Lü-shih Ch'un-ch'iu: A Study Of The Eclectic Of Empirical Understanding And Pragmatic Governance

The majority of Chinese scholars do not value much the contribution of Lu-shih Ch'un-ch'iu to Chinese philosophy. But this doesn't undermine the importance of its locus status in the development of ancient Chinese thought. In fact, Lushi Ch'unch'iu plays a key role influencing the intellectual transition between pre-Qin times and the Han Dynasty.On the basis of prior research works, this dissertation argues that Lu-shih Ch'un-ch'iu's relationship with the philosophers of the Warring States and its primary influence on the intellectual re-orientation in the Han Dynasty come not only from its tenets centering on intellectual-cultural-political "integration and combination" and its philosophic-political ideology, but also its gland Hegelian thought-scheme. Lu-shih Ch'un-ch'iu's manipulation of the Yin-Yang dialectics and its Fact-based reasoning(事理思想)pre-dated and anticipated Hegel's philosophy of history and "historism" by more than 2000 years.On the all-important domain of epistemology, Lu-shih Ch'un-ch'iu's emphasis on "practical utility" was a drastic reaction to and turn-around from Chuang Tzu's extremely sophistric agnosticism. Lushi's broadly all-inclusive intellectual stance considered all "hundred of schools" of thought to be useful but only when their thoughts were not fixated mechanically. Lu-shih Ch'un-ch'iu' emphasize not to isolate things from one another, nor make them partial, but incorporated them all into his grandeur scheme consisting of the "ultimate one", the "binary Yin-Yang", the "Four Seasons", the Twelve Chronicled Months(十二纪),the Eight Visions(八览),and the Six Dialogues(六论),ranging from the more cosmic to the more mundane.Lu-shih Ch'un-ch'iu saw reason and much else as fact-based, thus altering at different stages of historical developments. It claimed that the "Dao" can be understood only by tracing its position in the context of historical development wereas inquiries concerning historical events must be made on historical facts but not excluding the reasoning principle of the "Dao", just like what it is said in the Zhou Shu:"Back to the Dao,the better." Under the "yin-yang's fitness" principle, Lu-shih Ch'un-ch'iu tended to resolve many conflicts——such as nature and humanity, ruler and the people,"yi"(inner meaning) and "li"(outside decorum), individuals and the states, etc, and grasp their totality.The final purpose of Lu-shih Ch'un-ch'iu is to "accept anything but no sided".As a result, we can gain a deeper understanding of Lu-shih Ch'un-ch'iu's thought from the new perspective discussed in this dissertation.