An Experimental Analysis Of Lao-tzu's Political Philosophy

Lao-tzu was a great ancient Chinese philosopher. His political philosophy holds an important position in ancient Chinese history of political thought, and makes a far-reaching impact. On basis of the original work and the research accomplishment of being achieved, the article synthetically analyses political philosophy of Lao-tzu. The article is divided into four parts.First the article introduces Lao-tzu and his book. Because Lao-tzu lived thousands years ago and documentation was lacked, Lao-tzu and his book had caused many hypothesize. Now with the new literature appeared and the depth of research, we can conclude that Lao-tzu and Confucius lived in the same times and Lao-tzu was older than Confucius. The foundation of Lao-tzu's political philosophy is his Tao. This is decided by the characteristic of the Tao. Tao is the highest category in Lao-tzu's philosophy and it is repeatedly explained in the text. The second part is written to discuss Lao-tzu's Tao. Tao establish the foundation of Lao-tzu's political philosophy and decide the content of Lao-tzu's political philosophy. The core component of Lao-tzu's political philosophy is naturalness and inaction. Naturalness and inaction are two very important concepts which are extremely easy to be misunderstood. The third part tries to deeply analyze naturalness and inaction and discover the value of naturalness and inaction. The fourth part is written to discuss Lao-tzu's political ideals. It is generally believed that Lao-tzu's political ideals are"small in population and territory"."Small in population and territory"is a very important part , but I think Lao-tzu's political ideals is"saints govern world".