 In the area of social and political philosophy, Han dynasty thinkers make three main contributions. First of all, they seek to better understand and systematize their inheritance from the classical era. In part they do this by editing and establishing standard editions of earlier texts; many of these now-classic texts take their current form at the hands of Han dynasty scholars. Another important aspect of this work is establishing categories through which to understand the classical era authors and debates. Distinctions among “schools (jia)” such as Confucian, Mohist, Standards (fajia, often translated as “Legalist”), and Daoist (daodejia) come from the efforts of Han scholars to divide up earlier thinkers’ approach to governance in particular (Csikszentmihalyi 2006: xvii; Smith 2003). The second important contribution during the Han dynasty lies at the intersection of thought and practice: rulers and the advisers implement a variety of institutions aimed at realizing socio-political goals that rest on a synthesis of classical thinking. That is, notwithstanding the efforts to distinguish various classical schools of thought, much Han thought and practice was highly synthetic, seeking to harmonize the insights of all schools. This meant building a state that rests on laws and other “standards” as well as on rituals and on the ethical characters of the rulers. Han emperors establish central educational institutions and initiate the practice of bringing talented scholars into the government via examination (albeit at a much smaller scale than in the later Neo-Confucian era).