page_title: Taoist philosophy
section_title: Early sources
hierarchical_section_title: Taoist philosophy / Early sources
caption_attribution_description: English: Birth places of notable Chinese philosophers of the Hundred Schools of Thoughts in the Zhou dynasty. 中文: 諸子百家出生地
context_page_description: Taoist philosophy also known as Taology refers to the various philosophical currents of Taoism, a tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. The Tao is a mysterious and deep principle that is the source, pattern and substance of the entire universe.
  Throughout its history, Taoist philosophy has emphasized concepts like wu wei, ziran, yin and yang, Ch'i, Wu, and personal cultivation through meditation and other spiritual practices. Taoism differs from Confucianism in putting more emphasis on physical and spiritual cultivation and less emphasis on political organization.
  Since the initial stages of Taoist thought, there have been varying schools of Taoist philosophy and they have drawn from and interacted with other philosophical traditions such as Confucianism and Buddhism. While scholars have sometimes attempted to separate "Taoist philosophy" from "Taoist religion", there was never really such a separation. Taoist texts and the literati and Taoist priests that wrote and commented on them never made the distinction between "religious" and "philosophical" ideas, particularly those related to metaphysics and ethics.
context_section_description: Compared to other philosophical traditions, Taoist philosophy is quite heterogeneous. According to Russell Kirkland, "Taoists did not generally regard themselves as followers of a single religious community that shared a single set of teachings, or practices." Instead of drawing on a single book or the works of one founding teacher, Taoism developed out a widely diverse set of Chinese beliefs and texts, that over time were gathered together into various synthetic traditions. These texts had some things in common, especially ideas about personal cultivation and integration with what they saw as the deep realities of life.
  The first group consciously identifying itself as "Taoist" (dàojiào) appeared and began to collect texts during the fifth century BCE. Their collection of Taoist texts did not initially include classics typically considered to be "Taoist" like the Tao Te Ching and the Zhuangzi. Only after a later expansion of the canon did these texts become included.
  The legend of the "person" Laozi was developed during the Han dynasty and has no historical validity. Likewise the labels Taoism and Confucianism were developed during the Han dynasty by scholars to group together various thinkers, and texts of the past and categorize them as "Taoist", even though they are quite diverse and their authors may never have known of each other. Thus, while there was never a coherent "school" of "classical Taoism" during the pre-Han eras, later self identified Taoists (c. 500 BCE) were influenced by streams of thought, practices and frameworks inherited from the period of the hundred schools of thought (6th century to 221 BCE). According to Russell Kirkland, these independent influences include:
  Mohism, which might have influenced the Taoist idea of "Great Peace" seen in later works like the Taipingjing
  Several divergent Confucian schools and their ideas of personal development and Tao.
  Several “Legalist” theorists, such as Shen Pu-hai, who spoke of Tao and wu wei and Han Fei, whose work explicates some parts of the Tao Te Ching
  The murky groups who produced the ideas of yin and yang and the “Five Forces” (wu-hsing).
  Ideas associated with official practitioners of divination and the I-Ching
  Early versions of independent texts like the Nei-yeh, the Lüshi Chunqiu, the Zhuangzi, and the Tao Te Ching.
caption: Birth places of notable Chinese philosophers from Hundred Schools of Thought in Zhou Dynasty.
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