He Yan Thinking

He Yan is one of the founders of Wei-Jin metaphysics(魏晋玄学),as well-known as Wang Bi(with the reputation as great as Wang Bi) in the history of Wei-Jin metaphysics.As were discussed by scholars of Chinese philosophy,(Although there appears few works discussing him and his thoughts,) related studies are still not enough,and also lack of systematicness and completeness.This paper attempts to carry out an overall study on He Yan's thoughts by means of collecting related research materials as many as possible in order to grasp and understand the essence of He Yan's thought in a deeper sense,and help him to regain the important role as the forefather of Wei-Jin metaphysics.The study on He Yan's thoughts in this paper is conducted from three angles——learning of names and principles(名理),nothingness(贵无),Confucian ethical code(名教).The developing thread and characteristics of his thoughts are exposed on the basis of the detailed analysis on specific texts.Learning of names and principles appears at the early stage of He Yan's thoughts,which is helpful not only for the complete study of his thoughts,but also for the deep investigation of the unique perspective of his thoughts of nothingness.The thoughts of nothingness is the further development of his learning of names and principles,and is also greatly affected by it,which distinct him from Wang Bi in terms of the metaphysic study,though they share a lot in this field.The thoughts of Confucian ethical code is the main part of He Yan's thoughts,on the basis of which his thoughts of learning of names and principles and nothingness are developed.The three parts are closely interrelated,making up the distinctive thoughts of He Yan,which display his researches and explorations towards his age.This paper tires to make a systemic study on He Yan's thought so as to reevaluate his ideas and Wei-Jin metaphysic,which not only put emphasis on "abstractness", but also show the characteristic of "reality".