Learning And Practicing Six Arts: Analysis Of Yan Yuan’s Theory

Yan Yuan is an outstanding philosopher and educationalist during the period of lateMing dynasty and Qing dynasty. He blamed the perish of Ming dynasty on the useless ofNeo-Confucianism and criticized it thoroughly. He also built up his own theory whichcould be concluded “Learning and Practicing Six Arts” during the criticism, so as torebuild social order. The theory of “Learning and Practicing Six Arts” based on the theoryabout “Goodness of Human Nature”. He denied the theory about evil human nature, andbelieved the badness rooted in bad habits. Only by “Learning and Practicing Six Arts”,Yan Yuan believed, can achieve the purpose of the ruling the country and giving peace tothe world. In this paper, there are three aspects to elaborate Yan Yuan’s theory about“Learning and Practicing Six Arts”.At the beginning, as the philosophical and theoretical foundation, the articleintroduced Yan Yuan’s Theory of Human Nature. Based on his cosmology concluded “thetheory about relative between principle and material force”, Yan Yuan refuted the view of“evil nature”, and put forward his point. Yan Yuan believed human nature is virtuous, andthe badness rooted in bad habits. And then he had an idea that only by “Learning andPracticing Six Arts” could people fully develop their body.Afterwards, the article elaborated the contents of Yan Yuan’s theory in many aspects.First, developing human body must based on “Six Arts”. Second, this paper introducedthe meaning of “Learning and Practicing”. Third, Yan Yuan explained “the theory aboutinvestigating things” from a new point of view. Finally, the article expounded “theconcept of justice and benefit humanity” of Yan Yuan.Then, the article introduced Yan Yuan’s design about “Kingcraft politics”. After all,the main purpose of Yan Yuan’s theory was to save the world and people. For this reasonthat he put forwards a series of measures involved many areas: economy, military affairs,politics and education.In the end, the article gave Yan Yuan a rational analysis about his historical positionfrom three terms of the Anti-Neo-Confucianism, study Confusianism for use, andutilitarian tendency. Moreover, the article also gave it an objective and fair assessment.