Study Of The Biography Of Xianqin Philosophers In The Historical Record

In the biography of the Xianqin philosophers in Sima Qian’s works the Historical Record,there are2parts of the content,one is the recording of philosophers’life story,the other is the comment of the philosophers’achievement of the academic research.In their life stories,the philosophers were often devected to writing books after meeting with many setbacks,this reflect Sima Qian’sliterature thought of making effert to write books. Sima Qian’s added marvelous elements to the philosophers’life stories,he also made a summary of every philosophers’theory,listed his achievement and showed its historical background to the researchers in order to make convenient for their study. Sima Qian wrote a biography for Confucius alone and and defined it as the biography of the dukes or princes under emperor,while he wrote collected biographirs for other philosophers.By this way, Sima Qian showed his respection to the important position in the history of Confucius and his understanding of the theory of scriptures in Xihan dynasty. Sima Qian combined the biographies of different philosophers who had the same theory,in order to reflect the real situation of the philosophy in Xianqin era.The biographies of the Xianqin philosophers show the readers that there is some humanism thought in Sima Qian’s works.They also show readers the use of the antagornism and unify of one and much in literary works.In these biographies, Sima Qian studied the origin and development of the Xianqin philosophers and showed his own philosophy thought.For the reflecting of the real situation of the Xianqin philosophy,these biographies are very useful for the studying of the Xianqin philosophers now.After Sima Qian,some scholors,such as Liu Xiang,Liu Xin and Ban Gu also learned from his biographies of Xianqin philosophers in their works.