Philosophy
c. 310 to c. 235 BCE, State of Zhao, China
Human nature is bad, and virtue is a human achievement - won by ritual, learning, and clear-eyed effort under a Heaven that answers no prayers.
Start learning Xunzi →Xunzi’s most famous doctrine, xing e - that human nature is bad, and that all our goodness is wei , deliberate human achievement. Like crooked wood that must be steamed against the press-frame to become straight,…
Xunzi’s theory of li (ritual): the elaborate forms of ceremony, manners, music, and social role are not empty convention but the deliberate artifice ( wei ) by which the sages reshape a bad nature into virtue - pr…
Xunzi’s bracing naturalism: Tian (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 c…
Xunzi’s philosophy of language and its politics: zhengming , the rectification of names. Words have no natural link to things; they are fixed by convention. But once a society settles its names, holding them clear…
Xunzi’s Encouragement of Learning : the conviction that a human being is not fixed at birth but made by lifelong study and practice. Through steady accumulation, the right teacher, and immersion in good influences…
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