On The Study Of Confucius' Aesthetic Thoughts About The Dao Of Heaven

The general opinion among the intellectual about the word "the Dao of Heaven"is that, it was born in the Spring and Autumn Period roughly.To the all classes of thinkers in Pre-Qin Dynasty, the connotation and significance of Dao of Heaven is one of the basic problems and focal points,including Confucius.Though they all seldom use the word directly,the questions that derive from it,such as tian zhi dao,tian xia zhi dao and the relationship between the heaven and human.As a concept of space, "Tianxia" means the vastest space between the sky and the land. But as a political concept, it means a harmonious political order transcending region and race. The Doctrine of the Mean changes the key point of discussion on "Tianxia" from territory to psychological foundation, which turns The World institution into people's inner psychological needs..In the view of Historical documents about Zhou Dynasty, the Dao of Heaven referred to the orbit of astronomy, Dao therefore means road and trajectory. According to Guo Mo-ruo,dao was already widely used to refer to rule and natural law. In other words, the Dao of Heaven not only meant cosmic astronomical phenomena, but also served as a guide and normative law to human world. Thus, the question of the Dao of Heaven became a prerequisite problem in the theory of Pre-Qin thoughts.Confucius' direct discussion about the Dao of Heaven is not much, and the problem also does not directly show as the core of The Analects. However, it not only constructed Confucius'thoughts on benevolence and rituals, and itself has a clear logical hierarchy and thought structure. It is composed by the Heaven,the destiny and the way of the world. The Heaven represents Confucius's basic view of earth and the world view of the universe. The destiny communicates the world view and noble man (jun zi)'s life view and moral view. This is the must path which the Dao of the Heaven implemented the Dao of human world, and it is the core and purpose of Confucius' thoughts on the Dao of the Heaven. The Way of the world equals to the political and national ideals of Confucius's life pursuit. Therefore, it actually refers to the benevolence and rituals that Confucius has repeatedly stressed which in order to obtain the ideal realization of social reality. Although "benevolence" and "courtesy" are the most frequent words in the Analects of confucius, the implementation and completion depends on the noble man acknowledgement of his destiny.In fact, the three key words——the Heaven, the Destiny and the Way of the world are not Confucius'innovation. They appeared a lot in the Book of Songs, Shangshu, yizhoushu and Guoyu. Among it, the traditional meaning of "heaven" and Confucius' philosophical interpretation constitutes a direct foundation of his theory about the Dao of the heaven. The destiny which mainly composed by noble man's behavior and individual morality, also directly connected to the moralization of King's power in Zhou Dynasty.The formation of the concept of the Heaven can be traced back to Three Emperors and Five Sovereigns period. The rich archaeological discoveries in recent years gradually evidenced the relevant historical records. These archaeological discoveries also proved that the fundamental reason of the formation of the idea is early Chinese's agricultural production and the maturity of social stratum structure. In the period of Xia and Shang Dynasty, "destiny" mainly referred to the meaning of "order". The moralization of destiny in Zhou Dynasty, rooted from the agricultural production that began from their ancestor——Qi. The notion of "God has no preference, but virtue" promoted the moralization and aesthetic transformation of individual behavior. Also because of the worship of "heaven", tian xia became a highly humanized cultural concept other than a pure geographic and spatial word.Confucius discussed the meaning of the Heaven from two levels:the natural world and the moral world. According to record of The Analects,the Book of Rites and the Book of Confucius'jiayu, the first meaning of the Heaven is the natural world. However, despite Confucius also talked about the natural meaning, what he was seeking was always about the natural inspiration to the people. In one word, the Heaven is more moral-like and more humanized than natural.From the perspective of aesthetic perception, this understanding highlights the relationship between man and nature, and the human's emotional attachment to the natural world. This kind of natural bond and conception undoubtedly has a wealth of aesthetic significance. To inquire its root, it actually because Confucius inherited the view to the heaven and earth in Zhou Dynasty..It is also embodied in Confucius' attention on the agricultural production and the normal life of the agricultural season and farmers.The first rule of governing the country in Confucius's mind is to protect and ensure the normal process of agricultural production activities. To Confucius' view, Life and growth in nature is the basic principle of the universe, and it directly reflected in Confucius'talking on the nature of the Heaven.In Confucius'view, tian'xia is also a highly humanized political and cultural word. In the Analects, tian'xia was always defined as a whole object. This shows that Confucius inherited and developed Zhou Dynasty's idea about tian'xia. Tian'xia is actually the homeland within the universe and all over the world. It is a highly aestheticsed word which contains with Confucius's natural world outlook and political ideal. And Confucius' unique view on how to turn tian'xia into Dao is that he thought the system of rites and classifications is the only way.The focal point of Confucius'thoughts on aesthetic problems is its relationship to benevolence. Confucius said that "it is virtuous manners which constitute the excellence of a neighborhood", by which the question of beauty was restricted within benevolence. Benevolence became the prerequisite of the beauty and its inner reason. All in all, Confucius' philosophical and aesthetic thoughts are rooted in his concept about nature and universe. However, In the non-agricultural, highly industrialized and commercialized and informational modern days, what is the fate of the thoughts that rooted in the agricultural production, agricultural culture and agricultural social stratum structure is a complicated problem that calls for deep thinking.