The "huainanzi Philosophy

Huainanzi, which came out in139BC, i.e. the second year in Jianyuan of Emperor Hanwu, had been spreading over2100years. The studying on Huainanzi started from the later half of the West Han, and especially was attached great importance to in the later half of the East Han. From the1970s, the main trend of the studying on Huainanzi had been being to study Huainanzi's thoughts on a subject. Although there are lots of scholars in the studying on Huainanzi, the studying almost covers all aspects of Huainanzi's thoughts and has achieved striking success, due to the rich ideological contents in Huainanzi, the huge book, it is very necessary to continue to study the book.The main contents of my thesis can be divided into four parts:the social and historical backgrounds, the theory on Dao, the dialectics and epistemology, and the social and political philosophy of Huainanzi's philosophical thoughts.The main backgrounds, which Huainanzi's philosophical thoughts came from, were the exploring statecraft of the rulers in the early years of the Han Dynasty, and the ideological integrated trend starting late in the Warring States. Huainanzi's philosophical thoughts were the result, which the integration of realistic political need and ideological cultural tradition led to. Huainanzi's thoughts met the need in that the rulers in the early years of the Han Dynasty explored statecraft, summarized and generalized conceptions of running the country at that time, and carried the spirit of the times that the people needed peace and security in the early years of the Han Dynasty; in the condition that the various schools of thought of pre-Qin times "revived" in the early years of the Han Dynasty, it had integrated the various schools of thought and their exponents during the period from pre-Qin times to the early years of the Han Dynasty and the scientific knowledge in the early years of the Han Dynasty, had generalized Huanglaoism, and represented the highest Daoism's achievement of the early years of the Han Dynasty. These belong to the first chapter of my thesis.The theory on Dao is divided into the second and third chapter. The second chapter is to narrate the theory of cosmic formation in Huainanzi. Huainanzi put emphasis on the theory of cosmic formation, which is the first comparatively integral theoretical system of cosmic formation in the history of Chinese philosophy. Huainanzi deemed that "Dao" is still basicer than "air","Dao" makes the universe and all things come into being,"Dao" is the cosmic source, and pointed out that the evolution of the universe and all things is a automatical course. The third chapter is to narrate the ontology in Huainanzi. The ontology is included in the theory of cosmic formation. The noumenon Dao's characteristics are metaphysical, unlimited, fundamental, natural etc; its significance lies in that nature and man unite in Dao, and imperial statecraft comes from Dao. The theory on Dao in Huainanzi less mentioned the abstract and mystical Dao that Laozi and Zhuangzi said, and focused on Dao's function of source and noumenon in concrete things.The dialectics and epistemology in Huainanzi are in the fourth chapter of my thesis. Huainanzi's dialectics expounded the changing feature of the universe and all things, according to the view that Yin and Yang merges. Huainanzi's epistemology emphasized man can recognize things, can comprehend Dao; narrated that knowledge is social and to practise, and elaborated the two mutually affecting ways of cognition that are from "tip"("thing") to "root"("Dao"), and fom "root" to "tip", and their methods.The social and political philosophy in Huainanzi is in the fifth chapter of my thesis. According to its theory of humanity, Huainanzi put forward the social and political conceptions whose core is "to govern by doing nothing that goes against nature", accompanying by the principle "to benefit the people is basis", thus had framed a social and political system in philosophy, and had met the target in theory that is ready for "imperial statecraft".Huainanzi outstandingly had showed Huanglaoism of the early years of the Han Dynasty, by the way "to dissertate Dao and De","to integrate the theories since ancient times", and "to say in detail". Although its purpose was to offer the imperial statecraft, it included rich philosophical thoughts and profound theory of life's cultivation. Huainanzi's philosophical thought is a great landmark of Chinese philosophy in the early years of the Han Dynasty, has important position and effect in the history of Chinese philosophy, which inherited the preceding and opened the following.