The meaning of the triad of yan 言 (word), xiang 象 (symbol) and yi 意 (meaning) is one of the most essential and complicated issues in Chinese poetics. According to traditional Chinese poetics, the triad represents the three stages in the regressive process of retrieving authorial meanings. Put briefly, it is held that a reader can figure out a writer's ideas through his words, because as signifiers they have emerged from symbols fashioned by sages of old to express ideas. However, not all scholars in the past millennia have shared this view. Emerging from a debate over the use of language during the Wei-Jin Period (2nd-3rd centuries A.D.)were three schools which believed, respectively, in the expressivity, in­adequacy and invalidity of language as a tool of communication. While some maintained that language revealed, these replied that language concealed. Among the various exponents of the third point of view, Wang Bi stood out and exerted consìderable influence on the generations to come. Following the lead of Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu), Wang regards language as a necessary evil. It serves as an instrument to catch meaning like a fishing net or a hare trap that captures fishes or hares. Once the goal is accomplished, the tool, namely language, should be put aside. As a result, speechless understanding is considered one of the highest achievements of hermeneutical practice. In the same fashion, a paradox in Chinese aesthetics is also reached: the formal beauty of a work of art can be realized provided that it is negated in the first place.