ 6B/4) and which the Tiānxià author treats as an early effort to harmonize jiānài 兼愛 (Mohist universal love), qǐnggù wùxiū 情固勿羞 (the dictum that to suffer insult is no shame), qǐng yù gùguǎ 情欲固寡 (essential desires are originally few), and a doctrine of mental clarity (báixīn 白心) — the historical antecedents of much later HuángLǎo and proto-Legalist xíngmíng speculation.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Yǐnwénzǐ entry.
• Wikipedia: Yin Wenzi; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “School of Names” (Chris Fraser).
• Wikidata: Q11128131 (Yin Wenzi).
• Parallel recension: KR5f0007 (Dàozàng).