Zhu Xi’s Thoughts On Logic

Zhu Xi is one of the most erudite and influential thinkers in the late period of feudal society in China,acclaimed as "one of the greatest thinkers in China" by Joseph Needham.Although there are a lot of thoughts about logic in Zhu Xi’s vast and complex philosophical system,academia does not pay enough attention to them and the number of related researches is still limited.In view of this,this paper,divided into three main parts,will look into Zhu Xi’s thoughts on logic as follows.The first part of the article elaborates the philosophical fundation of Zhu Xi’s logical thought.To understand the logic content of Zhu Xi,we must first comprehend the idea of Zhu Xi’s Philosophical theory,and conduct realistic analysis and historical researches on the basic categories and the logic structure of Zhu Xi’s philosophy.The concept of "Li or Tian Li" is the highest category and the logical starting point;the concept of "Qi" constitutes the form of particular material objects;the concept of"Xing" is the most essential property of material objects and "comprehension through investigation" is the basic method to "acquire truth through physical Li",etc..These are the basis for the whole paper.The second part,dealing with the specific content of Zhu Xi’s logical thinking,is the key part of the article,which can be divided into three sections.The first section deals with the standard expressions in concepts and related knowledge about judgement in Zhu Xi’s logical thought,for it is critical in analyzing Zhu Xi’s logical way of thinking.The second section is about the logical reasoning in Zhu Xi’s thought.Zhu Xi thought that the"principle" acquired through "from-bottom-to-top"investigation ensures a good grasp of the universality of a class of things,which can be used to learn new things through "from-top-to-bottom" comprehension.This is also clearly reflected in the "comprehension through investigation" method,showing the systematic feature and integrity of Zhu Xi’s logical reasoning methods.The third section is Zhu Xi’s spontaneous awareness of the "three law".Zhu Xi used the law of identity,the law of contradiction,and the law of excluded middle fully and flexibly in his construction of the massive system of Neo-Confucianism,which not only makes the philosophy and logical argument more rigorous,but also enhances their theoretical persuasiveness and reliability.The third part evaluates how Zhu Xi’s logical thought promotes the logical thoughts in modern China,but also exposes the defects in his thoughts and series of negative effects caused by these defects.In short,the analysis in this paper will further our understanding of Zhu Xi:his huge philosophical system,featuring strictness in logical structure and logical thoughts,contains a system of logical methods and categories.The researches about Zhu Xi deserve more attention to discover more value,and thus to promote the researches and development of logic in China.