Political Figures
Xunzi
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Xunzi (circa 300 to 230 BCE) was a Chinese philosopher of the late Warring States period and, with Mencius, one of the two most influential early interpreters of Confucianism. He held that human nature is originally self-interested and becomes good only through deliberate ritual, education and law, comparing moral cultivation to straightening crooked wood on a shaping frame, a more pessimistic account of human nature than Mencius's that later influenced the rival school of Legalism through his student Han Feizi.
Facts
Birth YearCirca; Britannica gives circa 300 to 230 BCE, and sources disagree by roughly a decade in either direction. Cross-Tradition Connections
Advocated
Held Differently
Confucianism, Ideologies Holds a self-interest-requiring-cultivation account of human nature within Confucianism, distinct from Mencius's account.
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