The philosophy of the Han Dynasty, especially that of the Eastern Han , is an unjustly neglected area of scholarship on early Chinese thought. In this article, I introduce the thought of a number of important Eastern Han philosophers, with particular attention to Wang Chong, Wang Fu, Xu Gan, and Wang Su. I also explain the major features of Eastern Han thought as distinct from that of the Warring States and Western Han periods, and consider their origins in reaction to (...) Western Han ideas and their further development in the Wei-Jin period. (shrink)