本課名稱為「東方古代政治思想」，而其「東方古代」一詞所指的範圍主要是中國古代的戰國時期。具體而言，在從儒家的起源到秦漢帝國成立時期的所謂「諸子百家」相關文獻中的政治思想。本課所志於提供的內容並不是所謂「諸子百家」文獻內容的整理，而是在分析先秦政治思想時所要考慮的探討爭點以及觀察問題的切入點。據此問題意識，本課將關注如下三項問題：（一）先秦政治思想的主要發展脈絡：「倫理論辯」→「分析論說」→「綜合論說」的演變過程；（二）先秦各個思想家所提倡的核心觀念和主張對當時政治和思想環境中的角色；（三）藉由檢驗在秦國一統天下前夕之思想狀態，對《荀子》和《呂氏春秋》思想和歷史角色進行重新評估。
The name of this course “Eastern Ancient Political Thought”, yet it mainly deals with the political thought from the origin of Confucianism to time of the unification of Chinese world by Qin dynasty, namely, the political thought of “A Hundred of Warring States masters”. What this course aims to provide is not the summaries of the texts of the Warring States’ masters, but rather the views concerning how to find and analyse those political and philosophical issues in them. Bearing this in mind, the course will focuse on the following three sub-topics: (1) The main evolutionary context of the Warring states thought, i.e., from “ethical argumentation” through “analytical discourse” to “synthetic discourse”. (2) Those core ideas/concepts and arguments which have been presented by the main Warring states texts, and their role for the development of the Warring States thought. (3) A new perspective on the content and evaluation of the Xunzi and the Mr. Lu’s Spring and Autumn Annals concerning its historical impact by means of scrutinizing the intellectual milieu of just before the unification of the Chinese world by the State of Qin.