Zhang Shi Ethical Thought

Zhang Shi was a well-known Neo-Confucian, philosopher and educator of Song Dynasty. He was a great master who established the Hu Xiang School and raised it to its heyday after Hu Hong.On the basis of inheriting former worthies' thought, Zhang Shi's ethic theory was developed into the distinctive Human Nature Ontology. He valued "human nature" as the highest category and the source of universe. He had ever said "Taiji is the Human Nature", which treats Taiji, human nature, introspection and thought, which are essentially coherent, as a whole. To establish a branch of knowledge which combines humanism and natural law and to seek a kind of ontology of metaphysics as an ideal moral backing, Zhang Shi upgraded the "human nature" to a high degree of the universe ontology and endued it with an absolute common sense. Through the "Human Nature" Ontology, he explained "goodness" has a universal mean which is the basic idea of Confucianism. As it becomes the noumenon of the universe, human nature possesses the means of inevitability and absoluteness. In order to illuminating the "goodness" which has a universal mean, Zhang Shi dissertated the Moral training concerning "achieving truth on respect and getting to the bottom of something" and "personal experience", discussed "views on justice andgain" from two aspects——"implementation by inaction" and"implementation by action" and expatiated his thought of virtuous policies rule and his thought of educational tenet. In this thesis, Taiji Ontology, theory on moral training, the thought of the rule of virtue, education and ethics of Zhang Shi are discussed.In the author's opinion, Zhang Shi devoted uniquely to the development of philosophy of Song Dynasty and the history of Chinese thought. His thought is an inevitable link of that with possession of historical place.