Hundred Schools of Thought 诸子百家

A Field Guide to Classical Chinese Thinking Methods · c. 770–221 BCE

Between 770 and 221 BCE, China's Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods produced an explosion of rival philosophies — the Hundred Schools of Thought 诸子百家 — as wandering scholars competed to answer how to live, how to rule, and how to win. This site is not a history of what they believed; it is a map of how they thought. Each sheet extracts one core proposition, a handful of mental models, and where those models still run today.

Schools & Thinkers · 诸子名录
Taoism 道家 3 thinkers
Mohism 墨家 1 thinker
School of Names 名家 3 thinkers
Yin-Yang School 阴阳家 1 thinker
School of Diplomacy 纵横家 3 thinkers
Military Thought 兵家 3 thinkers
Syncretism 杂家 1 thinker
Agriculturalism 农家 TBD
  • To be catalogued
Minor Talks 小说家 TBD
  • To be catalogued
Other Modules · 其他板块
Core debates across schools: human nature, virtue vs. law, righteousness vs. profit, engagement vs. withdrawal, the ethics of war.
◼ 5 debates live
Bilingual concept library: 仁 ren, 义 yi, 道 dao, 无为 wu wei, 法术势 fa-shu-shi, and the logic of names.
◼ 32 terms live
The argument-by-story tradition: Han Feizi's parables, Zhuangzi's fables, Mencius's analogies, military stratagems.
◼ 22 stories live
Editorial standards, citation policy, and how to read these sheets.
◼ Live