Saints And External Kings. Mencius Concept Study

This paper is to make a comparative study and analysis of the ideal personality of Mencius and Xun Zi's"internal saint & external emperor", to acquire a deeper understanding of the Confucian's spiritual essence, to effectively and critically inherit and then apply the beneficial effects of these traditional values to the modern society.Confucianism can be summarized in the phrase"internal saint& external emperor". Mencius and Xunzi are the two most representative confucian scholars during the Pre-Qin period, after its founder Confucius. In different social backgrounds and theoretical approaches, they inherited and developed the philosophies of Confucius and eventually formed the concept of"internal saint & external emperor". Based on original texts and classics, this paper has made an effort to reproduce the specific historical stage of the ideological development and objectively analyze the ideological system. Xun Zi believed in the basis of the original evilness of human nature and the ideal of moral and administrative management of the saint emperor. This paper describes and compares the two scholars'different social context, its theoretical foundation, their means of pursuing"internal saint & external emperor. Then it comprehensively analyzes the ideal and realistic conflicts of the two perspectives.The reason for selecting Mencius and Xun Zi's perspectives for a comparative analysis is that they respectively represent the idealism and realism of Confucianism and different forms of"internal saint and external emperor", the combination of which has contributed to maintain its historical status of Confucianism. On the surface Mencius and Xunzi's doctrines seems to be contradictory on issues of human and nature relationship, the goodness and evilness of human nature, the inheritance of the Confucian's ideal of benevolence and merits as well as the ways of cultivating saint and emperor characteristics. However, through a comprehensive analysis of their ideologies, we will find that their perspectives all manifest a blend of moral cultivation and political governance philosophies, as disclosed in Confucius's"cultivating oneself to bring peace to people and to the society", Mencius's"governing the mass with benevolent politics"and Xun Zi's Morality-themed royal administration. In short, their different means in pursuit of ideal morality eventually realize the underlying consistency of theoretical values.The Confucian's philosophy of"internal saint & external emperor"involves the value orientation, personal ideal and political outlook of Confucianism. It is the mainstream form of Chinese traditional culture, including not only democratic essence but also feudal dross. We shall make an objective and dialectical analysis of The ideology, critically inherit its reasonable factors and discard the dregs of composition, so as to provide beneficial cultural resources to build new socialist culture of Chinese characteristics.