Philosophers
Laozi
LAO-dzuh
Also Known As Lao Tzu
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A figure traditionally credited as the author of the Tao Te Ching and the founder of philosophical Daoism, said in later legend to have served as an archivist at the Zhou dynasty royal court, to have been an older contemporary of Confucius, and to have ridden west out of China on an ox in old age, pausing at a border pass only long enough to write down his teaching before disappearing. Whether a single historical author lies behind this legend is itself an open scholarly question distinct from the standing of the text: most modern scholars read the Tao Te Ching as a compilation of aphorisms and verses assembled from multiple hands over generations rather than composed at one sitting by one person, though the traditional name remains how the text and the tradition it founds are known.
See the open question recorded on this entity for the historicity debate.
Facts
Disputed
Birth Year604 BCE
604 BCE is the traditional legendary date. Most modern textual scholarship doubts a single sixth century BCE author; see the open question recorded on this entity. TraditionClassical Chinese philosophy, Daoism 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Zhuangzi, Philosophers Why this is disputed. Zhuangzi is traditionally read as extending Laozi's thought, but the historical relationship between the two, and even whether Laozi was a single person, is unresolved; see the open question recorded on Laozi.
In Branch
Traditions Founded
Works Attributed
Why this is disputed. Attribution rests on tradition; most modern textual scholarship reads the work as a compilation from multiple hands rather than a single author's composition.
Sources
Open Questions (1 open question)
Was There a Single Historical Laozi?
The Tao Te Ching's own textual history is genuinely contested: some accept the traditional account of a single sixth century BCE author who served at the Zhou court, while most modern textual scholarship reads the work as a compilation of aphorisms and verses assembled from multiple hands over generations, closer to a fourth century BCE finished form. No biographical source for Laozi predates the legendary accounts collected centuries after his supposed lifetime.
What would resolve this New early manuscript evidence bearing directly on authorship and date of composition, of the kind the Guodian and Mawangdui bamboo and silk manuscript discoveries have already partially supplied for the text's transmission history, though not yet for the question of a single author.
Sinology, paleography, textual criticismStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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