佐藤將之在《荀子禮治思想的淵源與戰國諸子之研究》書中，認為以往《荀子》研究太過專注於對「性惡」與「天人之分」的批判，造成對於《荀子》的誤解。本書之目的，即在於藉文本的分析與比較，嘗試證明《荀子》的「禮治論」兼融了先秦時期諸子學說的重要部分，也藉此釐清「禮治論」在《荀子》學說及先秦思想中的地位。筆者同意作者對於以往《荀子》研究的批判，以及對於《荀子》學說在先秦思想上的定位。但同時認為，在作者比較「《墨子》與《荀子》」時，似乎可以詳盡地點出兩者的相似程度，以呈現「兼」概念在兩學說中的差異；另外，在比較「《莊子》與《荀子》」的思想時，也應該加入對《易傳》的探討，否則似乎難以證明《荀子》的「德」概念是直接承襲自《莊子》。

Masayuki Sato in his The Theory of Ritual and Social Norms of Xunzi as a Synthesis of the Warring States Thoughts pointed out that the studies on Xunzi before are tending to mislead due to these studies were focusing on criticizing the doctrine of “Evil Human Nature”（性惡論） and “Nature is Different from Man”（天人之分）. The book is aiming at trying to show that Xunzi’s theory of ritual and social norms adopted the important theses of varieties of the Warring States thoughts through analyzing and comparing texts. And by doing so, the book is also aiming at clarifying the status of the thought of ruling by propriety in Xunzi’s thought and among Warring States thoughts. I agree with prof. Sato on most parts of his criticizing before studies on Xunzi and his idea of the status of Xunzi’s thought among Warring States thoughts. However, I think the book could be better for the following reasons. When prof. Sato is comparing Mozi with Xunzi, I think that the differences between the notion of Jian（兼）in Xunzi’s and Mozi’s thought are supposed to be emphasized by pointing out the similarities of the notion in the thoughts of the two philosophers in detail. Moreover, when he is comparing Zhuangzi with Xunzi, prof. Sato should add discussion of yi zhuan（易傳）, or he can hardly claim that Xunzi inherited Zhuangzi’s notion of de（德） directly.