Zhuang Lao Tong Bian

Author: Qian Mu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-09-01
Features: The authorship and composition date of the Tao Te Ching have been a major "puzzle" in the history of Chinese intellectual scholarship. Traditional views held that Laozi lived before Confucius. In the modern era, Liang Qichao criticized Hu Shi's History of Chinese Philosophy, arguing that the Tao Te Ching was written after Confucius. Gu Jiegang and Feng Youlan supported this view, maintaining that Laozi lived before Zhuangzi. The author of this book, guided by Mencius's principle of "seeking to understand the person and then tracing their era," meticulously examines the mutual influences, transmissions, and debates among various schools of thought in Daoist philosophy and the intellectual history of pre-Qin China. The arguments are logically sound, supported by compelling evidence, and convincingly conclude that the Tao Te Ching should have been written after Zhuangzi. Since the twelfth year of the Republic of China, spanning a total of thirty-eight years, the author made continuous discoveries, resulting in eighteen essays that were compiled into this book.