This translation and commentary on Xunzi’s Tian Lun argues against naturalistic interpretations of Tian. Tracing the course of interpretation of Xunzi down to the present, discussing some of the influences that affected how he was understood, and raising questions about some contemporary revisionary attempts, Machle suggests unusual lines of interpretation.

In Plan 21 of the Xunzi, the essay Dubs titles “The Removal of Prejudices”1 and Watson calls “Dispelling Obsession”2, there is a sentence one's eyes slide over rather easily until one tries to fit it into its context and that of the Xunzi generally. Dubs translates it “The mind is the ruler of the body and the master of the spirit” ; Watson shows a slight discomfort with the second clause when he gives “The mind is the ruler of the (...) body and the master of its god‐like intelligence” [whatever that is] Koester3 raises a few more doubts with his “Das Herz nimmt im Koerper die Stelle des Herrschers ein, es ist der Gebieter ueber die shen‐ming ” . Interestingly enough, the commentatorial tradition seems to have felt no difficulties: Yang Liang's comment is merely a paraphrase of the sentence following, and Wang Xian‐jian and Liang Qi‐xiong simply quote him4. (shrink)