Zhu And Lu - Wu Chengzhe Thought Study

The ideology in Yuan dynasty, compared with Li theory in Song dynasty and mind theory in Ming dynasty, doesn't contain much innovation. In Yuan dynasty, Wu Cheng's ideology succeeded to Zhu and Lu's idea, and then constructed his own thought, but it also had little innovation. However, thanks to the famous Confucian in Yuan dynasty, they arranged and harmonized the theory between Zhu and Lu, so the Confucian philosophy could pass from Song dynasty to Ming dynasty.In Yuan dynasty, many ideologists realized the excellence and weak point about the theory of Zhu and Lu, so they suggested to break their bounds and absorbed their strong points, otherwise, the development of the Confucian school would be largely be affected. In a sense, the harmonization about the theory between Zhu and Lu was not an occasion. It was an inevitable trend about the development of Confucian theory. Wu Cheng, a well-known ideologist in Yuan dynasty, was aware of the excellence about the theory of Zhu and Lu. He made the work of harmonizing Zhu and Lu, holding on Confucian tradition and carrying on Confucian ideology as his own task. In the long years of self-cultivation, studying and teaching, he completed the task of harmonizing Zhu and Lu better than other ideologists in that period, affecting the development of the theory about Li and Qi, the theory about mind and disposition and the theory about knowledge and action.Except for the introduction, this thesis contains four chapters. The first chapter expounds the origin of WuCheng's ideology. The characteristic of WuCheng's ideology is "to harmonize Zhu and Lu", so in this chapter, there is a short recommendation about the same points and different points of Zhu and Lu's ideology. The second chapter elaborates WuCheng's succession to ZhuXi's ideology. From three aspects, which are ontology, the theory about mind and preposition and the theory about self—cultivation, this chapter discusses WuCheng's succession to ZhuXi's ideology. The characteristic of elaboration in the third chapter is the same as the second chapter, which expounds WuCheng's absorption to Lu Jiuyuan's ideology. The fourth chapter summarizes the discussion of the second and third chapter. Based on the former chapters and to sum up WuCheng's "to harmonize Zhu and Lu" ideology and its function to the academic development which continued Song dynasty and opened the Ming dynasty, this chapter demonstrates that WuCheng's ideology should play a part in the history of Confucian ideology. In short, from the development and evolution of Confucian ideology, the Confucian theory in Yuan dynasty was a central part and shouldn't be neglected, which made it pass from Song dynasty to Ming dynasty. The trend about the harmonization of Zhu and Lu, made their theory spread. As for the most famous sage and specialist of the Confucian ideology, Wu Cheng's theory about "to harmonize Zhu and Lu" was a transition between the Confucian ideology of Song and Ming dynasty. More exactly, his theory was a transition between the Li theory of Cheng and Zhu, the mind theory of Lu in Song dynasty and the mind theory of Wang Yangming, the theory about Li and Qi in Ming and Qing dynasty. Although some scholars thought that Wu Cheng just mixed different theories, Wu's theory of "to harmonize Zhu and Lu", which passed from Song dynasty to Ming dynasty, was a big contribution to the academic continuation and the development of Confucian ideology, which shouldn't be neglected at all.