The Easy Governing of the Sage Ruler — On the Political Thoughts of Shen Tao
Author: Ya-tang Hsu
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
Shen Tao have always been looked as a transient thinker between the Taoistsand the Legalists, and owing to the incompleteness of his writings, he had beenpassed over for a long time. Recently there have some changes, but the discussionsabout Shen Tao seems too little or too much, the text hopes to treat his fragmentarywritings more wholly and more honestly.Just like the Confucius’ ardent conviction that there exists certain constancies ofhuman sociopolitical order, Shen Tao’ conviction builds up on the Lao-tzu’ politicalimagination of wu-wei (無為). The originality and uniqueness of Shen Tao’political thoughts lies in these ideas: act for oneself according to the situations、theantithesis of public / private and men of worth / men of power、the theory of“utilities”、society as a structure of stringent functional specificity etc. So withoutclaiming that Shen Tao is the father of Legalism in all its aspects, it is indeed mostremarkable to discern how many of the themes of Legalism are touched upon by himin these ideas. Shen Tao is far more influential than is expected.