Philosopher
Huan Tan
43 BCE – 28 CE
Han thinker who argued that the spirit depends on the body and dies with it, attacking belief in ghosts and quests for immortality, and set the critical tone of Eastern Han philosophy.
Huan Tan, who knew his contemporary Yang Xiong, and like him served at the Xin court of Wang Mang, for which later writers criticised him. Unlike Yang, he lived on into the restored (Eastern) Han and served it as an official, which helped his reputation.
He can be counted the first philosopher of the Eastern Han. His New Discourses survives only in fragments.
Key ideas
- Spirit as a candle flame
- The conscious spirit lives in the body as a flame lives in a candle. It depends on the body and dies when the body dies.
- Against ghosts and immortality
- Belief in ghosts and disembodied spirits is superstition, and no alchemy, physical technique or mental cultivation can stop the natural decline and death of the human body.
- A critical method
- His argumentative style and his attack on non-physical views influenced the rest of Eastern Han philosophy, above all Wang Chong.
Influences
Where these links come from
- Wang Chong drew on Huan Tan. Source: Alexus McLeod, Philosophy in Han Dynasty China, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Xu Gan drew on Huan Tan. Source: Alexus McLeod, Philosophy in Han Dynasty China, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- New Discourses (Xinlun)
Sources
- Alexus McLeod, Philosophy in Han Dynasty China, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy