Xu Xing (; c. 372 – c. 289 BC) was a

Chinese philosopher Chinese philosophy (simplified Chinese: 中国哲学; traditional Chinese: 中國哲學) refers to the philosophical traditions that originated and developed within the historical and cultural context of China. It encompasses systematic reflec ...

and one of the most notable advocates of the egalitarian political philosophy of

agriculturalism Agriculturalism, also known as the School of Agrarianism, the School of Agronomists, the School of Tillers, and in Chinese as the ''Nongjia'' (), was an early Agrarianism, agrarian Chinese philosophy that advocated peasant utopian communalism and ...

. With a group of followers he settled in the state of Teng in about 315 BC. A disciple of his visited the Confucian philosopher

Mencius Mencius (孟子, ''Mèngzǐ'', ; ) was a Chinese Confucian philosopher, often described as the Second Sage () to reflect his traditional esteem relative to Confucius himself. He was part of Confucius's fourth generation of disciples, inheriting ...

, and a short report of their conversation discussing Xu Xing's philosophy survives.

References

4th-century BC Chinese philosophers Agriculturalism Chinese political philosophers Philosophers from Shandong Zhou dynasty philosophers 370s BC births 280s BC deaths {{china-philosopher-stub