School of Naturalists
The School of Naturalists or the School of Yin-Yang (
Five Elements. It was one of the Nine Schools of Thought
.
History
The School of Naturalists did not have any one ethos and came from separate schools.
Overview
Zou Yan is considered the founder of this school.[1] His theory attempted to explain the universe in terms of basic forces in nature: the complementary agents of yin (dark, cold, female, negative) and yang (light, hot, male, positive) and the Five Elements or Five Phases (water, fire, wood, metal, and earth).
In its early days, this theory was most strongly associated with the states of
Huang Di Nei Jing
.
Figures
metal, and water
).
During the Han dynasty, the concepts of the school were integrated into Confucian ideology, with Zhang Cang (253–152 BCE) and Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BCE) being the chief instrumental figures behind this process.