Other Laozi Parallels in the Hanfeizi - Sino-Platonic Papers

Tae Hyun KIM, “Other Laozi Parallels in the Hanfeizi”
Sino-Platonic Papers, 199 (March 2010)
significant textual similarity between JYL and MWD, such as the transposition of chapter order
(pianshu 篇序), 10 but not in their significant differences.
This seems to be associated with the fact that, in spite of a huge amount of research, the
discussions about the codification of the Laozi have reached an academic stalemate, finding no
breakthrough to transcend the old solution that is not very different from the answers acquired
from much research on MWD around 20–30 years ago. Despite the recent excavation of many
hitherto unknown texts, whose philosophical nature resists classification into a specific school,
scholarly imagination about the Laozi is still limited by the documents called “Laozi Daodejing.”
Accordingly, the GD finds could also be regarded as doing nothing more than adding one more
piece of material to several Laozi redactions.
I believe that this recalls two fundamental mistakes in the conventional approach to the
GD or MWD finds: The first is to apply to the new excavations the given frameworks of
understanding and categories/terms like Confucianism (Rujia), Daoism (Daojia), or Legalism
(Fajia), and not to philologically or philosophically relate a text of an assumed specific school to
other texts of other schools, even though it is generally agreed that the GD and the MWD
documents were established before categorization by Sima Tan and Liu Xiang/Xin 11 ; they are, in
fact, ex post facto terms. Second, it needs to be noted that many scholars uncritically have
entitled the parallel texts in the GD and MWD the Laozi without convincing evidence. This
unproved preconception of the text title has made the discussion of the text more confusing. Free
from the established categorizations and preconceptions, and joining a refreshed view with
arguments regarding the Laozi accumulated during the last hundred years, it might be possible to
10 I use the term “chapter” for the pian 篇 of the Laozi and “section” for the zhang 章.
11
For the historical emergence of the term philosophical school (jia 家), in early Chinese philosophy and its
implication, there have been several works published. See the following: Sarah Queen and Harold Roth, “A
Syncretist Perspective on the Six Schools,” in Sources of Chinese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press,
1999), 278–282; Michael Nylan and Mark Csikzsentmihalyi, “Constructing Lineages and Inventing Traditions
through Exemplary Figures in Early China,” T'oung Pao 89 (2003), 1–41; Kidder Smith, “Sima Tan and the
Invention of Daoism, ‘Legalism,’ et cetera,” The Journal of Asian Studies 62.1 (2003):129–156; Sarah Queen,
“Inventories of the Past: Rethinking the ‘School’ Affiliation of the Huainanzi,” Asia Major 14.1 (2001):51–72.
10