Han Fei Zi

Han Fei’s doctrine of absolute monarchy is one of the most sophisticated political ideologies ever devised in any ancient society, and it proved critical to the foundation of the first imperial dynasty. One must nonetheless acknowledge that it remains problematic. What are the reasons for the shifting and contradictory attitudes in the Han Feizi concerning the nature of sovereignty, the distribution of political roles, and the vexed question of the delegation of authority? Cornered by the ever-clashing perspectives of history and doctrine, which imply the simultaneous mistrust of both rulers and ministers, the Han Feizi’s authors were forced into conceiving a sublime rulership figure that was tantamount to a metaphysical dummy. This empty silhouette was the result of the contradictory attempts to destroy all possible factors weakening monarchical authority but yet, at the same time, to nullify all potential damage that the monarch could inflict on the state and on himself. The fascinating figure of a spirit-like Prince fusing with the Principle (Dao) imposed a long-lasting ideological paradigm of rulership on China, one that may account for many of the weaknesses of and tensions in its political culture.

It seems that neither Sima Qian's 司馬遷 famous “compensation theory” of Hanfei’s eloquence (“Fei, as a person, suffered from a stammer and was incapable of leading a discussion, but he excelled in the production of writing” 非爲人口吃，不能道說，而善著書), nor the central position he accorded to the “Difficulties of persuasion« (《說難》) chapter (Hunter 2013) has provoked a sustained engagement with the master's stylistics. Exceptions notwithstanding (張覺 2001, Zádrapa 2014), premodern criticism and contemporary scholarship mostly revolve around the “richness of his wide-ranging comparisons” (博喻之富, 《文心雕龍》4.6), especially in anecdote quotations, his use of parallelism before the Later Han stabilization of 駢文 prose (王懷成 1989). Another popular topic, originating with Ren Fang 任昉 (460–508), is whether the 'pearls on a string' (連珠) poetic genre emerged from his “Inner/Outer thesauri of sayings” (《内外儲說》), rather than with Yang Xiong 揚雄 (53 BCE–18 CE) (鄭良樹 1990, 孫良申 2010, 韓賢克 2010), well-known for his propensity towards imitatio (Schilling 2006), and how phrases coined or quoted in the text, survived as 'set phrases' (成語).
My talk will strive to complement this picture by analyzing three areas characterising “one of the most distinctive voices in all of Chinese literature” (Goldin 2013): (a) the use of line-end and internal rhyme to create textual cohesion (金毅 1984, Behr 2005), distinct from other prosimetric 散文 patterns of the Warring States; (b) argumentation via non-stock praonomastic puns; (c) tension resolution between innovated synonym compounds and phrasal repetition avoidance (魏得勝 1993).

Resumen
El artículo pretende contribuir al estudio de los textos retóricos del clasicismo chino, presentando traducciones directas del chino al castellano. Se ofrece aquí la primera versión íntegra del capítulo 3 (Nán yán) del corpus atribuido al filósofo legista Han Feizi (c. 280-233 a.C.), un autor de extraordinaria importancia a ese respecto. Un comentario analiza el texto, proporciona información para una adecuada comprensión y apreciación y repasa las líneas de investigación que puede ofrecer desde la perspectiva de la retórica comparada.
Palabras clave: retórica china – Han Feizi – suasoria política – retórica comparada – traducción.
Abstract
Our paper contributes to the study of Classical Chinese rhetorical texts by offering new translations from Chinese into Spanish. In this case, it is chapter 3 (Nán yán) from the corpus attributed to the Legalist philosopher Han Feizi, living during the Warring States period (c. 280-233 BC), whose work is highly relevant as far as Rhetoric is concerned. A final commentary analizes the text, presents further details for an accurate understanding and suggests some possible lines of research from the standpoint of comparative Rhetoric.

El realismo político es la "imaginación del desastre" capaz de captar "momentos anímicos aislados que brillan a través de los siglos" y que por ello están dotados de una "significación eterna". Este estudio propone una definición del realismo político como "forma-límite del pensamiento político".

It is commonly accepted that Han Fei studied under Xunzi sometime during the late third century BCE. However, there is surprisingly little dedicated to the in-depth study of the relationship between Xunzi’s ideas and one of his best-known followers. In this essay I argue that Han Fei’s notion of xing, commonly translated as human nature, was not only influenced by Xunzi but also that it is an important feature of his political philosophy.

Han Fei (280-233 BCE) is traditionally considered as the main proponent of the Legalist School in pre-imperial China, which is credited in turn as the main ideological force behind the successful process of unification accomplished by the kingdom of Qin in the 3rd century BCE.
His legacy, albeit formally rejected by the following dynasties in the name of Confucianism, will be in fact preserved at least in some of its most salient aspects throughout the centuries, up to the demise of the imperial system at the beginning of the 20th century (or perhaps even later, if a significant legalist heritage can actually be detected in Maoism). Indeed, the real core of Chinese political philosophy should be more correctly defined, as argued by a growing number of scholars over the last decades, a Confucian-Legalist or Legalist Confucian system.
More specifically, the Legalist legacy provided the State of Qin and then the newborn Empire with an impressive set of strong philosophical justifications for the maintenance of an uncompromising political centralism. Han Fei´s arguments on the “dangers of division” and on the importance  of identifying one single supreme source of political authority (running parallel to similar arguments raised, although from a different perspective, also by Confucians) played a fundamental role in the preservation of the imperial political model, even at times when the Empire was in fact fragmented. The diverging paths between Western Europe and China in terms of post-imperial state building processes – increasingly favored by nationalist discourses in Europe, and constantly defeated by the rhetoric of “all-under-heaven” on the other side of the continent - is a compelling field of research in comparative intellectual history.
The present paper will use a short quotation from the Han Feizi as the departing point for a reflection on how the issue of political centralism is linked to the philosophical question of free will. Han Fei´s clear-cut distinction between one single yao (will) directing and controlling the multiplicity of shi (actions) deprives individual phenomena (physical individuals included) of any possible autonomy, not just on the political but also on the psychological level. There can be only one acting “intention”, the Law embodied by the Ruler.
Such an unmistakable stance connecting administrative centralism to a form of hard determinism might be interesting both from a sinological and from a comparative point of view. To what extent is Han Fei´s “radical centralism” still alive in the political thought of contemporary China, especially with regard to the perception of and the response to “separatist” threats? And can it be useful in a comparative research on how the assertion of free will, and the subsequent recognition of the individuals as centers of “decision-making”, has been, in China and in the West, proportional to the acceptance of political fragmentation, local autonomy and forms of bottom-up representation?

The Art of War is a canonical text of Chinese military strategy. Its central argument isthat a general should subdue his enemies through deceptive stratagems. The Laozi is acanonical text of philosophical Daoism. It applies military strategy – with which generalssubdue their enemies – to statecraft, deriving deceptive stratagems with which rulers sub-due their people. These Laozian passages were in turn interpreted by the Han Feizi – acanonical text of Chinese political thought – as deceptive stratagems with which rulerssubdue both their enemies and their people. The Han Feizi, specifically its “Yulao” (Illus-trating Laozi) chapter, thus began a long tradition of reading the Laozi as a text on state-craft. In this article, I first explain the profound influence that the Art of War had exertedon the Laozi, before expounding on the Laozi’s cunning tactics for its ideal ruler. Then, Iestablish the authenticity of the “Yulao” as a pre-Qin text by systemically comparing allof its Laozi quotations with the excavated Mawangdui Laozi A. Finally, I demonstratethat the “Yulao” consistently interprets the Laozi as a military and political treatise. Iconclude by arguing that the Laozi was an intermediary in a pre-Qin “Military-Daoist-Legalist” intellectual tradition.

There seems to be a tremendous misconception of Legalism as posited by Han Fei from contemporary scholars, especially from academia in the West. This has led to a scathing critique of Ancient Chinese philosophy that is rooted in a disingenuous analysis of the Han Feizi. Admittedly, the political theory lacks prima facie plausibility, but this is only at first impression.

Han Feizi (s. III a.C.) es el principal representante de la escuela legista china (făjiā). Los principios de su teoría política le han granjeado el apodo de “el Maquiavelo chino”. Sus ideas serían adoptadas por Qin Shihuang, el Primer Emperador, quien unificó China e impuso un régimen despótico caracterizado por la represión del debate político y la supresión de la libertad de expresión. La conexión entre el desarrollo de la retórica y la situación política en el contexto de la última etapa del clasicismo chino puede servir de fondo para una consideración más amplia de dicho nexo. La retórica comparada proporciona las bases para relacionar el pensamiento legista chino con el discurso neoliberal contemporáneo.

The paradoxical truth of the world is that we can only do the right thing when it is not *our* right thing. As he wanders idly between his fables, Zhuangzi playfully mocks human certainty and ideology through the theme of "getting thinged by things".

espanolEl articulo pretende contribuir al estudio de los textos retoricos del clasicismo chino, presentando traducciones directas del chino al castellano. Se ofrece aqui la primera version integra del capitulo 3 (Nan yan) del corpus atribuido al filosofo legista Han Feizi (c. 280-233 a.C.), un autor de extraordinaria importancia a ese respecto. Un comentario analiza el texto, proporciona informacion para una adecuada comprension y apreciacion y repasa las lineas de investigacion que puede ofrecer desde la perspectiva de la retorica comparada. EnglishOur paper contributes to the study of Classical Chinese rhetorical texts by offering new translations from Chinese into Spanish. In this case, it is chapter 3 (Nan yan) from the corpus attributed to the Legalist philosopher Han Feizi, living during the Warring States period (c. 280-233 BC), whose work is highly relevant as far as Rhetoric is concerned. A final commentary analizes the text, presents further details for an accurate underst...

Resumen El filósofo Han Feizi vivió durante el período de los Estados Combatientes (c. 280-233 a.C.). Su obra, de acusado cariz político, representante de la escuela legista, serviría de inspiración a Qin Shihuang, Primer Emperador y unificador de China. La naturaleza de ese programa político le ha valido el apodo de " el Maquiavelo chino " . Los autores de este artículo hacen especial hincapié sobre el interés retórico de Han Feizi y presentan nuevas traducciones directas del chino clásico al castellano, en concreto la primera versión íntegra del capítulo 12 del corpus, " Dificultades de la persuasión " , el más relevante de esa reflexión. Un comentario final analiza el texto y repasa las líneas de investigación que puede ofrecer desde la perspectiva de la retórica comparada. Palabras clave: retórica china -Han Feizi -discurso político -retórica comparada -traducción. Abstract The philosopher Han Feizi lived during the Warring States period (c. 280-233 BC). His ...

MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Sean Macdonald’s review of China Imagined: From European Fantasy to Spectacular Power, by Gregory B. Lee. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/sean-macdonald. My thanks to Nicholas Kaldis, MCLC literary studies book review editor, for ushering the review to publication.

Comparing Machiavelli's The Prince and Sunzi's The Art of War is quite popular in fields such as business, military strategy and even in the self-help industry. However, these comparisons, based on superficial similarities between the two works, tend to be cold and empty juxtapositions of opinions, or even worse, project onto these authors and their ideas an interpretation which is inauthentic. This is not the case with François Jullien, who studied the different ways Western and Chinese thinkers have dealt with warfare and diplomacy. Following Jullien's example , this article suggests using Machiavelli's redefinition of the traditional notion of " prudence " as a common ground on which to establish a productive dialogue between Machiavelli and Sunzi.

In this essay I revise, based on the notion of the ‘enlightened ruler’ or mingzhu and his critique of the literati of his time, the common belief that Han Fei was an amoralist and an advocate of tyranny. Instead, I will argue that his writings are dedicated to advising those who ought to rule in order to achieve the goal of a peaceful and stable society framed by laws in accordance with the dao.

Han Feizi (3rd century B.C.) is the main representative of the Chinese Legalist school ( făjiā ). The tenets of this political theory have earned him the nickname “the Chinese Machiavelli”. His ideas were adopted by Qin Shihuang, the so-called First Emperor, who unified China and unleashed a despotic regime characterized by the crackdown of any political debate and the suppression of free speech. The connection between rhetorical development and the political sphere in the context of Classical China’s last stage may set the scene for a wider discussion about that link. Comparative rhetoric will provide further ground for connections between classical Chinese Legalist ideas and contemporary Neoliberal discourse.

espanolEl filosofo Han Feizi vivio durante el periodo de los Estados Combatientes (c. 280-233 a.C.). Su obra, de acusado cariz politico, representante de la escuela legista, serviria de inspiracion a Qin Shihuang, Primer Emperador y unificador de China. La naturaleza de ese programa politico le ha valido el apodo de “el Maquiavelo chino”. Los autores de este articulo hacen especial hincapie sobre el interes retorico de Han Feizi y presentan nuevas traducciones directas del chino clasico al castellano, en concreto la primera version integra del capitulo 12 del corpus, “Dificultades de la persuasion”, el mas relevante de esa reflexion. Un comentario final analiza el texto y repasa las lineas de investigacion que puede ofrecer desde la perspectiva de la retorica comparada. EnglishThe philosopher Han Feizi lived during the Warring States period (c. 280-233 BC). His work, of a neatly political character, representative of the Legist school, inspired Qin Shihuang, First Emperor and China&...