The Communication Between Confucian And Taoism——Study On Liu Xianxin’s Philosophy

Liu Xianxin is a rare genius in Chinese academic history. He was born in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, which was an unprecedented period with great changes. Faced to the crisscross between ancient and modern China, communication between Chinese traditional thought and western civilization in the field of philosophy, Liu Xianxin chose to inherit his family tradition of education, tried to explain and develop the original Confucian and Taoist philosophy. He devoted himself to reconstruct the main spirit of Chinese culture and philosophy through mastering Confucian and Taoism. His great karma only was that, after tremendous changes of Chinese nation, Chinese people still retain a consequent subjective spirit culture wisdom-life and belief. He aimed to state his doctrine as "combination navigates component","turn abundance back to brief, and he combined view about inherency and thinking about acquirement in order to acquire the result of "pushing the ten to return to the one", then finally achieved the "grand sperm nucleus" as doctrine of "TuiShi", which integrated ancient, modern Chinese thoughts and Western civilization. Liu Xianxin retained the basic spirit of traditional philosophy, and had gotten great success in the innovation research of methodology."The volumes of TuiShi" which contains more than10million words can be recognized as a rare academic treasure in Chinese philosophy history. Liu Xianxin is also known as "a scholar of genius and master of ancient Chinese Literature, even a hero of the age".The Huai Xuan’s doctrine which inherited by Liu Xianxin is the foundation for him to return back to Confucianism and Taoism, and also become the source of his "View about inherency". After having studied Zhang Xuecheng’s theory of "six meridians are all history" and collation methodology personally, Liu Xianxin developed Zhang’s great ideas to the "personnel management" of "born from heaven, completed by man" and "two one" method of traditional knowledge, which finally became the object and method of his postnatal image doctrine. Liu Xianxin combed the history of the development of Confucianism, discriminated its changes of gains and losses, then studied and explained the original principle of Confucianism. On the basis of dialectic of philosophy of Confucianism and Taoism, Liu believed that Confucianism and Taoism were the one from the very beginning. He also differentiated and clarified category relationship of many Chinese philosophical core concepts such as Tao, Li, Gas and so on. Liu also tried to master Confucianism and Taoism by analyzing the common concepts as God, Gender, Gas in both of them. Liu’s analyzing and casting the same cosmic(Tian Dao) view of Confucianism and Taoism headed humanity to the ontological nomenon. Liu Xianxin proved the relationship between view about inherency and postnatal image doctrine again and then discussed the philosophy of human life. After clarifying the intention of heaven and person, he stated his doctrine of Daoshu which illuminates the relationship between heaven and Mankind.After spreading the basic argument doctrine of Tian of Confucianism and Taoism to various kind of areas, Liu Xianxin explained the fundamental governing elucidate of original Confucianism and Taoism. Then he expounded and propagated the basis of Chinese philosophy and its complex relationship with modernity. Liu Xianxin regarded communication between Confucianism and Taoism as Chinese philosophy’s root. Based on this thought Liu tried to integrate the various schools of Chinese and western culture. He proved that the masters of different schools didn’t grasp the doctrine of good human nature as the root of theory based on his opinion of Confucianism and Taoism. The masters of different schools didn’t reveal true Dao and were partial to illusory principles and to the actual effect. Their views are temporarily and one-sided rather than lasting and extensive, thus we must regard the Tao of Lao zi and Confucius as Orthodoxy. Liu Xianxin also proved the universality and immutability of the philosophical noumenon of Confucianism and Taoism. He thought it was a whole body, while western philosophers are good at analytical thinking but weak in integration thinking, so the theory of "combination navigates component" makes the Confucianism and Taoism integrate Western analytical science. And then he thought that the "combination" as religious spirit was the fundamental way of universality and inevitable trend which governs the scientific spirit as "divide".Liu Xianxin’s doctrine inherited the trend of inwardness doctrine of Ming dynasty. His theory could be traced back to the original Confucianism and Taoism and rooted in the combination of Confucianism and Taoism. It’s not the same with mind-philosophy thoughts trend. Liu’s doctrine surpassed the textual research in Qing Dynasty and the Enlightenment idea, didn’t not fall into such a rough routine of strained analogy or explaining Chinese thoughts by western philosophy either. He always adhered to the combination of Confucianism and Taoism as the foundation, which distinctly retained and announced pure spirit of traditional Chinese philosophy and wisdom life. Chinese culture and philosophical tradition was almost interrupted after the Republic of China, and the foundation of national wisdom life was nearly destroyed. Most of the doctrines descend only got vague and general forms without major knerals and finally faded gradually and deeply. Liu Xianxin’s doctrine is the foundation on which Chinese nation civilization and philosophical wisdom life would be revived. His theory would also function as an important connection and activation point to regain Chinese fundamental spiritual faith.