Xunzi (in the older Wade-Giles, Hsun Tzu), the third most important Confucian after Confucius and Mencius, studied and taught at a university in the state of Chi. Like Confucius and Mencius, he briefly held a government position until his patron was assassinated, then returned to teaching.
The general consensus today is that Xunzi is a collection of predominantly authentic essays, but certainly not organized in a manner that Xun Kuang himself had authorized (e.g., Knoblock 1988–94: I, 105–28).
Xunzi openly refers to Mencius by name and his theory that human nature is good and says that Mencius is wrong. Xunzi argues that Mencius is confusing human nature with the results of conscious human activity and development.
In his book he introduced a more rigorous writing style that emphasized topical development, sustained reasoning, detail, and clarity. Xunzi’s most famous dictum is that “the nature of man is evil; his goodness is only acquired training.” What Xunzi preached was thus essentially a philosophy of culture.
The Xunzi essays are a milestone in the development of Chinese philosophy. The anecdotal and epigrammatic style that had characterized earlier philosophical literature—i.e., the Analects, Daodejing, Mencius, Zhuangzi —no longer sufficed to convey fully and persuasively the complex philosophical disputes of Xunzi’s day.
The difference between Mencius and Xunzi is metaphysical as well as ethical. Tian (heaven) for Mencius, though not an anthropomorphic deity, constituted an all-embracing ethical power; therefore it is inevitable that man’s nature should be good, since he receives it from heaven at birth.
The li constituted the “Way” of Confucianism as interpreted by Xunzi, being the ritualized norms governing the mores, manners, and morals of the people.
Xunzi’s most famous dictum is that “the nature of man is evil; his goodness is only acquired training.”. What Xunzi preached was thus essentially a philosophy of culture.
The truth is that Xunzi remained Confucian in his firm rejection of the amoral philosophy and compulsive techniques of the Legalists, and in his insistence on Confucian morality as the basis for society. For several centuries after Xunzi’s death, his influence remained greater than that of Mencius.
If Mencius brought Confucian moral idealism to fruition, Xunzi ( c. 300– c. 230 bce) conscientiously transformed Confucianism into a realistic and systematic inquiry on the human condition, with special reference to ritual ( li) and authority. Widely acknowledged as the most…
Only with the rise of neo-Confucianism in the 10th century ce did his influence begin to wane, and not until the 12th century was the triumph of Mencius formalized by the inclusion of the Mencius among the Confucian classics and by Mencius’ canonization as the second Sage of Confucianism. Xunzi was declared heterodox.
For centuries, Confucianism has been considered by many as a “way of life.” Confucianism, founded by Chinese philosopher Confucius, focuses on self-improvement that will eventually create a united and stable society.
For Xun Kuang, also widely known as “Xunzi” which means “Master Xun,” nothing much is known about his lineage, but it is believed that he has lived in a time of conflict during the Warring States period but decided to rise above it.
0:00 / 57:56. Live. •. Xunzi (in the older Wade-Giles, Hsun Tzu), the third most important Confucian after Confucius and Mencius, studied and taught at a university in the state of Chi. Like Confucius and Mencius, he briefly held a government position until his patron was assassinated, then returned to teaching.
Xunzi argues that without society and laws people would grab for themselves and do nothing for others. Like Hobbes, the English political philosopher, Xunzi argues that this justifies the king acting any way the king sees fit, including killing his subjects, in the name of the good and safety of the entire people.
Xunzi argues that all human beings are equal in their capacity to become good and develop, but they do not start out good. The sage is one who has developed, not the one who remains the same as they were in the beginning.
Confucius says in the Analects that learning without thinking is bad, but thinking without learning is dangerous. Xunzi is likely thinking of this very passage. In Man’s Nature is Evil (Section 23 of the Xunzi ), he opens with this thesis and states that all goodness is the result of growth and effort.
In one passage, Xunzi argues that fire and water have energy but no awareness, and that animals have energy and awareness but no morality, but humans have energy, awareness and the capacity to develop discrimination of right from wrong and morality.
Freud argued very similarly about sexual impulse, and that all technology is sexuality denied and deferred into work. The first paragraph lays this out succinctly. Xunzi openly refers to Mencius by name and his theory that human nature is good and says that Mencius is wrong.
Compassion is the goal that is possible, but it cannot be achieved without laws and principles.
Chapter 23, [ 2] “Human Nature is Evil ” ( Xing’e 性惡), is a reasonable point of entry into Xunzi’s philosophy for multiple reasons: it exemplifies some of the textual problems mentioned above; it addresses one of the core themes of the collection; and it was, for centuries, the most frequently cited section of Xunzi.
What prompted Xunzi to dissent from Mencius’s characterization of xing as good if he ultimately agreed with Mencius’s larger view: that people can perfect themselves and that such an achievement requires great exertion and self-motivation? Perhaps Xunzi wished to highlight his conviction that the proper models for moral behavior lie outside the self, which is fundamentally opposed to a Mencian notion of Four Beginnings ( siduan 四端) lodged within the human heart (e.g., Mencius 2A.6). Whereas Mencians have always emphasized looking inwards for moral direction—sometimes complicated by the acknowledgment that the heart can be corrupted—self-cultivation in the Xunzian style is inconceivable without looking outwards.
For most of imperial Chinese history, however, Xunzi was a bête noire who was typically cited as an example of a Confucian who went astray by rejecting Mencian convictions. Only in the last few decades has Xunzi been widely recognized as one of China’s greatest thinkers. 1. Xunzi and Xunzi. 2.
When kings and dukes follow [the rituals], that is how they obtain the world; when they do not follow them, that is how they bring about the perdition of their altars of soil and grain. ( Xunzi 15.4) Even advanced military technology is no match for a king who “exalts ritual and esteems morality”.
Dong Zhongshu is reported to have written a paean to Xunzi (now lost), and writers of late antiquity, such as Wang Chong 王充 (27–ca. 100 CE) and Ban Gu 班固 (32–92 CE), still took him seriously as a philosopher. But thereafter, Xunzi’s star began to set.
The general consensus today is that Xunzi is a collection of predominantly authentic essays, but certainly not organized in a manner that Xun Kuang himself had authorized (e.g., Knoblock 1988–94: I, 105–28).