Philosopher File: Guan Zhong
The roots of Chinese Legalist philosophy
Guan Zhong was one of China’s earliest named philosophers. A sharp political operator, he rose from poverty to become Chancellor of the state of Qi. He is associated in particular with the philosophy of legalism.
Life
Guan Zhong (720–645 BCE) is one of the earliest named Chinese philosophers. He became Chancellor in the state of Qi, and was the traditionally cited as the author of a book called the Guanzi (or ‘Master Guan’), a vast treatise on statecraft, economics, politics and philosophy.
However, the evidence is that early versions of the Guanzi probably date back only to the second century BCE, and the text as it has come down to us was complied in the first century BCE by a scholar called Liu Xiang. This means that almost no material in the Guanzi can be reliably said to be authored by Guan Zhong. Nevertheless, the fact that such a vast, sprawling treatise on politics, economics and philosophy should be attributed to Guan Zhong shows his symbolic importance as a political thinker for later generations.
Guan and Bao
One of the main sources for Guan Zhong’s life is the Shiji or the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, completed around five hundred years after Guan’s death.
