Reason And Liangzhi

This paper compares the main thoughts of Kant and MouZongsan in terms of"reason"and"liangzhi".The subject of the first chapter is reason. This chapter studies the philosophical historical background of Kant's pure reason critique, Kant's main thinking of pure reason critique, and Kant's elucidation of Enlightment reason. Kant's main thinking is named"critical reason"because Kant starts his thinking from the point of"pure reason critique". Different from Kant, MouZongsan focuses on"shelf-like reason", which implies science and democracy. Influenced by Enlightment in modern China, MouZongsan argues that not only should we stick to the conventional spirit of Confuciunism, but also should we create the"shelf-like reason"spirit which in MouZongsan's opinion is the process of"Neisheng"creating"New Waiwang". Kant refers Enlightment to the reason in itself and for itself, while MouZongsan refers Enlightment to the process of"Neisheng"creating"New Waiwang"(science and democracy).The subject of the second chapter is"liangzhi". This chapter studies Kant's main thinking of practical reason critique and MouZongsan's critical succession to Kant's philosophy. Freedom is both the starting point and the ending point of Kant's philosophy, but basing on speculative rational vision Kant considers freedom as a rational assumption. MouZongsan argues that freedom can also show, which is"liangzhi", and the showing of liangzhi can be directly understood without requiring any speculative exploration. Through the critique of pure reason , Kant discovers the limits of the reason, and therefore affirms the finite of the human being. Affirming the infinite of the human being by emphasizing the showing of liangzhi ,MouZongsan argues that the human being is both the finite and the infinite ,and between the finite and the infinite there is no insurmountable gap. MouZongsan sums up Kant's moral philosophy as "moral of metaphysics," and sums up his own thinking as "moral metaphysics." That is to say, Kant's emphasis is moral ,stressing the speculative forms of inspection; MouZongsan's emphasis is metaphysics ,stressing the experiencing content of practicing.The third chapter inspects Kant's and Mou Zongsan's overall thinking direction respectively. Kant's thinking starts from the contemplation of reason, and then turns into the contemplation of liangzhi, which is just the process of turning from the pure reason critique to the practical reason critique for Kant .But instead of confirming liangzhi, Kant puts liangzhi in the field of things in themselves in a scientific rational perspective. Different from Kant, MouZongsan's overall thinking starts from affirming liangzhi ,and then turns into the contemplation of reason indirectly created by liangzhi. This means we must first establish the Confucian tradition before establishing democracy and science, which is the characteristic of MouZongsan's thinking. Different from Kant's critical thinking of liangzhi, MouZongsan confirms liangzhi arbitrarily, though not arbitrarily in the sense of epistemology of rationalists.