Study On Li Ao's Thought

Li Ao was a famous Confucian in Tang Dynasty when Local governments stayed in autocephaly, the eunuch took the power of the emperor, fellow bureaucracy conflicted seriously and Buddhism and Taoism spread widely in which Han Yu, Li Ao, Liu Zong-yuan and Liu Yu-xi were diaphyses of revival Confucianism. Due to the influence of Taoism and Buddhism, Li Ao constructed the doctrine of "Fu-hsing", of which the nature of an ordinary and that of a sage are the same, the nature of human being is good. Because of the working of emotion, the nature is hidden, so that the nature cannot achieve its fullness. The process of "returning to one's true nature" is to get rid of emotion and desire. That is the process from "fasting" to sincerity and the "way". The doctrine of "Fu-hsing" almost has the same work as that of Buddhism and Taoism. However, they have different aims, of which Li Ao's is to be a sage and of the others are to be Buddha and Supernatural being. Li Ao's decipher of nature also differed from the former Confucians. He did not establish the doctrine of "Fu-hsing" on reality but on ontology, which not only took in Mencius good-nature doctrine but also transcended it. He was one of the first Neo- Confucians, for he had a basis of Neo-Confucians in Song Dynasty. His politics and academic thought was also the practice of his philosophy.