Idea najwyższego pokoju (taiping) w klasycznej chińskiej filozofii historii

The category of “Supreme Peace” (taiping) is one of the core concepts of Chinese historical thinking. The following article analyses the development of this idea from its earliest Daoist and Confucian articulations up to Gong Zizhen, at the threshold of the Taiping Rebellion. It is shown that the evolution of the Chinese philosophy of history could to some extent be observed through the prism of the transformations of the concept of taiping. Importantly, the paper argues that it was the notion of Supreme Peace itself that transformed Chinese thought into openly linear and progressive positions and therefore opened it up for a constructive and critical engagement with modern Western historical thinking.