International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2022

Intellectual Genealogy and Historical Context of Relationship between Nature and Man: An Outline of Thoughts of Pre-Qin Philosophers

(Abstract)

Tianlai Lei

This article attempts to use the core issue of the relationship between nature and man to establish a holistic vision for understanding the pre-Qin philosophers at the two levels of thought and history. The first part of this article combs through and reflects on the study of philosophers from modern times then on, arguing that the view that “Values and Rituals of Western Zhou Dynasty could no longer gain recognition since the Spring and Autumn Period” has not revealed philosophers’ central concerns, and the “philosophical breakthrough” theory misinterprets the problem awareness and meaning of Chinese thought itself. The core problem of early Chinese thought is the tense relationship between nature and man manifested by the disorder caused by unpredictable providence or uncertainty. This article illustrates how Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, and Mohism respond to this question and display characteristics and differences of the these schools, thus establishing an initial genealogy of the pre-Qin philosophers. From the perspective of history and political order, the article presents the morphological change in the genealogy from the late Zhou Dynasty through the early Han Dynasty.