 The bulk of this entry is arranged chronologically, beginning with the most important texts of the classical (or pre-Imperial) era; then briefly attending to developments in the early Imperial era; next looking more carefully at some of the key developments in the 800-year Neo-Confucian era; and ending with Chinese social and political thinking over the last 150 years. The organization within each section differs because of differences in our sources. While theories concerning the composition and dating of classical texts remain intensely controversial, it is at least clear that our default should not be to treat these texts as the products of single authors at a single time, much less as representing the theories of well-established schools of thought. Instead, it makes sense to take individual texts, and sometimes individual chapters, as our basic units of analysis. The nature and authorship of sources are clearer as we move into later eras, and so a topical organization makes sense for subsequent sections of the entry.