Person372 BC – 289 BC
Mencius
Also called: Mengzi, Meng Ke
Confucian thinker of the Warring States period who held that human nature is good and argued for the kingly way of rule by virtue and for the people as the root of the state
Where they went
1 related event
- 1
As lords of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods sought able men, Confucians, Daoists, Mohists, Legalists and many others (the Hundred Schools) offered rival ways of governing.
People who appear alongside
- Confucius551 BC – 479 BC
Thinker of the state of Lu at the end of the Spring and Autumn period, founder of the Confucian school who taught benevolence (ren) and ritual propriety (li); his words are recorded in the Analects
- Han Feizi233 BC
Legalist thinker of the state of Han at the end of the Warring States period who synthesised Legalism (law, technique and authority); his writings influenced the First Emperor
- Shang Yang338 BC
Statesman of Qin in the Warring States period whose Legalist reforms under Duke Xiao laid the foundations of Qin’s wealth and power
Themes this person appears in
- Ancient China and India770 BC – AD 220
From the Hundred Schools of the Warring States to the unified empires of Qin and Han, and from the Buddha to the Maurya and Kushan empires — the millennium that shaped East and South Asian civilisation