Mixed School (Chinese philosophy)

The term Za 雜 is applied to several texts in the Hanshu's bibliographical catalogue.^[5] The Hanshu's bibliography is based on the text Seven Summaries (including that of Zajia), written by imperial librarian Liu Xin.^[6] Several school summaries were earlier written by Sima Tan.^[7][8]

As translated modernly, Za could mean "mixed", "combined", "eclectic", or "miscellaneous".^[5] The Lüshi Chunqiu's translators John Knoblox and Jeffrey Riegel (2001) considered a translation of "mixed school" accurate, but not "eclectic", "syncretic" or "miscellaneous". Preceding translation, Mark Edward Lewis believed that the term Za indicated syncretist texts, but still translated it as "mixed" or "combined".^[5]

Sinologist Goldin (2005) did not consider syncretism an accurate interpretation of the Huainanzi. The Huainanzi considers Confucianism and Mohism to have important ideas for a ruler. But it also has anti-Confucian and anti-Mohist positions.^[9]

The Lüshi Chunqiu's translators John Knoblox and Jeffrey Riegel considered the Lüshi Chunqiu and Huainanzi to be more accurately understood within the context of early arguments about the relations between man, government, and the cosmos. While later termed as "mixed-school" texts, they would arguably have been understood this way anciently.^[14] As translated by Graham, while Liu Xin describes the texts as "combining" the different schools, he moreover praises them for perceiving that "everything in royal government is interconnected", mainly criticizing them as lacking focus.^[6]

Leading up to the modern Huainanzi translation (2010), while influential in earlier scholarship, Sinologist Goldin (2005) rejected a syncretist interpretation of the Huainanzi as simply a "confluence of Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism", in favor of an authoritarian, ruler-centered interpretation. It represents an "amalgam of various philosophical schools" inasmuch as it includes some of their material, otherwise using them as source material. It considers people important as a basis for monarchism. It states that Confucius and Mozi have broad understanding, but are not always as useful as people who live in mountains, ride on horses, or navigate little boats.^[15]

Later included in the Daozang, or Daoist canon, the Huainanzi differs from Daoism as later understood.^[16] However, also earlier argued by Huainanzi translator John Major, it was still very influential in scholarship to interpret the Huainanzi within the context of the (Huang-Lao) Daoist tradition, albeit with differing understandings of Daoism. Centering scholarship surrounding the new translations, the Huainanzi's modern translators included it as a "third" remaining interpretation following eclecticism and the new scholarship.^[5]

While not lumped under Zajia, the Zhuangzi also includes what can be called an intellectual history,^[17] incorporating figures from the later-termed school of names.^[18] Sima Qian saw Zhuang Zhou, or the Zhuangzi, as "eclectic" in the sense that "there was nothing that his learning did not probe into."^[19] Sima's Lu Buwei Biography in the Shiji says that the Lushi chunqiu was compiled to provide a “complete account of Heaven and Earth, the myriad things, and the affairs of past and present."^[20]

At the center of the classical discourse was Dao Way or Method of doing, a concept containing fa or "norms, patterns, and methods", developing towards definitions, rules, and laws.^[21] Such focuses would also describe Mozi,^[22] later included in the Daoist canon.^[23] Syncretism marks the late Warring States period, characterizing what was later described as Huang-Lao, or (Yellow Emperor) Daoism as originally defined in the early Shiji.^[24] In these terms, Daoism, more specifically Huang-Lao, would theoretically describe the political and intellectual milieu continuing into the Qin and Han dynasties, becoming entangled with authoritarian Confucianism and Legalism.^[25]

The term "syncretism" was used by A.C. Graham in older scholarship. Liu Xiaogan, as a traditional Chinese scholar, still prefers Huang-Lao or Yellow Emperor and Laozi (Daoism).^[12] While neither the terms "syncretism", "Daoism", or "Huang-Lao" existed in the Warring States period,^[12][26][27] there at at least three Yellow Emperor stories in the Zhuangzi treating him as a Daoist master, so that traditional terms like Huang-Lao are not based on nothing.^[12] While it would be an exaggeration to say that only Laozi and Zhuang Zhou are focused on Dao,^[22] the term Daoism is descriptive.^[25]

Seven chapters of the Zhuangzi draw on different schools and so could be called syncretic, but that is how Sima Tan (originally) defined Daoism.^[28] As used by the Confucians for the Lüshi Chunqiu and Huainanzi, Zajia syncretism splits off 'syncretic' texts that could otherwise be interpreted in relation to a concept of ('syncretic') political Daoism (Daojia) in the Shiji, including notable quantities of content that could be called Daoist. Their two texts can be understood as seeking to comprehensively incorporate, or syncretize, all knowledge of their time, a defining feature held in common with the Daoistic Shiji.^[26]

The term Zajia would theoretically transplant syncretism as an original defining feature of Daoism in the Shiji under a new categorical term.^[26] The division would theoretically enlarge the appearance of a discrete Confucianism by dividing and concretizing other categories,^[29] specifically Daoism. Sima Tan does the same when he names the schools to argue for the superiority of Daoism.^[30]

Liu Xin says in the Book of Han:^[10]

"Those of the Eclectic school had their origin in the Councillors. They drew both from the Confucianists and the Mohists, and harmonized the School of Names and the Legalists. They knew that the nation had need of each of these, and saw that kingly government should not fail to unite all. Herein lies the strong point of this school."

As it is known today, the Shizi does contain much Confucian material^[31] but differs from Han-state orthodox Confucianism.^[2] The description articulates a "syncretic" categorical term other than the categorical term "Daoism".^[26]

Several early chapters in the Huainanzi essentially present the worldview of early Han intellectuals,^[16] dominated by Lüshi Chunqiu content,^[32] though the broader Huainanzi is strongly influenced by the Daoist Zhuangzi and Laozi texts.^[2] Insisting on the value of trust over either law, rewards, or penalties, Griet Vankeerberghen considered the Confucianism of Gongsun Hong reminiscent of Huang-Lao ideology, like that of the Daoistic Huainanzi, the book of his opponents.^[33] Both are syncretistic; one is simply defined as Confucianism.^[2]

Though the Zhuangzi is taken as having been compiled in the late Warring States period, more specific anti-state doctrines in the Zhuangzi tended to quickly lose control of political discourse.^[34] The Huainanzi arguably uses Laozi and Zhuangzi more as founders of "themes" for its own religious political ideology, which characterizes Daoism in the Shiji.^[35][25] Possibly, the term Daoism (Daojia) was originally coined with the Laozi-Zhuangzi eclecticism of the Huainanzi in mind, or it is in those terms at least comparable to the definition of Daojia in the Shiji.^[36]

Though the Huainanzi came to be considered an important philosophical text, as texts later labeled "syncretist", they did not achieve the status of classics or other Confucian texts,^[37] becoming syncretist rather than Daoist.^[26] The Confucians gradually came to sometimes consider the Huainanzi a Daoist classic using Laozi and Zhuangzi,^[35] coming to be seen more specifically as "eclectic Daoist" and ultimately incorporated in the Daozang.^[37]