Concept tag
#statecraft
-
What do fa, shu and shi mean in Han Feizi?
Zhuangzi sat unread on my father's shelf for most of my life. Next to him was a battered copy of Han Feizi, which I've now started on as well. I'm a retired signalling engineer, not a scholar, so please be patient with…
Started by Liu Jianguo4 replies214 views -
Does Sunzi have an ethics of war, or only an economics of it?
We read The Art of War at staff college as a manual, which is how most soldiers meet it. Rereading it in retirement, I am struck by how much of it counsels restraint. It opens by calling war a matter of life…
Started by Choi Byeong-hun4 replies192 views -
The fall of Qin refutes Legalism itself, not merely its excesses
I read Han Feizi mostly to understand why the most effective political theory of early China produced the shortest-lived dynasty. The Legalist tradition, from Shang Yang's reforms in the state of Qin in the fourth century BCE to Han Feizi's synthesis in…
Started by Chen Yuting5 replies230 views