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Zhuangzi


Philosopher.

Zhuangzi was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE during the Warring States Period, a period corresponding to the philosophical summit of Chinese thought — the Hundred Schools of Thought, and is credited with writing—in part or in whole—a work known by his name, the Zhuangzi. His name Zhuangzi (English "Master Zhuang", with Zi being an honorific) is sometimes spelled Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chuang Tzu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze.

Zhuangzi said the world "does not need governing; in fact it should not be governed," and, "Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone." Murray Rothbard called him "perhaps the world's first anarchist".


Sources:

1.) Joseph Needham (1956). "The Sceptical Tradition". Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 2, History of Scientific Thought. Cambridge University Press. p. 366. ISBN 9780521058001. "During the Han, Confucianism separated into two rather sharply contrasting currents. 'When Confucianism was established as a "State religion" in the —2nd century, it was not agnostic Confucianism, but theistic Mohism in a Confucian disguise. And when Taoism as a religion arose in the + 2nd century, it was no longer the naturalism and atheism of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, but theistic Mohism together with a thousand superstitious features from the religion of the common people' (Hu Shih, 4)."

2.) Women of China, Issues 1-3; Issues 5-12. Foreign Language Press. 2001. "Zhuangzi was an atheist who did not believe in any god. If cremation was available in his time, Zhuangzi would have been strongly in favor of it."

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