Vice-director and Professor, School of Chinese Classics, Renmin Univerisity of China; Major research fields: history of Chinese thought, history of Confucian thought, and history of the Confucian classics; Selected works: New Studies on Confucian Orthodoxy (2013) [Chinese], An Analysis of Mencius (2010) [Chinese].

Speech Abstract

                                            The Historical Development of Xun Zi's Theory of Human Nature:

     On the Emotion-Intellect Theory in “Rich States” and “Honor and Disgrace”

Xun Zi's life can be divided into three stages: living in Zhao, travelling around Qi, and then staying at Lanling. During these different stages his ideas on human nature also experienced a process of development. This can be determined because the different chapters of Xunzi being finished at different times record Xunzi’s views from different periods.

Considering divergent content and dates of composition, Xunzi’s views on human nature can be classified into four sets: among them, “Rich States” and “Honor and Disgrace” chapters were likely composed by Xunzi when he lived in Zhao, and reflect his early ideas on human nature. The special character of this period is the presentation of both emotional desires and intellectual capacity being part of human nature. On one hand, Xunzi thinks that yielding to affections or emotional desire will lead to conflict and chaos, and so he holds the view that emotions are evil. On the other hand, he also thinks that the human intellect can contribute to making decisions and constructing ritual standards (“Knowledge is what enacts divisions”), and in fact regards the intellect as a source of goodness. The emotion-intellect theory in “Rich Nations” and “Honor & Disgrace” provides a theoretical preparation for Xunzi’s later nature-artifice theory in “Rectification of Names” and “Human Nature is Evil,” but these two stages of his human nature theory have important differences. Firstly, the early theory does not explicitly raise the notion of evil human nature. Secondly, in regard to its use of the term “nature” there are some points of ambiguity. Not only are emotion and intellect included in the concept of nature, but both inborn cognitive capacity and developed cognitive achievements are as well. Later, Xunzi employs a dual definitions of human nature (“Rectification of Names”) that limits nature to simply emotions, while raising the notion of artifice to encompass both cognitive potential and achievements. To a certain extent, this resolves conflicts in his early thought. “Rich Nations” and “Honor & Disgrace” contain no notion of “artifice,” which is a reflection of those early examples of Xunzi’s thought.