Hui Shih
Hui Shih (Also Hui Shi in Pinyin) (4th century B.C.) Documents of the teachings of Hui Shih are only preserved in the Zhuangzi Chuang Chou. He is arguably the greatest influence on Zhuangzi's philosophy and the inspiration for the relativism found there. Their debates probably helped Zhuangzi hone his philosophical position. The sayings attributed to Hui Shi are recorded in the internal history of thought found in the "In the Social World" chapter of the Zhuangzi where it is alleged that his collected writings "fill five carts." He served as a minor official--something Zhuangzi himself shunned and the meeting between them furnishes one of the many moments of humor in the text. We may suppose Hui Shih was some years older than Zhuangzi Chuang Chou, and died before the latter since there is a famous story of Zhuangzi's mourning his absence as the "material on which he [Zhuangzi] did his best work. The account surrounding the aphorism is unrealistically hostile and he is removed from the sequence of influences on Zhuangzi--perhaps replaced by the mythical Laozi whose invented dialogues with Confucius form a major theme of the later "Outer Chapters" of the text. Among the aphorisms noted by Chuang Chou credited to Hui Shih are; "A great similarity compared with a small similarity is very different. This state of affairs should be described as a small similarity-in-dissimilarity. The myriad thing in Nature are both completely similar and completely dissimilar. This state of affairs should be described as a great similarity-in-dissimilarity"
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