Names
Simplified Chinese:	扬雄
Traditional Chinese:	揚雄
Pinyin:	Yáng Xióng
Wade-Giles:	Yang Hsiung
Zi:	Ziyun (子雲)

Yang Xiong (53 BCE–18) was a Chinese Daoist, poet, and author from modern Chengdu, Sichuan. His name written in Chinese is 揚雄, but it is frequently mistaken as 楊雄 in historical documents, for example the Sancai Tuhui.

Yang is considered a materialist. He did not believe human nature was inherently good as Mencius (fl. 4th century BCE) had written, nor inherently bad as Xunzi (c. 300–230 BCE) had written, but came into existence as a mixture of both. His works include the divinatory Taixuan (太玄, "Great Mystery"), the Fayan (法言, "Words to Live By") anthology, and the first dialect dictionary Fangyan. He was a close associate of the official and philosopher Huan Tan (d. 28 CE), an Old Text realist who may have heavily influenced the works of Wang Chong (27–c. 100 CE).

See also

• Materialism

References

This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

• Chen, Keming and Zhang, Shancheng, "Yang Xiong". Encyclopedia of China (Philosophy Edition), 1st ed.
• Zhu, Binjie, "Yang Xiong". Encyclopedia of China (Chinese Literature Edition), 1st ed.

External links

• Yang Xiong, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy biography
• Yang Xiong, Qin Shi Bu (琴史補; "Appended History of the Guqin") article