The Primary Research Of Wang Shen-zi's Yi-ology In Yuan Dynasty

WANG Shen-zi(王申子)was a preeminent thinker of Zhouyi(周易)who lived in such a period between the end of the Song Dynasty and the middle-and-end of the Yuan Dynasty.By reason that this period was quite chaotic Wang died to the world during all his life.So we can see little of his story in history books,But as a researcher of Zhouyi, he touched a very high spot.His viewpoint can be found in many Yiology books in Ming and Qing dynasty.It shows that Wang's Yi-study has his own unique value in Yiology history.At that time when Wang lived in there were so many chaos caused by war that the masses had no means to live,and the Han nationality was governed and enslaved by different race at that time.This environment made Wang's thinking be filled with self-contradictions.On the one hand,he must be worldly wise and make himself safe, on the other hand,he was worried about his motherland and wished he could have save his country.Therefore at one side he continued to clarify the naturalness and inaction and obedience to the Mondate of heaven(天命);and at the other hand he claim that a real man of honour(君子)should go after "righteousness"(义)and know clearly what position he should be in and take on his historical duty.We can see that both Confucianism(儒家)and Daoism have effect on Wang's thinking.Wang's Yi-study was based on the New-confucianism(宋明理学),he inherited and developed Cheng and Zhu's Li-ology(理学).At the time he lived in there were many collections among many learning genres.For instances,between image-number(象数) and philosophical connotations(义理),between Confucianism and Daoism,between Zhu-xi'thinking and Lu jiu-yuan's thinking,between Qi(元气)and Idea(理),etc.This made Wang's Yi-study shows a charactoristic of attempering and integration.At the same time,on account of the independence study feature in Shu(蜀),Wang shen-zi often breaks the routine and brings some of his own points.Wang's Yi-study can be divided to 2 parts,one is his leaning of He-tu(河图)and Luo-shu(洛书),the other is the explaination of the Zhou-yi sentence by sentence.The two parts are tightly connected with each other by logic.The first part is the base of his whole theoy,because it discribed the process of how the sage(圣人)create Zhou-yi according to the Dao of heaven.It means that the first part explains where Zhou-yi comes from,it also means that this part tell us the ultimate reason that why we also say Yi involves all the "Idea".The second part mostly says that how the sage manage the whole world by means of the "Idea" in Zhou-yi after Zhou-yi being created.In Wang's learning of He-tu and Luo-shu,the most charactristic part is his discription about how the sage set forth the eight hexagrames(八卦),it tell us a best reason why the postions of the eight hexagrames can't be removed.And Wang's learning of He-tu and Luo-shu is not only localized in image-number deduction,but also has a "Grand Ultimate"(太极)as a ultimate reason in philosophical connotations. In fact,the deduction of image-number is only the "symbol" of the creation of the "Grand Ultimate".The explanation of Zhou-yi sentence by sentence is basicaly a further interprtation about the benefits and affects of "Idea" in all kinds of situation in the real world.The purpose of this part is to settle down nicely our life in the complicated world,and stand upright our principle part of our life.This purpose is consistence with Chinese Confucianism traditional ideal.In this part,Wang told about a series of important categories and propostions of New-confusianism.These categories and propostions consist of about 3 parts.The first part is about ontology,it involves "Non Ultimate"(无极)"Grand Ultimate" "Idea and Qi"(理气)"movement and silence"(动静),etc.The second prat is about nature and fate(性命),it involves "Idea" "nature" "fate" "middle & correct"(中正)"benevolence & righteous"(仁义)etc.The third part is about practice(工夫),it involves "Idea and Desire"(理欲)"knowledge and practice(知行)" "Sincerity and Respect"(诚敬)etc.In his ontology,he disagree Zhu-xi(朱熹)'s appointment that "Non Ultimat" and "Grand Ultimate" is one thing.Wang differenciates Non Ultimate and Grand Ultimate,he points Non Ultimate as the pure "Idea",and he point "Grand Ultimate" as an existence in which there are both Idea and Qi.Furthermore due to his knowledge background of He-tu and Luo-shu,he describe the "Grand Ultimate" as an existence which has undiffrenciated "Idea,Qi,Image and Number" in it.When Wang talks about the proposition "Non Ultimate then Grand Ultimate"(无极而太极),he explain it as "Existing comes from Non-existing",the latter is a Daoism proposition,so we can see some typical characters of a kind of colletion between Confucianism and Daoism from Wang's discription.When talks about the relationship between Idea and Qi,Wang approve Zhu-xi's viewpoint that we can't separate Idea from Qi,but in Zhu-xi's theory the relationship of Idea and Qi is an exterior connected unification,that is what Wang can't agree with.At the same time he disagree Lu jiu-yuan's standpoint that Idea is just our Heart.About Idea Nature and Fate,Wang basicaly inherits Cheng and Zhu's thoughts,he connect Idea Qi,Nature Middle & Correct and Benevolence&Righteousness as a whole. But Wang didn't speak of"Nature from Heaven"(天命之性)and "Nature from Qi"(气质之性)straightly.In general,Wang's theory of Nature tends to Lu jiu-yuan's heart-mind theory,when he speak of "nature" he usually means the "Nature from Heaven",and the "Nature" consists of Middle&Correct and Benevolence&Righteousness.Wang seldom speak of "Nature from Qi",but his viewpoint is not completly coherent with Lu jiu-yuan's,the difference is he didn't disagree the clear or muddy Qi can affect the Nature of human and animals.In his moral practice theory,Wang's opinion is we should change our "Nature from Qi" by practice of "keep Idea and get rid of Desire".We must fear and cautious about badness emerged from our heart,we must let our heart be quiet and clear,we must be Sincere and Respect,then we can be sage.In this field,Wang's theory of"Quiet" and "Respect",and his theory of "feel of badness then at the same time return to Idea"(觉即是复)is one valuable ring in the history of Li-ology from Song dynasty to Ming dynasty.Especially his theoy of "feel of badness then at the same time return to Idea" can be regarded as the ancestor thought of Wang yang-ming's theory of "realization is practice"(知行合一).In addition,connected with the pop subject about Chinese hermeneutics reconstruction,we can see many valuable places in Wang's system of explanation of Zhou-yi.For example,he has not only many kinds of Chinese traditinal ways of text explanation,but also a tendency of conforme the hermeneutics of dogmatism and the intentionism.The most valuable thing to contempory hermeneutics is his golden mean which is very reasonable,it means he can afford a useful method to settle down nicely the "historic characteristic" of the interpreter.And this appoinment happen to have the same view with some hermeneutics researcher.The way of this article's research mairdy has two points,one is to clarify what postion Wang's Yi-study take up in the Yi-olory and Li-ology history.So whenever we talk about one of Wang's viewpoint we try to run back over the source of it,sometimes we compare those Yi-studies which is contemporary with Wang to his own study.The other is we want to clarify what is Wang's own character in his theory.So we review the differences between Wang's thought and the classical Li-ology thoughs,and try to find out the source in the fields of history or section or kidney and thinking of Wang's own thoughts.For example,we analyze the historical reason of his retirement to the world, and find out the mutual latent influnce between his character and his thoughts.