Xunzi's Political Philosophy Of "Law"

Political philosophy is de facto a quite young part of philosophy when it comes to ancient Chinese philosophy.It has been found,however,on the basis of studies on ancient Chinese thoughts,especially the thoughts of pre-Qin Dynasty,that political philosophy continued to inform all variety of thoughts and schools of the pre-Qin Dynasty.This is ascribed to the needs of society and politics of that era.From the same ground the Confucian school—a major school of the pre-Qin days--emerged to structure a well-tuned,settled society.That is to say,for the thinking and exploration of goodness,political philosophy undertakes to guide us to behave toward.Xunzi,the last Confucianist of the pre-Qin Dynasty,assimilated ideas of different schools in a critical way,with which he further perfected and advanced the thought of traditional Confucianism.The great thinker demonstrated such perfection mostly in his thoughts of politics.It is to establish a nation “ruled by proper principles and in the reign of peace” that the political theory system Xunzi set up is destined.Aspiring to this destination,Xunzi referred to the thought of “law” on which Legalists centered and employed it one of his political tools,by which he put forward the idea of “ascending rites to be a law”.Centering on the “law” of Xunzi,I sorted out his thought of “law” and thereby grasped his theory of political philosophy.Also,I probed into the legitimacy that Xunzi proposed “law” principles,based on his theory of human nature and views on Heaven and Man.Xunzi thought distinctively from Confucius,Mencius,and other conventional Confucianists.He stressed upon realistic factors and highlighted the governance on people,namely,retraining all walks of life by education,courtesy,music,punishment,and governance.Xunzi established a “people-oriented ? official-management ?Emperor-admiring” political vein,throughout which the thought of “law”prevailed.Nevertheless,Xunzi's “law” is the essence of Confucius' s rites anda critical lesson drawn from Legalism,in order to go along with the need of that time.Xunzi's thought of “law and discipline rite” enriched the connotation of “rites”,extending the external normalization of “rites”.This very thought altered the internal,gentle “rites” of conventional Confucianism to an external,tough “law and discipline rite”.For the war-frequent Warring States period,Xunzi's political philosophy of “law” provided the period a set of political solutions,which are also of significant value of reference to the society and life of today.Therefore,to review Xunzi's theories requires us to extract the essence while removing its dross.To sum up,the prime goal of my following task is to explore the political philosophy system of Xunzi,clarify the significance of Xunzi's thought of “law” on the establishment of a “proper principle-ruled and peace reigned” social,and then transform these results to modern ideas.