Bào Jìngyán | |
|---|---|
鮑敬言 | |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Citizenship | Jin Empire |
| Occupation(s) | Philosopher, Taoist |
| Known for | Taoism,proto-anarchism |
| Notable work | Neither Lord Nor Subject |
| Part ofa series on |
| Taoism |
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Institutions and organizations |
Bao Jingyan orPao Ching-yen (Chinese:鮑敬言;pinyin:Bào Jìngyán) was aChinese,libertarian/anarchistphilosopher and Taoist[1] who lived somewhere between the late 200's AD and before 400 AD.[2][3]
A successor ofLaozi andZhuang Zhou strain of libertarian Taoism, Pao Ching-yen was, according toEtienne Balazs, "China's first politicalanarchist."[4]
Bao Jingyan was the author of the treatise "Neither Lord Nor Subject", preserved in the Waipian (part of theBaopuzi) of the TaoistGe Hong. The latter has indeed worked to refute Bao's essay. Bao was the first in China to place utopia in the field of politics. Influenced by Zhuangzi's thought, he opposed despotic absolutism.[3] Given the obscurity of Bao Jingyan's person,Jean Levi hypothesized that he could have been the pen name of Ge Hong, who would thus pass subversive theses without taking too many risks, or at the very least that Ge felt a certain sympathy towards these theses.[5] But this claim does not fit well with his Confucian-legalist political philosophy and criticisms of the disorderly political consequences of Lao-Zhuang political discourse.[6]
