Wang Chong (27 – c. 100 CE): key ideas and works

Wang Chong was born in 27 CE, by his own account, in Kuaiji on China’s east coast, into a family with a reputation for trouble. Too poor for a conventional education, he is said to have read books at the booksellers’ stalls. He held minor official posts but, disenchanted with “common morals and beliefs”, withdrew to write, and declined a summons to court late in his life. The essays of his only surviving work, the Balanced Discussions, were probably compiled between 70 and 80 CE.

Much of the Balanced Discussions criticises the views of other philosophers and popular superstitions, so Wang has often been read as a sceptic and a materialist. Yet he also offered constructive accounts of method, of how heaven and earth work spontaneously, and of destiny. His influence in his own time was slight; interest revived with Qing scholars in the nineteenth century and grew in the twentieth, in China and in the West, where his naturalism and his opposition to superstition drew new attention.

Key ideas

Questioning and challenging

Teachings should be judged by whether they are true and useful, not by whether they come from the ancients. Wang tested the claims of texts and of common belief by questioning and challenging them, and argued that true words are plain and direct.

Heaven acts without intent

Heaven (tian) is not an agent. It gives forth qi spontaneously (ziran), and everything in nature arises from qi in the same unwilled way, so thunder, earthquakes and eclipses are not Heaven rewarding or punishing anyone.

There are no ghosts

At death the animating qi leaves the body, which decays; without a body, how could the dead appear in bodily form? And if the dead became ghosts, they would far outnumber the living and be seen everywhere.

Destiny, not desert

Success and long life depend on one’s destiny (ming) and the qi received at birth, not on talent or virtue. Confucius, the most talented of all, failed in his career; and whether people behave well depends largely on whether they have enough to eat.

Wang Chong

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