China: Xun Kuang, also known as Xun Zi (c. 313-238 BCE), Confucian scholar of the...

Xun Kuang was a Chinese Realist Confucian philosopher who lived during the Warring States period and contributed to one of the Hundred Schools of Thought. A book known as the Xunzi, an influential collection of essays, is traditionally attributed to him. Xunzi witnessed the chaos surrounding the fall of the Zhou dynasty and rise of the Qin state-which upheld legalistic doctrines focusing on state control, by means of law and penalties. Xunzi's variety of Confucianism therefore has a darker, more pragmatic flavour than the optimistic Confucianism of Mencius, who tended to view humans as innately good. Like Shang Yang, Xunzi believed that man's inborn tendencies were evil, and that ethical norms had been invented to rectify mankind.