Wang Bi

Wang Bi ( Chinese  王弼  /  王弼 , Pinyin Wáng Bì ; * 226 ; † 249 ), adult name Fusi (辅 嗣), was a Chinese philosopher . Wang Bi was low official in the State of Wei in the Three Kingdoms period . He was married and had a daughter. Wang Bi died at the age of 23.

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Wang Bi is one of the most important commentators on Laozi's “ Daodejing ” and the I Ching . The text version of the Daodejing belonging to his commentary was considered to be the best preserved until the Mawangdui text was discovered in 1973.

He saw himself as a Confucian . With his interpretation of the Daodejing in the years of the turbulent time of the Three Kingdoms, he wanted to contribute to the restoration of order and create a Daoism that fits the ideas of Confucianism .

His Laozi commentary gives nothing (wu) a central position. For him it is the highest principle (li) and is identical with the Dao . On the one hand it is the source of being , on the other hand it penetrates being and gives every thing its being (ran) . Wang Bi therefore thinks nothing as such and not as the negation of being.

literature

• Lou Yulie: Wang Bi ji jiaoshi (Chinese, critical edition of the collected works). 2 volumes. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980.
• Kai Marchal: Step through the wall and become who you (not) are. On the trail of Chinese thought . Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2019.
• Anne Philipp: Wang Bi's way behind the culture. To gain abstraction in the run-up to Song Confucianism . Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-934565-93-X ( Central German Studies on East Asia 4).
• Rudolf G. Wagner: A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing. Wang Bi's Commentary on the Laozi with Critical Text and Translation . State University of New York Press, Albany 2003, ISBN 978-0-79-145182-3 .

Web links

• Ronnie Littlejohn:  Wang Bi. In: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Literature by and about Wang Bi in the catalog of the German National Library