Confucian Philosophy Of History

Using the 3 aspects of Speculative Philosophy of History as the framework of this paper, historical wisdom hidden in thoughts of Confucius , Mencius and Xuncius is disinterred, which is also related to the thoughts of philosophy history in the pre-axis era and bamboo materials of Chu dynasty found in Guodian. The 3 aspects of Speculative Philosophy of History is :1,the significance and value of history which is the key clue and pivot of this paper;2,the law and pattern of the history;3,the evaluation of the history.In the pre-axis time, as the comity system develop itself in time from the Yao,Shun empire to the dynasty of Xia ,Shang and Zhou, the patriarchal clan and comity system of Huaxia race come into being on the foundation of consanguinity, which means the humanism world of comity. From the significance and value of the history, the continue of life is history for people in the pre-axis time. Individuals lack of the consciousness of themselves being in the status of spontaneity.The main idea of history viewpoint of pre-axis time is the spontaneous life viewpoint of the history. From the evaluation of the history, in the humanism world of comity, historians noted the history honestly, they judged the people and events by the comity standard ,whatever commendatorily or derogatorily , making the earliest evaluation of the history, what's more, as the society developed more and more, people began to reflect on history to some extent, and the history reference idea that ethic should meet the god's will come into being.Confucius mastered the core spirit of the culture by sum-up and reflection , which was presented as the name of "Ren" clearly and spontaneously, creating the internal life world and establish the independent personality of individuals. Correspondingly the external humanism world comes into being. From the significance and value of history, life introjects into the continuity of the clan and the inheritance of humanism world spontaneously, which means that history become the spontaneous continue of life — spontaneous life viewpoint of the history. From the law and pattern of history, through spontaneous review of development of bypast history, Confucius summed up the operating law of humanism world , realized the inheritance and the gain and loss from the change of the humanism world, formed the bud idea of ethics and standardized and predicted the development of the future . from the evaluation of history, Confucius evaluate the history by the standard of "Ren" , which is beyond the standard of comity of pre-axis time.