Legalism and the Yin-Yang School

Han Feizi (c. 280-233 BCE), a prince of the state of Han and, by tradition, a fellow student of Li Si under Xunzi at the Jixia Academy, is regarded as the figure who synthesized earlier, scattered strands of Legalist thought into a single coherent theory of statecraft, presented in the lengthy text bearing his name. Han Feizi reportedly suffered from a stammer that limited his effectiveness as a court speaker, which may help explain why his ideas survive chiefly in written form rather than through recorded oral persuasion, and, according to the Shiji, he was eventually imprisoned and driven to suicide in the state of Qin after being slandered by his former fellow student Li Si, who had become a powerful minister there — a fittingly ruthless end, later readers have often observed, for a thinker who insisted that rulers trust no one, not even close advisers, without independent verification.