Xunzi - The Xunzi

The Xunzi

Unlike the aphoristic style of the Analects and Mencius, Xunzi was a more rigorous thinker and wrote elaborately argued essays, which were collected into the book called Xunzi. He distinguishes what is born in man and what must be learned through rigorous education. These essays are often critical of competing schools, such as Daoism and Mohism, as well as rival schools within Confucianism. Some of the more significant chapters are

• "Discussion of heaven (天 tian)" rejects the Mencian notion that heaven has a moral will. Instead, Xun Zi asserts that heaven is simply the natural world; thus people should focus on the human, social realm, rather than dealing with heavenly ideas.

• "Discussion of Ritual Propriety (li)," discusses rules of individual and social conduct (decorum).

• "Dispelling Obsessions," being too focused on only one aspect of a situation, one often loses sight of the larger purpose.

• "Proper Use of Terms" (正名 zhengming): A name becomes proper for a situation through conventional usage, but once this is fixed, it is improper to deviate from these norms. Thus he adopts a conventional view for the origin of the sound-to-meaning mapping, although the objects signified by the term remain real.

• The term Zhengming often appears in the English literature as "The Rectification of Names". This is a misleadingly narrow translation of the Chinese title. In classical Chinese, the phrase "正名 (zhengming)" could be interpreted either as "rectifying names" or as "correct/right names".

• "Human Dispositions are Detestable" (xing e): Rejects Mencius' claim that people have a natural inclination toward goodness. Confucius, who simply said that people are similar by nature, was not clear on the matter. Xunzi holds that man is naturally inclined towards selfishness, and that if this inclination is not curbed, human societies would devolve into chaos. He views morality as a social construct, emphasizing the difference between nature and nurture.

This last view engendered considerable debate over two centuries.