Study On Political Philosophy Of Huang-Lao School

Political philosophy is an important part of Chinese philosophy. We can say, in Pre-Qin period, the majority of contending between schools was ideas of governing. Si Matan(司马谈)has said:" Yinyang(阴阳),Confucianism(儒),Mo(墨),Ming(名),Fa(法),and Dao de(道德),all aimed for governing." This speech told us the real aim of schools in Pre-Qin period. Huang-Lao continued and developed the theory of Dao (道).They also constructed a peculiar theory of health maintenance and state governing on the basis.Political legitimacy is the most important problem of political philosophy. Political legitimacy of pre-schools era is myth-of-origin, but with the collapse of the theory of Destiny, this approach quickly "devaluation" and no longer convinced by people. This process reflected in the discourse of political legitimacy system was the evolution of the relationship between Destiny and "the way of heaven"(天道),De and Dao. Through comparison of the characteristics of Confucian and Taoist theory and examination of documents, we can say Huang-Lao(黄老)Taoist was prime mover of this evolution. Their view of "the way of heaven" is at first a cosmology. In this cosmology, human society is part of the whole universe; the development of laws in human society is the same of the development pattern of the universe. Huang-Lao Taoism tried to derive political legitimacy from "the way of heaven", and they took it as a prototype to construct the social and political order.There are both connections and differences between "Dao" and "the way of heaven" in the Huang-Lao Taoism theoretical system. They all have the meaning of law, "Dao" includes "the way of heaven". Following the example of "the way of heaven" and follow the "Dao" in most contexts have the same meaning. On the other hand, "Dao" is the existence of a material, which constitutes the material basis of all things, and has a mysterious power to decide matters of life and death, success or failure of personnel. In the political field, who obtained "Dao" will be prosperity, unjust will perish, while self-cultivation is Prerequisite to get "Dao".Schools in Pre-Qin era all took "inaction" as their political ideal, while the specific contents are different. As a political ideal, there is little difference between the "inaction" of Huang-Lao Taoism and Lao-Zhuang(老庄)But in order to achieve this ideal, they have done a transformation of the theory. First, they introduced "yin"(因)as a political methodology and transformed the principles of "inaction" into "do something by xx". Its essence is to follow "the way of heaven". Second, they make "inaction" as a program to accommodate the contents of the rule of law.Huang-Lao political philosophy has a great influence at the time and on future generations. Xunzi(荀子)and Han Fei Zi(韩非子)are two representatives of Confucianism and Fa school. In their writings we can see many traces of influence by Huang-Lao Taoism political philosophy. In early Han Dynasty, rulers respected and promoted Huang-Lao Daoism's political philosophy. They took "inaction" as a guiding principle to political and received good results. Emperor Wu of Hani(汉武帝)only use Confucianism, the Huang-Lao School tends to stagnation in the development of political philosophy.