Scholars › Philosopher / Thinker
Han Feizi
Late Warring States prince of Han and student of Xunzi whose writings joined law, statecraft and positional power into one Legalist theory
Mural of the event “Hundred Schools Contention”, which this person took part in.
At the turn of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods the rites collapsed and the old patrilineal social order gradually fragmented. The rise of private academies offered commoner scholars an unprecedented public arena to debate politics and life.
Also known as Han Fei · Gong Zifei
Han Feizi, or Han Fei, was one of the princes of the state of Han in the late Warring States period, and studied under Xunzi alongside Li Si. The biography in the *Records of the Grand Historian* (*Shiji*) says he stammered but wrote well, and that after his memorials to the King of Han went unheeded he wrote over a hundred thousand words, including 'Solitary Indignation', 'The Five Vermin' and 'The Difficulties of Persuasion'. Reading the first two, King Zheng of Qin said he could die content if he could meet the author. In 233 BC Han Fei came to Qin as an envoy; Li Si and Yao Jia slandered him, he was imprisoned, and Li Si sent him poison to take his own life. The *Book of Han* (*Hanshu*) bibliography lists the *Hanzi* in fifty-five chapters under the Legalists. Sima Qian closed the biography regretting that the author of 'The Difficulties of Persuasion' could not save himself.
Life and times
Dates c. 280 BCE–233 BCE
- 500 BCEHundred Schools ContentionTook part