Shen Dao
Shen Dao was a mid Warring states period Chinese philosopher and writer. Noteworthy as a predecessor influencing both Han Fei and Daoism, his remaining fragments are the most substantial of any Jixia Academy scholar. In connection with the flourishing academy, he may have been well known, with early in references in the Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, and Huangdi Sijing, potentially influencing the Guanzi.
As introduced by Feng Youlan, Shen Dao was early remembered modernly for his influence on the Han Feizi, most notably chapter 40, with regards the concept of shi. Sima Qian discusses Shen Dao with Jixia academy scholars, taking him as rooted in Huang-Lao. Classified by the Confucian archivists as Legalist together with others from the Han Feizi, he shares some comparable early administrative ideas with them, and may earlier have been the most well known of them.
Xun Kuang criticized Shen Buhai as more focused on power, and Shen Dao as "obsessed by fa." Most of Shen Dao's work would appear to have concerned fa, a concept including administrative methods and standards as including laws, advocating that reward and punishment be based in fa rather than the ruler's judgements.
Making some discussion of law, in his time, Shen Dao argued the value of laws that are not good over no laws as still contributing to a more equitable distribution of goods and properties, preventing resentment. But he does prefer good laws, advocating that punishment and reward be proportionate rather than extreme. He still bases the appointment of tasks and officials in the ruler's discretion; Shen Buhai and Han Fei tried to base appointment in administrative method.
Although discussing reward and punishment like the more legalistic Shang Yang, he was otherwise more focused on administration, advocating their distribution through both laws and impartial administrative mechanisms. This tendency in some ways makes him him more comparable with administrator Shen Buhai. With Shen Dao early more well known, it is possible one might have known of or even influenced the other, but less likely either were familiar with Shang Yang, with the Han Feizi Shang Yang's first reference.
Text
Thompson states that the Shenzi was available until the fall of the Tang dynasty, though not in its original edition. Shen Dao's own original 42 essays have been lost. With only 7 fragments still extant, he is known largely through short references and the writings of others, notably the Han Feizi and Zhuangzi. A critical reconstruction of the lost Shenzi was made by Paul Thompson, and published in 1979 as The Shen Tzu Fragments.In 2007, the Shanghai Museum published a collection of texts written on bamboo slips from the state of Chu dating to the Warring States period, including six bamboo slips with sayings of Shenzi. These are the only known examples of the text of Shenzi that are contemporaneous with its composition.
Xun Kuang considered Shen's style grandiose.
Dating
Usually referred to as "Shenzi" for his writings, very little is known of Shen Dao's life; translator Eirik Lang Harris' introductory discussion of his life only recalls the brief references of the Xunzi and Shiji.An itinerant philosopher from the state of Zhao, David R. Knechtges placed him about 350 BC, travelling to the city of Linzi in 300 BC to become a member of the Jixia Academy. He probably left Linzi after its capture by the state of Yan in 285 BC. The general round dating of 350-275 bce was theorized by the early modern scholar Ch'ien Mu; translator Thomphson placed him a decade earlier, 360-285 bce, which Harris still used modernly.
Herrlee G. Creel speculated that he was a younger contemporary of Shen Buhai, with Vitali Rubi speculating that Shen Buhai's ideas on power may have come from Shen Dao. Julia Ching instead speculated that Shen Dao may have been familiar with Shen Buhai. Given Shen Dao's references, it's more plausible he was earlier the more well known figure.
Dating (continued)
Although these dating regarded Shen Dao as the younger figure, S.Y. Hsieh regarded Shen Dao's administrative ideas as less complex than Shen Buhai's. As Sinologist Hansen notes, the Han Feizi discusses Shen Dao before Shang Yang and Shen Buhai in the outer chapters, Han Fei admitting him as worth discussing at least "for mediocre rulers".However, as Hansen argued, such an evaluation understates his relevance for theoretical interpretations of the work. As stated by Korean scholar Soon-Ja Yang: "It is Shen Dao who pointed out that political power or authority takes precedence over other individual capabilities in achieving political control." Han Fei likely has no choice but to discuss political ideas already established by Shen Dao.
With the discovery of the Mawangdui silk texts, and content from Shen Dao contained in the Huangdi Sijing, Chinese scholars again advocated the traditional idea of an early Huang-Lao current influencing such later thinkers. Although it is doubtful that their ideas go back Spring and Autumn period, it can reasonably be supposed that some such ideas could predate Ch'ien Mu's theoretical placement of Shen Dao's figure, back to the early fourth century BCE, which is not that far behind.
Shen Dao and Laozi
Taking Shen Dao as a relevant background for the development of the Tao Te Ching, Chad Hansen viewed Shen Dao's morally neutral naturalism as a development of the type of thinking earlier seen in Mencius and the early Mohists. The Later Mohists moved away from an emphasis on heaven or nature. Hansen takes Shen Dao beginning to emphasize a concept of Dao or Way over nature.Less metaphysical in practice, and more concerned with the practical human world than the "inner workings of heaven and earth", translator Harris took Shen Dao's 'naturalism' as developing in the direction of the Tao te Ching and Huang-Lao typified texts. Not focusing on the idea of Dao in a cosmic sense in his fragments, Shen Dao nonetheless espouses a "Way of Heaven."
Whichever came first, Shen Dao and Laozi are at least comparable, including concepts of rule by a wu wei semi-inactive ruler, as illustrated by translator Emerson. Xun Kuang also later "stresses the indifference of Heaven and Earth to human concerns."
Zhuangzi proto-Daoism
Although the Han Feizi would generally be considered authoritarian, figures like Shen Dao were not necessarily more authoritarian for their time. Advocating that the ruler rely on administrative machinery to impartially determine rewards and punishments, rather than decide them himself, Shen Dao otherwise advocates that the realm be literally modeled off the natural world. Compared with the "mature Daoism" of the Zhuangzi, Hansen and Harris considered Shen Dao more fatalist. But it is a fatalism more in the sense of believing that things cannot necessarily be changed before their time. Not that the way things are is necessarily "right."Making use of the term "Dao" without cosmological or metaphysical reference, the Shenzi serves as noteworthy precursor to both Daoism and Han Fei. Posthumously, he is also sometimes classified as Taoist. The Zhuangzi uses the term "the Great Clod" as a term for the "sum total of reality", but appears to quote Shen Dao when it says: "A clod of earth does not err with regard to the Tao." Taking his "fundamental" principle as the "equality of all things", as opposed to the egoist Yang Zhu, the Zhuangzi characterizes Shen Dao as impartial and lacking selfishness, his great way embracing all things, so that Wang Fuzhi speculated its chapter on "Seeing Things as Equal" was actually written by Shen Dao.
Benjamin I. Schwartz characterized Shen Dao's convictions as Daoisticly indifferent. Likening him to the 'inert passive clod' described in the last chapters of the Zhuangzi, Schwartz takes him as seeing the impersonal structures of political authority and human society as expressions of the spontaneous Dao in human civilization. Shen Dao rejects individual judgment, moral agents, sages, and, like other figures of the fa school, the "subjective intentionality of noble men." By contrast, Han Fei does not completely disregard the role of great men.
Schwarz speculated that Shen Dao's philosophy similarly involves a ruler free from the turbulence of emotion or moral responsibility. However, Shen Dao has still modernly been argued to be at least "not fully untethered from a moral grounding", and does still seem to have some moral grounding. The concept of Dao itself typically implies a morally grounded Way, even if Shen Dao's fragments do not fill in all the blanks. Shen Dao does not argue that a ruler should always take actions which benefit the state order or people. But he does argue that goods like an orderly state will benefit the people, if the ruler desires such things.
Yuri Pines does not consider the Han Feizi's discussion of Shen Dao itself amoral; catering to average rulers, Han Fei's system does not cater to "moral paragons", but it does not cater to "monstrous tyrants" either. Quoting from the Guanzi:
Relying on circumstances (Shi)
Shi is a not historically simply a Legalist or Totalitarian idea: before Han Fei, Mencius also discusses Shi. Arguably, it includes ideas that can traced back to philosophical founders like Confucius and Mozi. In particular, Léon Vandermeersch takes the idea of preeminence or sovereignty, as found in the Han Feizi's Chapter 40 discussion of Shi and Shen Dao, as already present in Mohism, and indeed as one of the most characteristic Chinese conceptions of sovereignty, developing an idea of power as established by man.In contrast to Han Fei and the Later Mohists, Sinologist Hansen views the earlier Shen Dao as having only just begun to move away from an emphasis on heaven, or nature, towards a concept of Dao the Way. As opposed to Han Fei, Shen Dao's fragments approve relying on nature, including illustrations of relying on water, which translator Harris takes as "reminding us" that the natural world has recognizable "qualities and patterns", whose actions can be predicted once understood.
Although Han Fei discusses Shen Dao in relation to power, Shen Dao's earlier conception of shi was not a naked concept of power. In contrast to Han Fei's "power founded by men", Shen Dao's power was still one based in "relying on circumstances", such as nature, which corresponds with the Zhuangzi's discussion of him. Both discussions of him use the same kind of imagery of being "tossed" or "driven" by the wind.
First quoted in Chapter 36, Chapter 40's discussion of Shen Dao also quotes a halberd-and-shield parable from the Zhuangzi.
Shen Dao might have influenced a later chapter of the Book of Lord Shang, though there is not enough evidence to demonstrate its discussion of shi came from him.