An Examination of the Relationship between Pre-Qin Thinkers Based on BLAST Text Reuse postprint

Abstract: ［Purpose/significance］Outlining and analyzing the scholarly landscape of the Pre-Qin thinkers and sorting out the relationship between them will be of great help in discovering their inheritance and influence.［Method/process］Using text reuse as a tool, the paper first builds a citation network to analyze the citations of the texts of the thinkers; then, examines the citations of the Analects by Mencius and Xunzi, and analyzes the ideas that they have absorbed and transformed from the Analects; and lastly, examines who is more in line with the Synthesizer between the Lüshi Chunqiu and the Xunzi. ［Result/conclusion］Hanfeizi and Xunzi is more connected with other scholars in the citation network, which indicates the realist position of Pre-Qin thought. In the citations to the Analects, Mencius focuses on the promotion of virtue and Xunzi on the reflection of realist character in spirit. The citation network reveals that the Lüshi Chunqiu is more in line with Synthesizer than the Xunzi.