Dialectic Thoughts Of Pre-Qin Taoist School

Dialectic is a useful weapon for people to know and reform the world. The development of dialectic thoughts partly depends on the summary of its history. China has a rich history of development of dialectic thoughts, of which the dialectic thoughts of Taoist school during pre-Qin dynasty is especially outstanding. Academic circles have noticed the dialectic thoughts of pre-Qin Taoist school very early, but a special and systematic research of it still remains vacant. So, carrying on a research of the dialectic thoughts of pre-Qin Taoist school will be meaningful and necessary.The dialectic serving as the form of existence and change of the objective world, namely, objective dialectic, includes laws of paradoxical movement and the unity of opposite relationship contained in objects. The reflection of objective dialectic in human brain will be subjective dialectic, and the development of dialectic thoughts is nothing more than the process of subjective dialectic approaching to objective dialectic. The reflection of laws of paradoxical movement in human brain turned out to be three great laws of dialectics, namely, law of the unity of opposite, law of mutual change of quality and quantity, law of affirmation and negation. While the reflection of the unity of opposite relationship contained in objects in human brain turned out to be dialectical categories. Dialectical categories are infinitely various, but among those categories, some are comparatively universal, such as phenomenon and essence, content and form, cause and effect, inevitability and contingency, possibility and reality and so on. The other dialectical categories reflect these basic dialectical relationships more or less, connecting with these dialectical relationships through this or that. Therefore, the research on dialectical thoughts of pre-Qin Taoist school is to study its cognition about these laws and categories. But since these categories cannot represent all the dialectical relationships, the categories mentioned by Taoist school themselves should also be paid enough attention to.Studying the dialectical thoughts of pre-Qin Taoist school, there are two points should be noticed. Firstly, the research activity should be carried on in the ideological system of Taoist school. The so-called ideological system is an entity comprised by objectives, propositions and theoretical basis which connecting to each other. All the dialectic thoughts of Taoist school are expounded under the frame of its ideological system, and they are distributed in the various large or small parts of objectives, propositions and theoretical basis. Without knowledge of ideological system and the ideas of each part, the dialectic thoughts cannot be understood accurately. Secondly, to study pre-Qin Taoist dialectic thoughts, the philosophical thoughts related to dialectics such as materialism, idealism (including mysticism), metaphysics, relativism and absolutism and so on should be studied at the same time, noticing their connections with dialectic thoughts. This is because the issue of materialism or idealism determines whether a certain dialectic idea will just stay in the form of thinking or implement in the real world. If the former is the case, the value of this idea will be limited. And metaphysics is the opposite of dialectics. As for the two sides of a dialectical contradiction, dialectics pays attention to not only their differences and oppositions, but also their connections and consistencies, while metaphysics breaks down their connections and unities. Metaphysics is a lesson in the development of dialectics that should be learned. Relativism and absolutism are two metaphysical opinions appearing frequently as well as in the thoughts of pre-Qin Taoist school. On the occasions of relativism fighting against arbitrary decisions of absolutism and absolutism breaking the suspicion of relativism, some opinions accordding with dialectics will be generated. These also should be noticed when studying dialectic thoughts of pre-Qin Taoist school.Pre-Qin Taoist school can be divided into five branches according to their distinguishing ideological systems, including Laozi school, Zhuangzi school, Instinct-preserving school, Jingqi School and Huangdi School. All these schools have proposed ideas containing dialectical elements.Laozi school has proposed a series categories of dialectical contradiction, such as: being and nothingness, difficult and easy, long and short, high and low, front and back, much and little, male and female, black and white, honor and disgrace, auspiciousness and inauspiciousness, small and big, shrink and expand, strong and weak, flourish and decline, giving and withholding, gentle and simple, yin and yang, increase and decrease, life and death, close and distant, advantages and disadvantages, usual and unusual, weal and woe, firmness and gentleness and so on. Laozi school has also proposed some categories that reflecting paradoxical movement and the relationship between the two sides of a dialectical contradiction, for example, "repaying" and "returning" reflects transformation of contradiction, and "harmony" reflects equilibrium state of the two sides of a dialectical contradiction. Laozi school has a deep understanding of the coexistence and transformation of the two sides of a dialectical contradiction. Laozi school has put forward ideological views with dialectical meaning, such as "doing nothing so that nothing left undone", "no competing so that no one can compete with you", "the weak will defeat the strong", "be content and control yourself, "knowing male, act as female", "achieving a hard goal by doing in easy things, complete a big business by working on small ones" and so on. Laozi school has perceived law of mutual change of quality and quantity, and law of affirmation and negation that belonging to paradoxical movement, the sayings in Laozi such as "a prosperous thing will decay", "the law of heaven decreases the surplus and increases the shortage", "working when things have not yet happened, repairing when chaos have not arisen", all contain the knowledge of these laws. All this represents the achievement of Laozi school on dialectic thoughts. But the dialectic thoughts of Laozi school has its great drawbacks, which can be seen in that they have not enough knowledge of the differences and oppositions between the two sides of a dialectical contradiction, and ignore the conditions of contradiction transforming, their knowledge about laws of paradoxical movement has not broken through the limitation of cyclical theory. The dialectic thoughts of Laozi school and its drawbacks have had a direct and profound influence on the other Taoist school branches.Zhuangzi school has also noticed much contradictory phenomena existed in the objective world, such as:life and death, advantages and disadvantages, dream and wake, object and I, body and mind, right and wrong, this and that, word and meaning, full and lack, beginning and end, gather and scatter, small and big, pure and mixed and so on. And the differences between the two sides of these dialectical contradictions were acknowledged so far as the objective aspect was concerned. The so-called "natural boundary" in Zhuangzi referred to the boundaries and differences that existed objectively between different things and the two sides of a dialectical contradiction. Zhuangzi school was conscious of the transforming between the two sides of a dialectical contradiction, and the "alternating", "inversing" said in Zhuangzi referred to this sort of transforming. In the matter of how to deal with the world, Zhuangzi school has purposed some propositions with dialectical meaning, such as "the use of useless", "be in the middle between the talented and the untalented", "the outer changes while the inner not", "be obedient to others yet losing not his own mind" and so on. All these are the dialectical character of philosophy of Zhuangzi. But the dialectic thoughts of Zhuangzi school were limited by their metaphysics and relativism. Zhuangzi school mixed up the differences between the two sides of a dialectical contradiction in subjectivity, although they acknowledged their differences objectively. What they called "equality of things" is just an act ignoring the differences between different things and the two sides of a contradiction, separating subjectivity from objectivity, which is an act of metaphysics. Acquiring "equality of things" mainly relies on exaggerating the relativity of things and obliterating their absoluteness, thus went to relativism.Instinct-preserving school has also discussed some contradictory relationships including spirit and body, individual and world, ego and nonego, nature and culture, learning and revelation, law and technique and so on. In the matter of how to deal with the world, Instinct-preserving school has purposed some propositions with dialectical meaning such as "doing good but don’t consider yourself to be good", "stand in the middle like a dried-up stick". In the matter of view of nature, they has purposed the proposition that "heaven and earth cannot keep the same state on both sides", which also has dialectical meaning. The dialectic thoughts of Instinct-preserving school were limited by its idealism and mysticism, which can be seen in their opinions about various contradictory relationships, that they always favored those sides which related to spirit and law of heaven, and took this side of a contradiction to belittle and deny the other side, thus went to metaphysics.Jingqi school has also discussed some contradictory relationships such as body and mind, ego and nonego, cognitive subject and object, thinking organ and sense organ, monarch and subjects, superior and subordinate, auspiciousness and inauspiciousness, life and death, spiritual enlightenment and political success and so on. Jingqi school has purposed propositions of "neutralization", "grasp one to manage all", "empty your mind and consider opinions of both sides", which have dialectical meaning. The ideology of Jingqi school has a rich color of idealism and mysticism, which makes it favor spiritual sides when discussing contradictory relationships, showing some metaphysical one-sidedness.Huangdi School has proposed richer categories of dialectical contradiction, the most important of them includes civil and military, peace and war, form and name, benevolence and righteousness, righteousness and rite, loyalty and filial piety, chance and destiny, category and universality, water and fire and so on. Huangdi School had a more reasonable understanding of the unity of opposite relationship among these contradictions than those of the other Taoist schools. Huangdi School was also conscious of contradictory transformation, what four scriptures of Yellow Emperor said "reciprocating", and Ho-Kuan-Tzu said "circulating", both referred to contradictory transforming. And they were more conscious of conditions of transforming.The thoughts purposed by Huangdi School including "profit cannot be gained from both sides of a contradiction, and loyalty cannot be kept intact on both sides of a contradiction", "adapt to different situations", "let one’s ability support his inability", "know about the alternation of long and short, blossom and depression", "the monarch does nothing and the subjects do everything", "consider the situation and take the right way", all have dialectical character. The ideas about agriculture and music of Huangdi School can be considered two independent systems, in which dialectical elements are also contained. The agriculture thought of Huangdi School has noticed the dialectical relationship of subjective initiative and objective world, internal cause and external cause, and it has advocated that the power of the two sides of the contradictions in agricultural production should be kept in an appropriate scale, and all these are dialectic thoughts. The music thought of Huangdi School has noticed the relationship between music and politics, psyche, and the law of quantitative change causing qualitative change. The thought of acting as one’s status and adapting to situations advocated by Huangdi School also contains rich elements of dialectics. Acting as one’s status means different individuals shall be divided into different classes and roles, what between these classes and roles is often contradictory relation of the unity of opposites. The thought of adapting to situations involves the dialectical relationships of subjective and objective, phenomenon and essence, internal cause and external cause, and it also contains methodological elements of concrete analysis of concrete conditions. Huangdi School has reformed the thoughts about inactivity, softness, non-competence of Laozi school, and they has combined inactivity with activity, softness with strong, non-competence with competence, by which the metaphysical one-sidedness of Laozi school has been broken through, forming a kind of relatively healthy and reasonable dialectic thoughts. Huangdi School has also a deeper understanding of the law of mutual change of quality and quantity, and the law of affirmation and negation. On the whole, the dialectic thoughts of Huangdi School are relatively rich and reasonable. But in certain matters, the thoughts are also limited by metaphysics and mysticism.