The Relation Between "Separation Of Nature And Artificiality" And "Similarities And Differences Between Mortal And Sage"

For the theory of "evil of human nature", Xunzi's thought about human nature has been paid constant attentions all the time. Even today, there are still many scholars study its meaning and significance profoundly. But is it equal to all the content of Xunzi's theory of human nature? How should we explain his theory? To deal with these questions, here is a necessary procedure which is assuring the background and the premise of Xunzi's theory of human nature,especially the boundary of it, which means defining its subject and promising its validity. Therefore, we have to firstly understand Xunzi's perspective of human being:heaven-Man, Man-animal, mortal-sage. these three different perspective determine what does the "human" means in the words "human nature", and primarily define subjects of Xunzi's theory of human nature. Among the three "mortal-Sage" is the core and contains the two other perspective. As sage is the ultimate pursuit, the discussion of human nature is complementary to the similarities and differences of mortals and sages. For one thing, Xunzi's theory of human nature is not only mention the word "nature", but also stresses the separation of nature and artificiality which means distinguishing human nature and human essence. Based on this distinction, Xunzi had constructed nearly perfect theory of human nature which affirm the evil of human nature and meanwhile argue that Man has capability to chase good. As'xin'can combine nature and artificiality, the ideal order will come true. For another, as far as Mna's inborn nature was conserned, there are similarities of mortals and sages, and the differences means Man's acquired artificiality. This is accord with the idea of distinguish nature with artificiality, and highlight the significance of the distinction. Particularly sage is tied directly to the validity of the theory of human nature, which means the similarities and differences of mortals and sages determine the reasonability of the theory. So the thesis concludes that the whole Xunzi's theory of human nature is aim at how people transform evil and turn to good. It includes both evil and good. The similarities and differences of mortals and sages provide the definite framework to Xunzi's theory of human nature, and match the poles of evil and good, and become the boundary of his theory of human nature. The significance of his thought is to impel us to do more introspection how should we define human nature, while there are no sages?...