Han Fei 韓非
Birthplace	State of Han
Occupation	philosopher

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Han Fei

(also Han Fei-tzu). Born 288 B.C.; died 233 B.C. A founder of the Legist school (Fa-chia) in ancient China.

An official in the Ch’in state, Han Fei wrote most of the chapters of the treatise Han Fei-tzu, which focused on the problems of managing an administrative apparatus. As a supporter of despotic government, Han Fei developed a series of specific measures designed to limit the rights of the bureaucracy. According to the treatise, “under no circumstances should a ruler share power with anyone. If he yields to civil servants so much as a grain of his power, they will immediately turn this grain into one hundred grains” (ch. 31). Han Fei’s ideas greatly influenced the world view of the emperor Shih Huang-ti.

REFERENCE

Drevnekitaiskaia filosofiia, vol. 2. Moscow, 1973.

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References in periodicals archive

Like Hayek, the great legalist scholar Han Fei Tzu (3rd century, B.C.), thought that "order without direction" required firm rules to guide individual behavior.

CHINA'S FUTURE DEVELOPMENT: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

The value of jade can be established from the various stories and legends, the most famous of which is 'Returning the Jade Disc Intact to Zhao State' in Han Fei zi, by Han Fei (d.

In praise of Jade

Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei. New York: Springer, 2013.

Abolish the past, reinventing the history: the historical writing of Hanfeizi in China, 3rd century BC/Abolir o passado, reinventar a historia: a escrita historica de Hanfeizi na China do seculo III a.C

Xunzi and Han Fei on Human Nature, ALEJANDRO BARCENAS

International Philosophical Quarterly: June 2012, Vol. 52, No. 2

Compared with other distinguished students of this famous scholar, Li Si [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and Han Fei [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], Fuqiu was a rather obscure figure.

Excavating the genealogy of classical studies in the western Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-8 C.E.)

The horrid doctrines of Legalism attained their finished form in the teaching of Han Fei Tzu (280-233 B.C.).

The uses of quietism

Machiavellian thinkers such as Han Fei (ancient China), Kautilya (ancient India) and Machiavelli himself are discussed along with the unscrupulous deeds of great princes, kings or emperors as rulers and conquerors in their various cultural and historical contexts.

Amoral Politics: The Persistent Truth of Machiavellism

Along the way Fu presents biographical sketches of prominent Legalists, including Guan Zhong, Li Kui, Wu Qi, Shen Dao, Shen Buhai, Shang Yang, Li Si, and Han Fei. As Fu wryly notes, several of these well-known figures fell prey to the very same Machiavellian techniques and draconian policies they themselves had devised.

China's Legalists: The Earliest Totalitarians and Their Art of Ruling

Han Fei, as a chief theorist of the Legalists, also affirmed that selfishness is human nature.

Egoism: Adam Smith's theory and Chinese traditional ideologies compared

It takes a certain amount of hubris to presume that we today know more about the audience of the Daode jing than the ancient author of those commentaries (whether or not it was Han Fei himself).

Teaching Confucianism

Perhaps Han Fei fits the specifications of an amoral Legalist--but there is a vast difference between the statement that Han Fei is more interested in statecraft than in moral philosophy, and the statement that the Legalisten "curtly rejected" all discourse pertaining to virtue.

Der Weg des Himmels: Zum Geist und zur Gestalt des politischen Denkens im alten China

(28.) For example, I have always been suspicious of the name "Han Fei" [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("Han the Refuter," or conceivably, "The Refuter from Han"), since Han Fei is one of the most elenctic Writers in the history of Chinese philosophy.

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