Abstract：The burning of books by Qin Shi Huang (the First Emperor of a unified China and founder of the Qin dynasty) posed a big threat to academic development, but it didn’t cause a break in scholarship as it didn’t last a long time. The scholarship of Han Dynasty is the inheritance and continuation of that of the Warring States period. At the end of the Warring States period, philosophy books mostly illustrated points with stories, which was completely inherited by philosophy books in the Han Dynasty. The reign of Emperor Hanwu is a watershed in the development of philosophy books. Philosophy books flourished before the reign of Emperor Hanwu but declined after his reign, which was caused by the combination of internal and external factors. As for external factors, on the one hand, the establishment of Confucianism as standard for selecting officials rendered other scholastic thoughts “useless”, and thus greatly compressed their development space. On the other hand, the adherence to “Shi Fa (tracing the source)” and “Jia Fa (evolving into a school)” made Confucian teachings have too much conformity but little creativity. As for the philosophy books of the Han Dynasty, their characteristics of reasoning with stories was very much the same as the tactic Sima Qian used in Records of History. Sima Qian’s success ushered in a new era of historiography, and it has endured ever since. Under the influence of both internal and external factors, in the late Western Han Dynasty, the creation of philosophy books took a non-mainstream path and there is no turning back ever since.
李建华. 故事说理、儒术选士与汉代子书的兴衰[J]. 《深圳大学学报》（人文社科版）, 2020, 37(1): 145-151.
LI Jian-hua. Reasoning through Storytelling,Confucianism as Established Standard for Official Selection and Rise and Fall of Philosophy Books in the Han Dynasty. , 2020, 37(1): 145-151.
2020, Vol. 37 
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