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Philosophy in Eastern Han Dynasty China (25–220 CE)
Author(s) -
McLeod Alexus
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/phc3.12209
Subject(s) - chinese philosophy , scholarship , legalism (western philosophy) , china , philosophy , ancient history , history , period (music) , han chinese , political science , archaeology , aesthetics , biology , law , genetics , politics , single nucleotide polymorphism , genotype , gene
Abstract The philosophy of the Han Dynasty, especially that of the Eastern Han (25–220 CE), is an unjustly neglected area of scholarship on early Chinese thought. In this article, I introduce the thought of a number of important Eastern Han philosophers, with particular attention to Wang Chong, Wang Fu, Xu Gan, and Wang Su. I also explain the major features of Eastern Han thought as distinct from that of the Warring States and Western Han periods, and consider their origins in reaction to Western Han ideas and their further development in the Wei‐Jin period.