Eastern philosophy
The "Dao De Jing" ("Tao-Te-Ching," c. 4th century BCE), traditionally attributed to Laozi, and the "Nan Hua Jing" ("Zhuang Zi") are considered the key texts of the tradition. The first organized form of Taoism, the Tianshi (Celestial Masters') school arose in the 2nd century CE. Xuanxue ("deep learning", also "Neo-Taoism") was a major philosophical movement influenced by Confucian scholarship, which focused on the interpretation of the "Yijing," "Daodejing," and "Zhuangzi" and which flourished during the third to sixth centuries CE. The most important philosophers of this movement were He Yan, Wang Bi, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, Ge Hong and Guo Xiang. Thinkers like He Yan and Wang Bi focused on the deep nature of Tao, which they saw as being best exemplified by the term "Wu" (nothingness, non-being, negativity).
Northern and Southern dynasties
Confucianism's unchallenged domination of Chinese culture and thought was greatly weakened during the Jin dynasty, which led to a wide diversification of political thought and philosophy by the time of the Northern and Southern dynasties. This era produced a myriad of writers that advocated practical systems of governance and administration, such as Cao Cao and Zhuge Liang in the Three Kingdoms Period, Wang Dao and Bao Jingyan of the Eastern Jin, as well as Fan Zhen, Xing Shao (), and Fan Xun () of the Northern and Southern period. Much of the philosophy of the period is despondent and dispirited, and a number of scholars and poets became reclusive mountain hermits living apart from society. Of these various trends, the most influential was Neo-Daoism (). Neo-Daoism was highly influential during the Southern Dynasty, to the point that Emperor Wen of Liu Song established a Neo-Daoist Academy and promoted it, along with Confucianism, literature, and history, as the four great subjects of study. A phenomenon known as "empty chat" () became common, where educated men would meet and talk about philosophy all day without paying any attention to "mundane" things such as their profession or family. The phenomenon gradually waned during the Sui dynasty, though it did not fully disappear until the Tang dynasty.