Philosopher
Xu Gan
170–217 CE
Last major philosopher of the Han, one of the Seven Masters of Jian An, whose Discourses Hitting the Mark explored how names relate to actualities and to moral conduct.
Xu Gan was one of the ‘Seven Masters of Jian An’, scholars active in the last Han reign period, when the emperor was a puppet and warlords such as Cao Cao fought over the empire that would split into the Three Kingdoms. Five of the seven, Xu Gan among them, died in the plague of 217; he was forty-seven.
Besides the usual Confucian concerns with ritual and self-cultivation, his most distinctive contribution concerns language and its relation to reality and conduct.
Key ideas
- Names and actualities
- Names should be applied to things in ways that guide proper conduct. Used to advance one’s reputation or interests rather than harmony and moral instruction, they lose their power to motivate good behaviour.
- True disputation
- What the vulgar call disputation is mere glibness: winning by quick retorts regardless of right and wrong. Real disputation persuades people’s hearts by drawing clear distinctions.
- A critical method
- Xu Gan followed the critical approach of Huan Tan and Wang Chong, criticising common views and practices he thought harmful.
- Tradition
- Chinese
- Region
- China
- Schools
- Confucianism
- Themes
- Language and meaning
Influences
Where these links come from
- Xu Gan drew on Huan Tan. Source: Alexus McLeod, Philosophy in Han Dynasty China, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Xu Gan drew on Wang Chong. Source: Alexus McLeod, Philosophy in Han Dynasty China, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- Discourses Hitting the Mark (Zhonglun)
- Read free at Wikisource (in Classical Chinese)
Sources
- Alexus McLeod, Philosophy in Han Dynasty China, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy