“虚”之精要乃在“极”——对《老子》《孙子》《淮南子》的“虚”观念进行梳理

The Essence of Thought “Emptiness”-“Acme”——Arrangement of the Thoughts of “Emptiness” from Lao tzu,Sun tzu and Huainan tzu

"虚"是中国哲学尤其是道家哲学的重要概念。然而各家对"虚"的理解有大量不妥之处,最典型的就是《淮南子》对"无为"的理解。与其说它解释的是"无为",倒不如说是"为而不争",《孙子兵法》也没完整地表达出来"虚"的不同意义。在梳理这些理论的过程中,应当回到《道德经》,结合《周易·坤卦》,从"极"的角度来理解,并且由此可以建立一个对"虚""坤""无为"的理解的层级体系。

'Doing nothing' is one of the important concepts of the Chinese Daoism. However there are a lot of wrong understanding of 'doing nothing',and the most typical is the Huai Na Hong understanding 'doing nothing'. It is explained rather than as'doing nothing',it is better to say' doing without benefits'. 'Sun tzu' has not fully expressed different meanings of 'doing nothing'. In the process of combing these theories,we shall return to Daodejing(or the Taoism Classical),combined with the book 'The Book of Changes·Kun',and understand them from the perspective of 'acme',and therefore can create a hierarchy system of understanding of 'emptiness','kun' and 'doing nothing'.