The Analsis Of Zhou Dunyi’s Taiji Thoughts

As we allknown, Neo-Confucianism, as a dominant ideology in the late feudal period, deeply affects Chinese thinking structure and way of social conduction because of its ideological system about logic and air, nature and life. The establishment of Neo-Confucianism’s huge and complex ideological system was due to numerous outstanding thinkers’efforts, among which unknown Zhou Dunyi that had few writing in Northern Song Dynasty first began to study Neo-Confucianism. Although Zhou Dunyi was unknown to the world on that occasion, his thoughts can’t be skirted round during the construction of Neo-Confucianism after Zhu Xi His studied his thoughts in depth. The paper intends to present the significance of the development of Confucianism by analyzing Zhou Dunyi’s Taiji Philosophy, thus showing its important effect. The thesis is divided into five chapters:The first chapter is divided into two sections, which briefly discusses research status of Zhou Dunyi’s thought and the characteristics of Zhou Dunyi’s academic thought. At present the academia deconstructs Zhou Dunyi’s "The Essay of Taiji Diagram" into three levels:the ontology stating which the prime being is; universe evolution and the human nature theory of Confucian Ethics. The paper construes the theory doctrine’s theory characteristic as originality, logic and universality.The second chapter is divided into two sections to discuss the social background and theoretical premise of Zhou Dunyi’s thoughts. Zhou Dunyi lived in early northern song dynasty when change came to the overall social structure in the medieval ages. In accordance with the development of the new era, the society at that time required change, which is the social background of Zhou Dunyi’s thoughts.The third chapter is divided into two sections to discuss the content and thinking category of Zhou Dunyi’s Taiji ideas. About the content of The Essay of Taiji Diagram, Zhou Dunyi adhered to the spirit that Confucian classic embodied and educed the overall structure of Taiji Diagram by thinking about the relationship among heaven, earth and human beings. The contents of The Essay of Taiji Diagram can also be briefly summarized as natural law, earth law and humanism; About the thinking category of Zhou Dunyi’Taiji ideas, the paper reviewed such theories as wuji, Taiji, Yin-Yang, universe and male and female that The Essay of Taiji embodied respectively.The fourth chapter is divided into three sections to discuss the important influence of Zhou Dunyi’s Taiji ideas. Zhou Dunyi’s theories deeply influences and standardizes the later scholars of Neo-Confucianism, however, because of limited space, two parts of this article describe the influence on Two-Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi. The third section reviews the influence of Zhou Dunyi’s Taiji theories on one Taoism group in the Southern Song Dynasty-Jing Ming dao and analyzed Jing Ming dao’s social background, origin and ideology, involving Jing Ming dao’s moral theory and theories on realms.The fifth chapter briefly discusses the inherent limitations and Value Signification of Zhou Dunyi’s Taiji ideas. From the perspective of the theory’s contents, its inherent limitations manifest in three aspects:imperfect ontology;"incomplete" static view in The Essay of Taiji Diagram and self-cultivation that tends toward Lao-Zhuang’s ideas. The last part discusses the value signification of Zhou Dunyi’s Taiji ideas.