Liu Zongyuan
773-819 · Classical Confucianism · Obscure
Liu Zongyuan was a Tang essayist, poet and statesman who helped lead the return to plain classical prose, then split with Han Yu in public over the sky. Heaven has no consciousness and no will, he wrote. It rewards no virtue and punishes no vice, and it is earth and air and vital force and nothing more. When a state falls apart, look for human causes, because there are no others to find.
Signature
The position Liu Zongyuan is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Meaning
- strongly leans Constructed
- Theology
- Other
Positions on the 3 axes the sources answer
- Meaning
- strongly leans Constructed (5 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (17 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (80 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
17 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Liu Zongyuan refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Other
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Other
What is your ideal form of government? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority?