Tradition
Chinese
Chinese philosophy is the thought of China, from Confucius, Laozi and Mozi to the Neo-Confucians, centred on ethics, government and the way of nature.
It took shape in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, when Confucians, Daoists, Mohists, Legalists and the School of Names, among them Mencius, Xunzi, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi and Hui Shi, debated human nature, government and language. Buddhism entered China and was transformed there, and from the eleventh century Neo-Confucians such as Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming built new systems, carried on by Wang Fuzhi, Dai Zhen and, in the twentieth century, Mou Zongsan. It answers questions on how to live, human nature, character, government and nature.
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Wang Bi
Wang Bi was a Chinese philosopher of the Wei state who died at about twenty-three yet became one of the most influential interpreters in…
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Wang Chong
Wang Chong was a Chinese philosopher of the Eastern Han dynasty, born in Kuaiji in the southeast, who studied in the capital Luoyang and…
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Wang Fuzhi
Wang Fuzhi was a Chinese philosopher and historian from Hengyang in Hunan who resisted the Qing conquest and spent his later decades in seclusion,…
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Wang Yangming
Wang Yangming was a Ming-dynasty Chinese philosopher, official and general, the most influential critic of Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism. During exile in Longchang, Guizhou, he…
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Xiong Shili
Xiong Shili was a Chinese philosopher from Hubei, one of the founders of twentieth-century New Confucianism. After studying Yogācāra Buddhism in Nanjing, he taught…
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Sima Qian
Sima Qian was a Chinese historian of the Western Han dynasty who succeeded his father as Grand Historian at the court in Chang'an. After…
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Sunzi
Sunzi, Master Sun, is the figure to whom tradition attributes The Art of War, the most famous Chinese treatise on military strategy. Later historical…
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Mencius
Mencius was a Chinese Confucian thinker of the Warring States period, regarded in the later tradition as the 'Second Sage' after Confucius; his dates…
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Mou Zongsan
Mou Zongsan was a Chinese philosopher, born in Shandong, who taught in Taiwan and Hong Kong after 1949 and is regarded as a leading…
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Mozi
Mozi was a Chinese thinker of the early Warring States period and founder of the Mohist school, the main rival of the Confucians for…
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Gongsun Long
Gongsun Long was a Chinese thinker of the Warring States period, associated with the School of Names (mingjia) and said to have served as…
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Guo Xiang
Guo Xiang was a Chinese thinker and official of the Western Jin dynasty, active in Luoyang, and a leading figure of Xuanxue ('profound learning').…
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Han Feizi
Han Fei, known as Han Feizi, was a prince of the state of Han in the late Warring States period and the leading synthesiser…
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Hui Shi
Hui Shi was a Warring States thinker associated with the School of Names (mingjia) and served as a minister in the state of Wei.…
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Feng Youlan
Feng Youlan was a Chinese philosopher and historian of philosophy who studied at Columbia University and taught for decades at Tsinghua and Peking universities.…
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Cheng Yi
Cheng Yi was a Northern Song Confucian scholar who, with his elder brother Cheng Hao, founded the learning of principle that Zhu Xi later…
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Dai Zhen
Dai Zhen was a Qing-dynasty scholar from Anhui, a leading figure in evidential learning (kaozheng), who worked in Beijing on philology, mathematics and astronomy.…
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Dong Zhongshu
Dong Zhongshu was a Han-dynasty scholar and adviser associated with the reign of Emperor Wu, whose dates are approximate. He is traditionally credited with…
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Cheng Hao
Cheng Hao was a Northern Song scholar and official who, with his younger brother Cheng Yi, co-founded the Neo-Confucian learning of principle (li). The…
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Zhuangzi and Huizi on the bridge: doubt about other minds, or a joke?
Every morning after taiji I sit by the river in the park, and this story comes back to me. It is in the "Autumn Floods" chapter of the Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi and his friend Huizi are strolling on a bridge over the Hao…
Started by Liu MingqiaoReply first (no replies yet) -
Confucius
Teacher and minor official from the state of Lu whose sayings and conversations, collected by later disciples, became the foundation of Confucianism. He sought…
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Laozi
Legendary sage traditionally credited with the Daodejing and described by the historian Sima Qian as an archivist at the Zhou court. Modern scholars generally…
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Zhuangzi
Daoist thinker from the state of Song whose name is attached to a book of parables, dialogues and arguments, of which the 'Inner Chapters'…
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How can you talk about non-being without turning it into a something?
Every morning I practise taiji in the park and every evening I read a few lines of the Laozi with my grandson's dictionary. Chapter 40 says, roughly, that the things of the world are born from being, and being is born from…
Started by Liu MingqiaoAnswer first (no replies yet) -
“Chinese philosophy had no epistemology” is wrong, and the Mohists are the proof
Every comparative table I see gives the Chinese row the same apologetic note: less interest in formal proof, more in precedent and the classics, no real epistemology, but that's not a deficiency. The intention is kind, but the claim underneath is wrong.…
Started by Lin Pei-shanReply first (no replies yet) -
Reading group: the ren passages of the Analects in five English translations
Following the recent arguments here about whether ren means "benevolence", I'd like to propose something slower: reading the key ren passages of the Analects side by side in five translations, with the Chinese for those who read it, and noticing exactly where…
Started by Kenneth Lam Chi-hoReply first (no replies yet) -
Mozi was wrong about music, but his question about it still stings
I play cello in a chamber ensemble in Seoul and teach children. I recently read the Mohist chapter "Against Music" and I can't stop arguing with it in my head. Mozi's argument, as I understand it: ordinary people have three great worries,…
Started by Moon Ha-eunReply first (no replies yet) -
Naturalisms before the word: the Cārvākas, Wang Chong and Xunzi’s Heaven
I want to test the distinction this site keeps drawing between kinds of naturalism (ontological, methodological, ethical, epistemological) against three older figures who are often lumped together as "early naturalists". The Cārvākas (Lokāyata). Almost all of their own texts are lost; we…
Started by Arvind PoojaryReply first (no replies yet) -
A person through other persons: what ubuntu actually asks of us
Ubuntu is printed on mugs and quoted in constitutional judgments; underneath the slogan is a demanding claim about what a person is, and African philosophers disagree sharply about how far to take it.
Started by Thandeka MokoenaReply first (no replies yet) -
Adab, li and hexis: is character trained the same way in three traditions?
When a girl comes to learn batik in my mother's workshop, she doesn't begin by drawing. She begins by preparing cloth, heating wax, watching. She learns how to sit, how to hold the canting, how to speak to the older women. After…
Started by Ratna WulandariAnswer first (no replies yet)