Chinese Political Philosophy Reading Group

The Warring States period (c. 475–221 BCE) was an era of intense warfare and political fragmentation in ancient China, ending when the state of Qin conquered the other rival kingdoms to create the first united China. This fierce competition gave rise to The Hundred Schools of Thought (Chinese: 諸子百家), a golden age of Chinese philosophy. It was an era of intense intellectual debate, where wandering scholars pitched competing ideas on statecraft, ethics, and harmony to dukes and princes. The arguments they developed formed the core of Chinese political thought and went on to be debated for the next two thousand years.

Unlike western philosophy, which sought a path to eudaimonia (i.e. "the good life") through speculation about the nature of the cosmos, early Chinese philosophy began in the courts of feudal states where the central question was practical: how should society be organized? Philosophers wrote not just for students, or for their own amusement, but as political advisors and job applicants, addressing rulers who could hire them, send them packing, or have them executed. Intellectual movements such as Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism and Mohism were founded in response to the changing political world. The result is a body of work in which ethics, ritual, language, and human nature are approached through the question of political order. These ideas begin to seem more and more relevant as we return to questions of "how do we order society" in the 21st century.

In this course, we'll read some of the most central texts of these debates, as well as secondary sources to give them context and explore how they apply to the conditions we face today.