Xunzi (Xun Kuang) · Philosophy
Xunzi’s bracing naturalism: <em>Tian</em> (Heaven, or Nature) runs by constant, impersonal regularities that care nothing for human wishes. It sends no omens, answers no prayers, and rewards no virtue. Order and disaster come not from Heaven but from what human beings do - so we should stop imploring the sky and get to work.
You learned that Xunzi’s Discourse on Heaven holds that Nature ( Tian ) has constant ways that do not respond to human virtue or prayer, that portents are mere natural events and not signs, and that order comes from human effort - so the wise focus on what they can actually control. Explain his naturalism and it…
Leads to Thomas Hobbes.
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