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Warfare: The Test Of Human Nature, Paulee Fogleman

BYU Asian Studies Journal

A common theme many Chinese philosophers explore and debate is the state of human nature and how one can best follow the Way. Bryan W. Van Norden, a scholar of Chinese philosophy, explains that the early Chinese thinkers were looking for the Dao, or the “right way to live one’s life and organize society,” also known as the “ultimate metaphysical entity that was responsible for the way the world is and the way that it ought to be.”1 As the philosophers of the “Hundred Schools of Thought” sought to explain the chaotic time that was the Warring States period (475–221 …