What Were The Chinese Philosophers Thinking?

Confucius may have influenced your everyday life whether you grew up in the East or the West. But did you know that he failed to achieve the political career he wanted—and that China never followed his ideas alone?

Ancient China’s philosophers were every bit as argumentative as the Greeks and possibly even busier. When they were not debating human nature, morality and good government, they were advising kings, travelling between rival states, designing defences and trying not to be executed for saying the wrong thing.

Discover:

• Why Confucius failed politically but conquered the future
• How Mencius told kings they could lose the right to rule
• Why Mozi combined moral philosophy with siege engineering
• Whether Laozi was one man, several writers or a magnificent mystery
• How Zhuangzi used butterflies, fish and humour to question certainty
• Why Han Fei understood political danger but could not escape it
• Where Chinese thinkers meet—and differ from—Socrates, Aristotle, the Stoics and Machiavelli

Playful, vivid and substantial, What Were the Chinese Philosophers Thinking? brings ancient thinkers to life as wandering teachers, ambitious advisers and dangerous critics trying to rescue a world at war.

This is history first and philosophy made approachable: the remarkable people and arguments that helped build a civilization.