Episode 21: Xunzi’s Way—Discovered or Invented?

This episode is our first on the classical Confucian philosopher Xunzi 荀子 (3rd century BCE), who was famous for arguing that human nature is bad and for casting doubt on the more supernatural or superstitious justifications for traditional Confucian rituals, among many other things. Since this is the first episode on an important philosopher, we spend some time in part I discussing his "big picture" philosophical worldview. In part II, we turn to the following question: does Xunzi think of the Confucian Way as something that sages discover or invent? A little reflection on this question shows that it has major implications for how we think about ethics and its foundations, and how much ethical values depend on human convention.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Want to skip to the episode's primary philosophical issue? Go to

15:00 Overview of Xunzi, or
30:23 Part II -- Is Xunzi's Way discovered or invented?

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

Chapters

• 0:00 Part I -- Introduction
• 1:48 • Open-ended discussion of trust and expertise in public life these days
• 15:00 • Overview of Xunzi
• 30:23 Part II -- Is Xunzi's Way discovered or invented?
• 37:11 • Featured passage: fording a river
• 41:51 • The problem of the first sage
• 46:23 • Discovered or invented?
• 53:46 • The bridge analogy: some parts invented, some parts discovered
• 1:04:30 • The jazz analogy
• 1:06:47 • The continuity of the tradition (rope analogies)