Ancient · c. 6th c. BC
Who did Laozi influence?
Students and legacy
The Old Master of the Daodejing — wu wei, the soft overcoming the hard.
Laozi influenced Zhuangzi. That is 1 line of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: White whirlwind, Public domain See the whole map
Who was Laozi?
Laozi, also known as Li Er or Lao Dan, is the name tradition gives to the author or first teacher of the Tao Te Ching, one of the founding texts of Taoism. Traditional accounts place him in the state of Chu in the 6th century BC, make him a keeper of archives at the Zhou court and an elder contemporary of Confucius. Modern scholars are divided: some think him largely legendary, others find a historical Lao Dan plausible.
Generally regarded as a founder of Taoism, he was claimed as an ancestor by the Tang dynasty and honoured as the forefather of the Li surname. Religious Taoism came to worship him as Laojun, a divine form of the Tao, and the Tao Te Ching shaped Chinese philosophy, religion, literature and political thought.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who did Laozi influence?
1 thinker on this map draws directly on Laozi.
- Zhuangzi c. 369–286 BC
Contemporaries of Laozi
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Laozi, with no direct line between them.
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Xenophanes c. 570–478 BC
- Anaximenes of Miletus c. 586–526 BC
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Theano 6th c. BC
Laozi by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 0
- Direct followers
- 1
- Thinkers upstream
- 0
- Thinkers downstream
- 1
- Wikipedia languages
- 154 — #6 of 54 among ancient philosophers
- Card rarity
- Legendary
Schools and lineages
- Non-Western: Confucius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Mencius, Xunzi, Nagarjuna, Adi Shankara, Ramanuja, Dōgen, Kitarō Nishida, Muhammad Iqbal
Questions about Laozi
- Who influenced Laozi?
- No earlier thinker on this map is recorded as a direct influence on Laozi.
- Who did Laozi influence?
- Zhuangzi.
- When did Laozi live?
- c. 6th c. BC. The map files Laozi under the ancient world.
- How rare is the Laozi card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Laozi in 154 languages, which makes it a Legendary card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More ancient philosophers
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Aristotle 384–322 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Cicero 106–43 BC
- Thales of Miletus c. 624–546 BC
- Marcus Aurelius AD 121–180