An Analysis Of The Research On The History Of Thought Of The Pre-Qin Period By Marxist Historian

The history of Pre-Qin thought is an important part of Traditional Chinese culture,which mainly refers to the ideological understanding of the thinkers and historians of Pre-Qin on the objective material world,social and historical issues,the relationship between human society and the external world and their understanding.The debate on the status and development of traditional culture is an important subject which must be faced and solved in the course of enlightenment,national salvation and social transformation in modern China.This is not only a theoretical issue concerning cultural continuity and integration,but also a practical issue concerning where China’s destiny will go.In the 1930 s and 1940 s,Marxist historians represented by Guo Moruo,Lu Zhenyu and Hou Wailu conducted in-depth and systematic research and evaluation on the history of Chinese thought,especially on the history of Pre-Qin thought.It is of great academic and practical significance to explain the basic content of their research on the history of Pre-Qin thoughts and to examine and reflect on their research methods and achievements,especially the research on the history of thoughts under the guidance of historical materialism.Marxist historians’ research on the ideological history of Pre-Qin mainly includes four aspects:First,the elucidation of the historical view in the Pre-Qin thought.They explore the factors of historical materialism from four aspects of the subject,motive force,development and law of history.First,in the theory of historical subject,it recognizes the transformation from the mandate of heaven to human power and affirms the principal role of people in the development of history.Second,in the theory of historical motive force,it is recognized that solving the basic problems of people’s survival is the basis of ensuring the existence and development of society,that is,attaching importance to material life.Third,in the aspect of historical development theory,it recognizes the change of history and points out that history is advancing,and advocates that society should carry out corresponding changes in accordance with the changes of The Times.Fourthly,on the theory of historical laws,it holds that the development of history has laws to follow,and points out that people can understand and grasp the laws of history.Second,the exploration of the democratic concept in Pre-Qin thought.They make a profound interpretation of the content from the three dimensions of man’s discovery,unity of nature and people,and the empowerment of people to benefit.They point out that from the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty,the self-consciousness of the bottom laboring people began to awaken,and gradually realized the equality of classes,so the thought of pursuing equality came into being,which is "man’s discovery".The proposition of unity of heaven and people touches on the issue of political legitimacy.On the one hand,it frees the ruling class from the supremacy of heaven and calls heaven the people.On the other hand,it attributes the source of legitimacy of the monarchy to the people.Enriching the people and benefiting the people is the extension of the former two ideas in political practice,revealing the pursuit of meritocracy in political practice and enriching the people and benefiting the people in economic life.On this basis,they also made a dialectical analysis of the factors of Pre-Qin democratic thought,pointing out its advanced nature and criticizing its backwardness.Thirdly,reflection on the ideal of great harmony in Pre-Qin thought.The ideal of great harmony originated from the ancients’ fantasy of the ideal society in the predicament of existence.From the perspective of historical materialism,Marxist historians point out that the problem of survival caused by social crisis is the social root of the ideal of great harmony.Although the conception of ideal society of different schools of thought in the Pre-Qin period showed a tendency of diversity,there was also a consistency to follow.According to marxist historians,we can roughly divide it into three levels: opposing invasion,sharing labor and sharing the world for the common.Among them,the opposition to invasion is manifested in the denial of the real social situation,while the latter two delineate the concrete yearning for the ideal society from the economic and political perspectives.Fourth,the criticism of epistemology in Pre-Qin thought.First of all,they point out that in the process of the evolution of the Pre-Qin conception of heaven,the status of heaven was gradually weakened,and the corresponding people who knew the subject were gradually liberated from heaven.Secondly,the thinkers of the Pre-Qin dynasty also elucidated the cognitive ability of human beings.On the one hand,they confirmed that human beings could know and transform the world.On the other hand,from the molding of ideal personality,it points out that people can know and transform themselves.Marxist historians also lay stress on the relation between name and reality and criticized the transcendentalism which existed extensively in the epistemology of Pre-Qin Dynasty.The three Marxist historians studied the history of Pre-Qin thought on the basis of historical data,and adopted the research way from social history to the history of thought.Their theoretical tools are the same,but their viewpoints are often different.The main reason lies in their different understanding and application of historical materialism.Guo Moruo adopted the perspective of people’s liberation and judged whether his thoughts were in line with the trend of people’s liberation.Lv Zhenyu explained from the Angle of class struggle,first explored the class composition of The Times,and then explained his thoughts from the standpoint represented by thinkers.Based on the different paths of the evolution of eastern and western ancient civilizations,Hou Wailu took the cultivation of the national class in the transformation of private land as the origin of the emergence and evolution of his thoughts.The interpretation of the thought history of Pre-Qin period by the three historians enriched the study of the traditional culture in the post-May fourth period and established a new model for the study of the history of thought.However,their studies also have their own defects,which provide enlightenment and reference for how to correctly use Marxism to study the history of Pre-Qin thought.