Daodejing in the context of "Chinese classic text"

The Daozang (Chinese: 道藏; pinyin: Dàozàng; Wade–Giles: Tao Tsang) is a large canon of Taoist writings, consisting of around 1,500 texts that were seen as continuing traditions first embodied by the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, and Liezi. The canon was assembled by monks c. 400 CE in an attempt to bring together these disparate yet consonant teachings, and it included commentaries and expositions from various masters on material found in the aforementioned core texts of Taoism. The anthology consisted of three divisions (known as grottoes) based on what were seen at that time in Southern China as Taoism's primary focuses: meditation, ritual, and exorcism. These three grottoes were ranked by skill level—with exorcism being the lowest and meditation the highest—and used for the initiation of Taoist masters.

In addition to the Three Grottoes, there were the "Four Supplements" that were added to the canon c. 500 CE. Three were primarily sourced from the older core texts, with the other taken from a separate, established philosophical tradition known as Tianshi Dao.

The School of Names, or School of Forms and Names, represents a school of thought in Chinese philosophy that grew out of Mohist logic. Sometimes termed Logicians, "dialecticians" or sophists modernly, Han scholars used it in reference to figures earlier termed Disputers or Debaters (bian ze) in the Zhuangzi, as a view dating back to the Warring States period (c. 479 – 221 BC). Sometimes treated together with the Later Mohists, rather than a unified movement like the Mohists it represents a social category of early linguistic debaters. Critical arguments in late Mohist texts, with their own logicians, would appear directed at their kind of debates, but likely respected them. Figures associated with it include Deng Xi, Yin Wen, Hui Shi, and Gongsun Long. A Three Kingdoms era figure, Xu Gan, is relevant for discussions of names and realities, but was more Confucian and less philosophically relativist.

Including figures referenced by the Zhuangzi, some likely served as a bridge between Mohism and the relativism of Zhuangzi Daoism, which, in contrast to the Daodejing, "clearly reveals exposure" to school of names thinkers. Contrary Mohism as seeking objective standards, Hui Shi is noted for relativism, but also "embracing the ten thousand things" (his tenth thesis). In the Mawangdui Silk Texts, the idea of universal love follows from Mozi and Laozi type ideas, transitioning towards Laozi.

Xuanxue (simplified Chinese: 玄学; traditional Chinese: 玄學; pinyin: Xuánxué; Wade–Giles: Hsüan-hsüeh), sometimes called Neo-Taoism or Neo-Daoism, is a metaphysical post-classical Chinese philosophy from the Six Dynasties (222-589), bringing together Taoist and Confucian beliefs through revision and discussion. The movement found its scriptural support both in Taoist and drastically reinterpreted Confucian sources. Xuanxue, or "Mystic Learning", came to reign supreme in cultural circles, especially at Jiankang during the period of division. The concept represented the more abstract, unworldly, and idealistic tendency in early medieval Chinese thought. Xuanxue philosophers combined elements of Confucianism and Taoism to reinterpret the I Ching, Daodejing and Zhuangzi.