01 · What This Site Is (and Isn't) · 本站是什么
This is a field guide to how the thinkers of China's Hundred Schools of Thought 诸子百家 (c. 770–221 BCE) reasoned — not a history of what they believed, and not a set of biographies. Each sheet treats its thinker as an engineer of ideas: what problem were they solving, what mechanism did they propose, and does that mechanism still run?
The site is deliberately selective. We extract the single most characteristic line of reasoning from each thinker rather than survey everything they said. Better a little, gone deep, than a lot, gone shallow （宁少勿散，写深写透）.
02 · Editorial Standards · 编辑规范
Method over biography 重方法，轻生平
We write about how a thinker reasoned, not the details of their life. A date or an office appears only where it explains an idea.
One fixed template 统一模板
Every thinker sheet follows the same four-part structure, so any two thinkers can be laid side by side and compared directly.
Honest about the record 如实标注史料
Several thinkers — Yan Hui, Yang Zhu, Shen Dao, Deng Xi, Zou Yan — left no writings of their own. Where a thinker survives only in the words of others, often hostile ones, the page says so rather than presenting reconstruction as fact.
Honest about the costs 不美化代价
Legalism, Zhang Yi's diplomacy, and Li Si's standardization are treated as serious, effective technologies of power — and their human costs are named, not glossed over. Effectiveness and ethics are kept on separate ledgers.
03 · How to Read a Thinker Sheet · 如何阅读
Every sheet is built from the same four parts, in the same order:
Part 01
Core Proposition
核心命题 — the thinker's own words, then the single claim the rest follows from.
Part 02
Mental Models
思维原则 — four reusable mechanisms, each anchored to an original-text quote.
Part 03
Key Passage
原文 — one primary-source quotation, translated, with a chapter-level citation.
Part 04
Modern Mapping
现代映射 — four domains where the mechanism still runs, each tied back to the text.
SHEET NUMBERING — each sheet is labelled TS-XXX (Thinker Sheet). · LANGUAGE — English-primary; Chinese appears for key terms and all original quotations.
04 · Citations · 引用说明
- Chapter-level sourcing. Quotations are given in the original Chinese with an English translation and cited to the chapter — e.g. 《论语·卫灵公》 Analects 15.24, 《庄子·养生主》.
- Original vs. interpretation. Anything inside 「…」 is the source's own words. The proposition block and the modern-mapping paragraphs are our interpretation of them.
- Fragmentary thinkers. Where a line survives only in a later author, we cite the preserving text — e.g. Shen Dao's words are kept in 《韩非子·难势》, and the page notes this.
- Translation policy. Standard scholarly renderings are followed where they exist; where we translate directly, we prefer literalness over elegance.
05 · Scope & Limitations · 范围与局限
The catalogue covers the pre-imperial period — roughly 770 to 221 BCE, the Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras. Han-dynasty Confucianism, Neo-Daoism 玄学, and the later Buddhist and Neo-Confucian traditions are out of scope for now, though the structure is built to admit them as extensions.
The School of Agriculture 农家 and the School of Minor Talks 小说家 appear as placeholders: too little survives to build a faithful sheet. The Glossary, Fables, and Comparative Studies sections are living documents and grow over time.