On Ontological Status Of Honesty In Zhou Dunyi’s Theory Of Human Nature

Zhou Dunyi, as the pioneer of Neo-confucianism, constructed the framework of Neo-confucianism by fusing Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. The most important writings of Zhou Dunyi are Diagram of the Great Ultimate and An Explanation of the Diagram of the Great Ultimate, both of which stress the ontological status of the Ultimate of Non-being and also the Great Ultimate, and Penetrating the Book of Changes, which stress the ontological status of Sincerity. By studying these writings, we can see that Zhou Dunyi’s thought enhanced the ontological demonstration of the mind and the nature.This paper focuses on Zhou Dunyi’s sincerity based theory of human nature, which is discussed in three aspects. Chapter1discusses the theoritical background of Zhou Dunyi’s sincerity, which is about the gradually association of traditional confucius theory of human nature with ontology from Han dynasty to Tang dynasty under the influence of Buddhism and Taoism. Chapter2discusses the status of sincerity in Zhou Dunyi’s theory of human nature. In Zhuxi’s opinion, the Ultimate of Non-being and also the Great Ultimate, which means Way without body, is the ontology of Neo-confucianism. However, Zhou Dunyi himself stressed the ontological status of sincerity in Penetrating the Book of Changes. Though sincerity was not mentioned in An Explanation of the Diagram of the Great Ultimate, we can stillf find that sincerity connects the Heaven and human nature. Actually, in Zhou Dunyi’s theory of human nature, sincerity is the foundation of human nature. As the pioneer of Neo-confucianism, Zhou Dunyi had deeply influenced Chenghao, Chengyi and subsequent Neo-confuciansim in Song and Ming dynasties, so we mainly discuss the inheritance and development of Zhou Dunyi’s theory of sincerity by Zhangzai, Chenghao, Chengyi, Zhuxi and Wang yangming.In a word, this paper studies seriously about the ontological status of sincerity in Zhou Dunyi’s theory of human nature in the development process of confucius theory of human nature, and attempt to present the basic kernel and academic significance of Zhou Dunyi’s theory of human nature. It is just in Zhou Dunyi’s theory that Neo-confucianism started to show the character of ontology attention, in which point, Zhou Dunyi and his theory of sincerity acquired their special position the history of confucius theory of human nature. As the key element of Confucianism, theory of human nature had been significantly promoted facing challenges of Buddhism and Taoism, and Zhou Dunyi was just the most important one who achieved that promotion. Zhou Dunyi’s theory, inheriting the basic spirits of the Book of Changes and Doctrine of the Mean, and under the influence of Liao’s stress of Doctrine of the Mean, presented new scene of ontology of Neo-confucianism.