Research On Mencius's Thought Of Emotional Reason

Many scholar hold the view that Chinese philosophy,especially Confucianism,has their own understanding of "reason" compared with western philosophers.The question is "what is it?".Meng Peiyuan believes it is "emotional reason".We support his opinion,and we believe that "emotional reason" was systematically explained by Mencius.Then it became an important way to show the rationality of Confucianism.In this essay,we will discuss the "emotional reason" of Mencius.We are trying to analyze the thought of emotional reason of Mencius under the perspective of comparation philosophy in such aspects:First,we make explanation for emotional reason based on the domestic and aboard research.Emotion and reason are separated in western traditional philosophy.Emotion have salient characteristic compared with reason,that is feeling,evaluation and motivation.Reason refers to the ability of reason and rationality.Domestic scholars have two valuable analysis of emotional reason.Meng Peiyuan believes emotional reason,in its essential,is moral emotion.Not all the emotion can give support for our action,only the moral emotion or the emotion accordance with reason can be supportive.Chen zhen hold the view that all the emotion can become potential reason for our action,or the source of rational normalization.Their thoughts can be traced to Mencius.Then we explain emotional reason in Mencius’ moral philosophy.The thought of emotion reason lies in his theory of Four Minds-Four Virtues.According to Zhu Xi,it is the feeling of pity and compassion.This feeling is also the ultimate source of ethic regulations.The conscience of Mencius shows the reflection ability and reason ability of emotion.He developed his moral political theory of benevolent governance with the thought of emotional reason.His thoughts of "Cheng" answer the question of how to rear an idealistic Confucianism character.Emotional reason of Mencius developed a different tradition compared with the traditional western rational philosophy.He stared the tradition of Xin xue.We should pay more attention to his thoughts because they are very helpful for the research of universal value.