Most Famous Chinese Philosophers

Chinese philosophy began in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, roughly the sixth through third centuries BC, with the Hundred Schools of Thought, of which Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, and Legalism became the most lasting. Confucius and Mencius established the ethical and political tradition of Confucianism, centered on virtue, ritual, and the cultivation of character; Laozi and Zhuangzi gave Daoism its central texts, with their distinctive accounts of nature, spontaneity, and the limits of language; Mozi argued for impartial concern and consequentialist ethics; and the Legalists Han Feizi and Shang Yang developed a hard-edged philosophy of statecraft. Buddhist philosophy entered China from India in the early centuries AD and was synthesized with native traditions to produce the Chan (Zen) and Huayan schools.

Later periods saw the Neo-Confucianism of Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming, which integrated Buddhist and Daoist ideas with the Confucian inheritance, and the modern Chinese philosophers who reformulated these traditions in dialogue with Western thought. The thinkers below include the founders and major commentators of the Chinese philosophical schools.

Chinese philosophers

Confucius 551 BC – 479 BC · Chinese
Confucius was a Chinese philosopher and political teacher of the Spring and Autumn period. His teachings, recorded by disciples in the Analects, emphasize personal and governmen...
Lao Tzu c. 571 BC – c. 471 BC · Chinese
Lao Tzu, traditionally regarded as the founder of philosophical Taoism, is the legendary author of the Tao Te Ching, one of the most translated works of world literature. Modern...
Mencius 372 BC – 289 BC · Chinese
Mengzi, conventionally known in the West as Mencius, was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the fourth century BC, traditionally regarded as the second sage of the Confucian tra...
Zhuangzi c. 370 BC – c. 287 BC · Chinese
Zhuangzi was a Chinese Taoist philosopher of the fourth century BC, regarded with Lao Tzu as one of the two foundational figures of philosophical Taoism. The book that bears his...
Han Feizi c. 280 BC – 233 BC · Chinese
Han Feizi was a 3rd-century BC Chinese political philosopher and one of the principal founding figures of the Legalist school of philosophy. Drawing on earlier Legalist thinkers...
Mozi c. 470 BC – c. 391 BC · Chinese
Mozi, also known as Mo Di or Master Mo, was a Chinese philosopher of the 5th century BC, founder of the Mohist school of philosophy, the major rival of early Confucianism during...
Sun Tzu 544 BC – 496 BC · Chinese
Sun Tzu was a Chinese strategist of the late Spring and Autumn period, traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War, the earliest and most influential treatise on mili...
Liezi c. 450 BC – c. 375 BC · Chinese
Liezi, also known as Lie Yukou, was a Chinese Taoist philosopher of the fifth century BC, traditionally regarded as one of the three foundational thinkers of philosophical Taois...
Xunzi 310 BC – 235 BC · Chinese
Xunzi was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the late Warring States period and one of the three great classical Confucian thinkers, alongside Confucius and Mencius. Against Men...
Cheng Yi 1033 – 1107 · Chinese
Cheng Yi, with his elder brother Cheng Hao, was one of the founders of the Neo-Confucian School of Principle that would culminate in the synthesis of Zhu Xi. He served briefly a...
Guo Xiang 252 – 312 · Chinese
Guo Xiang was a Chinese philosopher of the Western Jin dynasty and the most important commentator on the Zhuangzi, whose recension of the text became the standard one transmitte...
Linji Yixuan c. 810 – 866 · Chinese
Linji Yixuan was a Chinese Chan Buddhist master of the late Tang dynasty and the founder of the Linji school, the dominant Chan and later Zen lineage in China, Korea, and Japan....
Qin Guli c. 440 BC – c. 370 BC · Chinese
Qin Guli was an early Chinese Mohist philosopher of the late fifth century BC, the principal disciple of Mozi and traditionally his successor as head of the Mohist school. His t...
Wang Bi 226 – 249 · Chinese
Wang Bi was a Chinese philosopher of the Three Kingdoms period and the most important early commentator on the Daode jing and the Yijing. Although he died at twenty-three, his s...
Wang Chong 27 – c. 100 · Chinese
Wang Chong was a Chinese philosopher of the Eastern Han dynasty and one of the most original critical and naturalist thinkers of the classical Chinese tradition. His Lunheng, th...
Yang Zhu c. 440 BC – c. 360 BC · Chinese
Yang Zhu was a Chinese philosopher of the Warring States period, founder of the school traditionally known as the Yangist, who became famous in early Confucian polemic for the d...
Shao Yong 1011 – 1077 · Chinese
Shao Yong was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Northern Song dynasty and one of the founding figures of the new Confucian metaphysics that would shape East Asian thoug...
Dai Zhen 1724 – 1777 · Chinese
Dai Zhen was a Chinese Confucian philosopher and philologist of the High Qing period, the most influential figure of the school of evidential research, or kaozheng, that dominat...
Zhu Xi 1130 – 1200 · Chinese
Zhu Xi was a Chinese philosopher and the most influential exponent of Neo-Confucianism. Drawing on the work of the eleventh-century masters, he synthesized a comprehensive metap...
Cheng Hao 1032 – 1085 · Chinese
Cheng Hao, known as Cheng Mingdao, was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Northern Song dynasty, the elder brother of Cheng Yi and one of the founding figures of the Che...
Hu Shi 1891 – 1962 · Chinese
Hu Shi was a Chinese philosopher, essayist, and diplomat, and a leader of the May Fourth and New Culture movements. After completing his doctorate under John Dewey at Columbia, ...
Yan Yuan 1635 – 1704 · Chinese
Yan Yuan, known as Yan Xizhai, was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the early Qing dynasty and a sharp critic of the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucian establishment of his time. He held...
Zhang Zai 1020 – 1077 · Chinese
Zhang Zai was a Chinese Northern Song Confucian philosopher and one of the founding figures of the Neo-Confucian renaissance. With Zhou Dunyi and the Cheng brothers, he reshaped...
Li Zehou 1930 – 2021 · Chinese
Li Zehou was a Chinese philosopher and aesthetician, the most influential figure of the post-Mao Chinese philosophical scene, who reconstructed the Confucian and Marxist traditi...
Lu Jiuyuan 1139 – 1193 · Chinese
Lu Jiuyuan, also known as Lu Xiangshan, was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Southern Song dynasty and the principal rival of Zhu Xi, whose more rationalist program he...
Wang Yangming 1472 – 1529 · Chinese
Wang Yangming was a 15th and early 16th-century Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher, statesman, and military general of the Ming dynasty, the most influential Confucian thinker of...
Zhiyi 538 – 597 · Chinese
Zhiyi was a Chinese Buddhist philosopher, monk, and the principal founder of the Tiantai school of Mahayana Buddhism, whose lectures at Mount Tiantai in southeastern China set o...
Dong Zhongshu 179 BC – 104 BC · Chinese
Dong Zhongshu was a Chinese Han-dynasty Confucian philosopher and statesman, the principal architect of the imperial Confucianism that, under his recommendation to the emperor W...
Feng Youlan 1895 – 1990 · Chinese
Feng Youlan was a Chinese philosopher and one of the most influential figures in the modern reception of Chinese philosophy. He earned his doctorate at Columbia under John Dewey...
Kang Youwei 1858 – 1927 · Chinese
Kang Youwei was a late-Qing Chinese scholar, reformer, and political philosopher who reimagined Confucianism as a modern civil religion and engine of political transformation. H...
Liang Qichao 1873 – 1929 · Chinese
Liang Qichao was a Chinese reformer, journalist, and philosopher and one of the leading intellectuals of the late Qing and early Republican period. A student of Kang Youwei and ...
Liang Shuming 1893 – 1988 · Chinese
Liang Shuming was a Chinese philosopher, rural reformer, and one of the founders of the New Confucian movement of the twentieth century. After early studies in Buddhism, he turn...
Liu Zongzhou 1578 – 1645 · Chinese
Liu Zongzhou, known as Liu Jishan, was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher and political figure of the late Ming dynasty, the leader of the Donglin movement of moral-political r...
Mou Zongsan 1909 – 1995 · Chinese
Mou Zongsan was a Chinese philosopher and one of the principal representatives of the New Confucian movement of the twentieth century. After studies at Peking University and a l...
Shang Yang c. 390 BC – 338 BC · Chinese
Shang Yang, also known as Lord Shang, was a Chinese statesman and philosopher of the Warring States period, the chief minister of the state of Qin under Duke Xiao, and one of th...
Shen Buhai c. 400 BC – 337 BC · Chinese
Shen Buhai was a Chinese statesman and philosopher of the Warring States period, the chancellor of the small state of Han for fifteen years, and one of the founders of the Legal...
Tan Sitong 1865 – 1898 · Chinese
Tan Sitong was a late-Qing Chinese reformer and philosopher, one of the Six Gentlemen executed after the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898. In his major work A Study o...
Tang Junyi 1909 – 1978 · Chinese
Tang Junyi was a Chinese philosopher and one of the most important figures of the second generation of New Confucianism. After fleeing mainland China in 1949 he co-founded New A...
Wang Tingxiang 1474 – 1544 · Chinese
Wang Tingxiang, known as Wang Junchuan, was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher of the mid-Ming dynasty, a senior official of the imperial court, and the most original Confucian...
Xiong Shili 1885 – 1968 · Chinese
Xiong Shili was a Chinese philosopher and one of the founders of the New Confucian movement of the twentieth century. After early training in classical studies and Yogacara Budd...
Zhou Dunyi 1017 – 1073 · Chinese
Zhou Dunyi was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the Northern Song dynasty and one of the founding figures of the Neo-Confucian tradition that would culminate in Zhu Xi. His Di...