A Study Of Mencius' Thought Of Joy

"Le" is an important concept in Chinese philosophy.It has two major pronunciations—"yue" and "le"—which correspond to two closely linked character meanings—music and joy.The relation between these two meanings is the cut-in point of this thesis.According to the textual research,both two pronunciations and two character meanings of "le" have been existed for a long time,but so far,the chronological order of them is still undetermined.Considering that the evolution of characters is commonly from concrete to abstract and the pronunciation is always corresponding to the character meaning,as well as the records in literature like Shuowen Jiezi,we inclined to believe that "yue" and "music" is earlier than "le" and "joy".According to the records in literature,the two meanings of "le" are both widely used before the Spring and Autumn period.In Zhou Li,"le" is mainly means music.This ancient book introduced the music system and a lot of music officials.It showed the prosperity of the education of music in the early Zhou dynasty.In the Book of Songs,"le" is mainly means joy.In other ancient books,like Shang Shu and Lao Zi,there are a spot of "le".Some mean music and others mean joy.For all that,we rarely find the direct interaction between music and joy.Confucius inherited the tradition of the education of music,and expanded its functions from the field of political enlightenment to the field of personal training.Confucius thought that man should be inspired by the Book of Songs,established by the ritual system,and then succeed in music.The Book of songs,the ritual system and music can all affect human emotion,but the ways are different.The Book of Songs can arouse human emotion and the ritual system can constraint human emotion by human reason.However,the function of music is eliminating the tension between human emotion and human reason and making human emotion expressed properly.Furthermore,music can help man form a steady life state and the joy of Confucius and Yan Hui is a typical representation of it.As the successor of Confucius,Mencius' thought about joy was deeply effected by Confucius.Compare with the joy of Confucius and Yan Hui,Mencius' thought of joy was more rich and hierarchical,it had three parts:the joy of gentleman,the joy of king and the joy of sincerity.In Mencius' opinion,the joy of gentleman had three aspects:the health of family members,the feeling of no shame and the education of all elites in the world.When he put forward his thought,he excluded the joy of being the king of the world from the joy of gentleman.In fact,the thought about gentleman's joy which Mencius put forward was a product of the specific time background in Spring and Autumn period.It was also inevitable because the three aspects of the joy of gentleman were all originated from the traits of gentleman.As for the joy of being the king of the world,Mencius thought that it shouldn't be the major joy of gentleman because not every gentleman had the chance to be the king of the world.The joy of king was different from the joy of gentleman.Kings should(?)promote their moral quality and been sagacious.They should put common people in the first place.When they felt happy,they should share their joy with common people.Different from the joy of gentleman or king,the joy of sincerity was purer,because its subject had no identities,except for being the citizen of haven.The joy of sincerity was the core of Mencius'thought of joy.The way to be sincerity was self-reflection.Self-reflection is the most important way of morality cultivation and the verification was sincerity.Sincerity was an important concept of Confucianism,it was the law of haven and being sincerity was the law of human.So,if a person was sincerity,he could experience the greatest joy of harmony between human being and nature.Even though there were differences between three kinds of joy,they still had some inner connections.As we all know,the emotional problem was significant in Mencius'philosophy.Joy is a primary emotion of man and the joy in Mencius' philosophy was an emotion which effected by human reason because it was established on humanity and morality.Humanity made the joy of Mencius' philosophy constant.Mencius believed that the origin of humanity is good,so the joy which roots in humanity is moral.No matter the joy of gentleman and king or the joy of sincerity,they were all moral.Mencius' thought of joy is similar to the joy of Confucius and Yan Hui,both of them are a steady life state about joy.