The Enhancement Of Rationalism In The Development Of Annotative Methodology From Han Dynasty To Jin Dynasty

Annotation has been a long-standing tradition in Chinese philosophy and frequently played the role as the conveyance of the development of thoughts. On the other hand, the transition of the annotative paradigm often predicted the shift of the philosophical thoughts. The annotation of the scripture was the approach to expressing philosophical ideas for the ancient Chinese scholars, therefore, their annotation of the scripture not only aimed at passing on the scripture itself, but also contained a reconstruction of the intention of the text, which displayed the inclination of the annotator and revealed the landscape of the contemporary thoughts.The shift from the excessively complicated Zhang Ju (章句, the annotative paradigm of Jin Wen Jin Xue，今文经学,a school of western Han) to the trend of the pursuit of the overall meaning of the scripture brought by Jin Zhou Xue Pai(荆州学 派，A school of eastern Han dynasty), coincided with the philosophical shift from the cosmic generation within mythological Ying Yang Wu Xing (阴阳五行，five basic element of the structure of the cosmos in ancient Chinese thoughts) to the abstract discussion of Xuan(玄, the transcendental characteristic of the ultimate truth) and Dao(道, the ultimate truth). In the era of Zheng Shi(正始a, an era name of Wei Jin dynasty), the annotation of Wang Bi initiated the trend of the discussion of Dao and Wu(无, nothingness), which was the significant event of the development of Chinese annotation history. Wang Bi’s<The Annotation of’Lao Zi> predominated in the philosophization of the concept of Dao, furthermore, this work contained an obvious self-consciousness of the methodology for the purpose of participating in the discussion of the contemporary ideaistic issue, which formed the reason that I chose Wang Bi’s<The Annotation of’Lao Zi’> as the object of my research.Wang Bi inherited the tradition of annotation of Han dynasty, besides, he explored an innovative stance of annotation and practiced it in his<The Annotation of ’Lao Zi’>. Specifically, he intensified the pursuit of the overall meaning brought by the Jin Zhou Xue Pai and transformed the scattered text of<Lao Zi> into a stereoscopic meaning system with the method of "interpreting the scripture with itself" which was based on the profound exploration of the integration of the methodology, the metaphysics and the original scripture.The integration of the three components satisfied two aspects of Wang Bi’s intention within his annotation, the first of which was the response to the contemporary discussion of the ultimate question, for the distant scripture could not respond to the new questions, thus it was necessary to inaugurate a relatively open and broad room for annotation by the approach of the innovation of methodology. The second aspect involved the legitimacy of the annotative discussion of the ultimate truth, which required Wang Bi to respect and conform with the original text of the scripture, because the legitimacy of the annotative discussion of the ultimate truth derived from the common view of the contemporary that "the saint could comprehend Dao". Wang Bi’s annotation achieved the two requirements, within which emerged a groundbreaking self-consciousness of the integration of the methodology, the metaphysics and the original scripture that never appeared in the previous generation.Wang Bi’s<The Annotation of<Lao Zi>> and Guo Xiang’s<The Annotation of Zhuang Zi> were both the peaks in the annotative development of Xuan school. The two works shared a lot of similarities, in contrast, had a lot of discrepancies, too.The comparison of the two sides could provide a perspective to observe the annotative development after Wang Bi. What they had in common in their annotation was the pursuit of the overall meaning of the scripture and the integration of the methodology, the metaphysics and the original text of the scripture, the self-consciousness of which were the inheritance of Wang Bi’s methodology.The most obvious discrepancy of Wang Bi and Guo Xiang was their different attitude towards the scripture, Guo Xiang’s disobeying the original text of Zhuang Zi drew demarcation with Wang Bi’s revering Lao Zi. My research analyzed the methodological causation of this discrepancy and traced back to Guo Xiang’s preference of the method of inference and Wang Bi’s preference of the method of depiction.Furthermore, the discrepancy of methodology derived from their different metaphysical opinions. For example, Guo Xiang regarded Zhuang Zi as a philosopher, Wang Bi deemed that Lao Zi nearly achieved the status of the saint; In Guo Xiang’s sense, Dao was the routine for everything to follow, in Wang Bi’s sense, Dao was the mythological existence which infinitely expanded in the space and time; For Guo Xiang, his discussion of Dao was based on the fulfillment of personal rationality, for Wang Bi, his discussion of Dao was based on the humble exploration and depiction of individual. The "Reasoning" factor occupied markedly higher percentage in Guo Xiang’s annotation than in Wang Bi’s, which reflected Guo Xiang’s approval with rationality. In all, Guo Xiang’s consciousness of "inference" was the cause of his disobeying the original text of the scripture, however, via Wang Bi’s annotative innovation, Guo Xiang’s disobeying was totally different from that of Jin Wen Jin Xue, which was caused by the superstitious explanation of the cosmic generation.The annotative innovation of Wang Bi markedly reflected a self-consciousness of question sense and methodology, which demarcated itself with the superstitious approach of Jin Xue, thus demarcating the era of Xuan Xue with the era of Jin Xue and involved an increasing degree of rationality. Guo Xiang further elevated the status of rationality in annotation on the base of Wang Bi, and he especially emphasized the rationality of the individual. Therefore, I thought, in the development of annotation in Wei Jin, the factor of rationality germinated and thrived. The germination and flourishing of the rationality could be related to the evolution of Xuan Xue and might link with the integration of Xuan Xue and Buddhism, which left a broad explanatory room. But due to a limitation of my academical horizon, my research hasn’t conducted further investigation in this field and I anticipate a more profound research in the future.