Abstract:
I once pointed out that Xunzi evolved the rules of propriety incorporating fa(法), xing(刑) and shi(势), which were the political concepts of the Legalists (Fajia法家) before Xunzi. In this paper I discussed that Sorai learned the political thought of Xunzi through editing and annotating Reading Xunzi, just like Xunzi built up the rules of propriety according to an early version of Legalism. Therefore, it is presumable that Sorai followed Xunzi’s li(ritual and social norm) when he established his own philosophical concept of Dao(道). Furthermore, it is valuable to remark how the philosophical thought of Xunzi has permeated over East Asia, as well as, how Sorai has been evaluated in the intellectual history of Japan. I appended a note on the preceding studies of the relationship between them for these twentyfive years, describing the process from the idea of li in the thought of Xunzi to that of Dao in Sorai.
