From Recognizing Ontology To Practicality

The turn of Ming and Qing dynasties is an era of political collapse and academic generalization and reflection. From the perspective of traditional defender and reformer of Neo-Confucianism,employing noumenon(Ti)and presentation(Yong) to reflect, that is the relation between Neo-Confucianism and economy--the essence-utility relation between morality and economy, Li Erqu proposed application of both noumenon and presentation. Caught in the age that Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism came to disintegrate, and the importance attached to practical application rather than self-progress prevailed, tripled by the flourishing heresies, Erqu abandoning school bias and absorbing advantages of Neo-Confucianism and Metaphysical philosophy, the latter to which he firmly stacked to explore the essence or origin of human mind surrounded by the academic atmosphere of Neo-Confucianism being disparaged, developed the concept of using practical knowledge to administrate the state by his idea of embodying the loftiest ideal in behaviour. Combining the theory of Zhu Cheng school with the ethic views of Lu and Wang school thoughts, Li er-qu adopted all the core merits of these theories and stressed that knowledge can gain it's achievement if the researcher can seek the common ground and reserve the difference, otherwise, you can not get the proper researching result.He expected the coherence of Xiaxue(the learning of common knowledge) and Shangda(the fostering of morality), based on Lu-Wang's Mind Theory as well as Cheng-Zhu's Neo-Confucianism. The two were integrated by him into "the loftiest iedal", which was called as "the ethical core in normal" and "the practical achievement for morality", and that is one of the characteristics of Erqu's loftiest ideal. He expected that Confucians could put their learning into practice rather than engage in rhetoric nonsense and meet the requirements of the time, that is, the learning of martial arts, agriculture, irrigation, administration, military affairs, music and ritual and so on to possess knowledge both present and previous ages and embrace an epoch of flourishing academic environment with saints in the nation and successful ruling of the people. The way of his ideological cultivation is the method to self-cultivate, and ideological education is to apply the method into public masses. In this way, it is obvious that his life experience lends inspirations to his philosophy.The Erqu's ethic theory is not only the product gearing to the history but also is distinguished with its special characteristics. In this thesis, his twisted life experience is analyzed to match with his firming characters, which is compatible with the forming and furthering of his philosophy of embodying the loftiest ideal in behavior. The way of his ideological cultivation is the method to self-cultivate, and ideological education is to apply the method into public masses. In this way, it is obvious that his life experience lends inspirations to his philosophy.Embodying the loftiest ideal in behavior is the main line of Erqu's theory, and the central issue of study on Erqu is the understanding of the nature of being and its connotations. Erqu believed that the nature of being is a stable entity of man, not a basic unity constituting universe, and instead, man's eternal entity is the substance that is empty and full, taught-able and stable, therefore, Erqu's concept of noumenon is an ethical substance, which is the origin of being with synthesizes mind, nature, reason, and conscience. Chinese culture aims at fulfilling humanities to explore truth of life, an ontological concept on which Erqu's theory of humanities, cultivation, and moral education were based.Erqu's theory of Mind and Human Nature, based on the theory of Humanity,as an important part of itself, solved the problem how to embody the loftiest ideal in behavior. Inheriting the essence of Zhang Zai's Dualism of Humanity and absorbing the spirit of traditional humanity, Erqu created Monism of Humanity ending Dualism of Humanity. His explanation of evil humanity did not simply attribute to temperament, but concerned the impact of anxiety, desire, environment, and habit. Erqu thought even though one would plunge into evil and lose his original nature, the one could repent and recommence himself to his original goodness.His theory of moral cultivation revealed the way of embodying the loftiest ideal in behavior. Philosophers of Ming and dynasties mostly shared the purpose of learning to be saint or man without any defect. The pursuit of this purpose was exactly the realization and recognition of life truth embedded in the human thoughts of Chinese intellectuals from Confucius, Mencius, Lao zi and ZhuangZi, was also the thinking confirmation and self-completion of their ontological concept. This thesis tries to demonstrate the way how Erqu embodied the loftiest ideal in behaviour by his moral cultivation.If his moral cultivation is a way of introducing one into morality, his moral education is a way that introduces others into morality, a way that popularize cultivation. Erqu gave profound analysis of the close relation among academy, human mind, and politics. Stemming from the concept "Confucianism is for managing state affairs", his thoughts of moral education is also a manifestation of his expectation to make society better and harmonious.Chapter Six states Erqu's view on life. He thought that the value of life was to do the first thing in the world and to be the elite in the universe. Hence we presume that Erqu's ideal moral entity is a combination of Noumenon(Ti) and Presentation(Yong) virtually, and ideal life is accomplished by the consistent realization and recognition and improvement of Noumenon(Ti) and Presentation(Yong). The value of studying on general comment on Erqu's ethic ideology, and on historical location of its academic value, is also the value of studying on Erqu's ethic ideology. This thesis uses the concept of embodying the loftiest ideal in behavior to construct Erqu's ideology and dominate his academic thoughts, trying to give a comprehensive and subjective comment on his ethic ideology and dispose its profound connotation and significance.