 Issues in social and political thought have been central to Chinese philosophy from its earliest moments down to the present day. Neither “social” nor “political” have ready correlates in Chinese prior to the nineteenth century, but Chinese thinkers consistently have been concerned with understanding how both individuals and institutions have broad effects in what we can call both social and political modes. In some cases, the philosophers narrowly focus on governance and the state, but in many other cases, no firm distinction is made between the realms of political, social, and even family or individual. The scope of social and political thought, and its relation to other concerns like individual ethics, are discussed in  Section 1.