The Birth Of Neo-Confucianism

Mencius said,"If you have the skill to watch the water,you must watch the waves." In the river of Chinese philosophy,Neo-Confucianism can always be regarded as one of the rapid and magnificent.However,in Ming and Qing Dynasties,the fate of Neo-Confucianism was often bumpy and uncertain due to political,social and other factors,and was once completely rejected.After the 1980s,Neo-Confucianism has become the focus of Chinese philosophy research,but the research in recent decades has focused on Zhu Xi,Wang Yangming and other "big men",set off a wave of research such as "Zhuzi research upsurge" and "Yangming research upsurge".Of course,from the perspective of maturity and depth of thought,"big men" have their own research value,but the appearance of every philosophical form is driven by a philosophical mission.In order to accurately understand a certain trend of thought,school,or scholar,we must not only recognize its peak form,but also return to its original form,because its thought code is already contained at the time of occurrence.Therefore,in order to accurately understand the ideological trend of Neo-Confucianism,anti-Neo-Confucianism,and modernization of Confucianism,we must pay enough attention to the birth of Neo-Confucianism.In view of the experience and lessons of previous studies on the birth of Neo-Confucianism,it is necessary to cut into the birth of Neo-Confucianism from the dynamic perspective of paradigm shift.From this perspective,On the one hand,we should face up to the relationship between the philosophical forms of early Neo-Confucianism and preNeo-Confucianism(such as Dark Learning,Buddhism and Taoism).Also,we should confirm their respective philosophical paradigms and reveal the internal logic behind the paradigm shift.On the other hand,we should face up to the relationship between early Neo-Confucianism and its peak and admit that there is a "comparative level" in the sense of logical development in order to reveal the formation process and lessons of the paradigm of Neo-Confucianism.The five persons of the Northern Song Dynasty are the representatives of the early Neo-Confucianism.Through a case study of them,we can find the characteristics of their respective philosophy.Shao Yong made great efforts in image-numerology and created a delicate and complicated system,but this did not constitute his real contribution in the history of philosophy.Shao Yong’s contribution lies in the negation of the ultimate of image-number and the exploration of Li behind image-number.Shao Yong’s so-called Li mainly refers to physics and mathematics,among which the most core Li is reflected in the change of Kun and Fu,during which the Yin aspect reach its maximization and Yang aspect emerges,and it is from static to dynamic.Shao Yong also called Li "the heart of the world" or Taiji.The heart of the world as the tiny principle of the wonderful things,has the experience side but also has the tendency to try to surpass the experience.It can be seen that Shao Yong’s study is not numerology but the philosophy of the mind,which constitutes the deconstruction of Buddhism,and also enlightens Cheng-Zhu and Lu-Wang schools.For the form of Zhou Dunyi’s philosophy,there has always been a dispute between the theory of cosmology and ontology.The key to solve this dispute is to determine whether the original concept of Taiji of Zhou Dunyi belongs to Qi or Li.Historically,the interpretation approach of Taiji-Yuanqi theory is feasible in Zhou Dunyi;philosophically,Zhou Dunyi gives Taiji transcendence meaning,which is mainly reflected in the transcendence of the inscrutable(shen).Also,the transcendence of Taiji is reflected in that it is the ultimate origin of human relations and morality.In a word,Zhou Dunyi’s philosophy,like Shao Yong’s philosophy,has demonstrated the efforts to change from cosmology to ontology from perspectives of historical discourse,mode of thinking and value orientation.Although the coexistence of the two paradigms shows that their forms are not mature,such efforts have made them become the pioneers of Neo-Confucianism.Zhang Zai takes Taixu as the core category.On the one hand,he tends to turn Taixu back to Qi,that is,to follow the traditional Qi Theory;on the other hand,he reveals the inscrutable of Taixu,which makes Taixu transcendent to a certain extent and has the possibility of becoming a transcendental origin.This is the innovation of Zhang Zai’s philosophy.Based on the latter dimension,Taixu is not Qi.Taixu and Qi are the relationship between body and use,that is,the body of Taixu realizes the transformation of all things with the help of Qi,and the relationship is shown as "Taixu→Qi→everything".At the same time,Taixu is also a body of value.With the help of benevolence,the ethical order of human beings is realized.Its relationship is shown as "Taixu→enevolence→courtesy".Zhang Zai tried to distinguish Taixu and Qi,and tried to promote Taixu to be transcendental,which was better than Shao Yong and Zhou Dunyi’s philosophy system.Since Cheng brothers,the question of Dao in Chinese philosophy has changed to the question of Li and Li has come to the top of the pyramid in Chinese philosophical discourse and thought system.The discourse transformation of "from Dao to Li" is the inevitable result of the logical development or paradigm transformation of Chinese philosophy.On the one hand,it is the internal requirement for the maturity of the thinking mode of Chinese philosophy,that is,the transformation of root-branch thinking to body-use thinking;on the other hand,it is the urgent requirement for the reconstruction of contemporary values,and the philosophy system with Li as the central category emphasizes the reality and morality of Li,in order to reconstruct the philosophical basis of Confucian values.The philosophy system of Li as the central category of Cheng brothers was established by analyzing the categories of Li and Qi,Li and nature,Li and desire.Compared with Qi,Li has a more self-sufficient and transcendent character,and is more mature than Shao Yong,Zhou Dunyi and Zhang Zai.Through the research and comparative study of the five persons of the Northern Song Dynasty,we can find their paradigms in philosophy mission,thinking mode,values and discourse system as academic community.In terms of philosophical mission,from the perspective of heaven and human,it is found that the concept of"heaven and human are integrated" was initially formed in the Wei and Jin Dynasties,with "heaven and human are integrated into Qi" as the main form,while the flourishing Buddhism in the Sui and Tang Dynasties advocated that heaven and human were integrated into Mind(Xin),which creates all the things in the world.The two theories above Contradictory.In view of this,the early Neo-Confucianism represented by the five persons of the Northern Song Dynasty tried to endow the mind with transcendence,reality and morality,so as to make it different from both the emptiness of Buddhism and the experience of Chinese local philosophy.The pursuit of "the heart of the world→ has become the philosophical mission of Neo-Confucianism and its most core problem consciousness.In terms of thinking mode,Chinese local philosophy takes Dao as the original target of inquiry and root-branch theory as the original method of inquiry.This kind of thinking is simple and effective in questioning the existence of experience origin,but there is an irresolvable theoretical dilemma,that is,it is easy to lead to relativism,pragmatism,pluralism and separation of root and branch.In order to solve the above difficulties,Dark Learning and Buddhism have made many explorations and gradually established the thinking of body-phenomenon-use theory,but this thinking has the tendency of abandoning reality and ethics and embarking on the road of religious transcendence.In order to realize philosophy transcendence,the early Neo-Confucians abandoned the above two ways of thinking and developed the body-use theory,which not only realized the inquiry of transcendental origint,but also did not abandon reality and ethics.The change of thinking mode is the core mechanism of Neo-Confucianism.In terms of values,the discovery and establishment of "the heart of the world" by Neo-Confucianism is not only a problem of formal logic,but also a problem of values.Value reconstruction constitutes an important part of the transformation of Neo-Confucianism paradigm.Since the early Tang Dynasty,Confucianism has been revived,emphasizing morality,respecting Mencius,elevating "four books" and paying attention to connotation.On the basis of these preparations,the five persons of the Northern Song Dynasty went directly into the problem of mind and nature,endowing nature with transcendence,reality and morality,so as to distinguish it from the emptiness of Buddhist speculative nature and the existence of traditional Confucian empirical nature.The proposition of "nature is Li" argued by the Cheng brothers marks the completion of the above work.Neo-Confucianism has realized the metaphysics of Confucian value,and the Confucian value has been rebuilt in philosophy.In addition,the words of the five persons of the Northern Song Dynasty about Taiji,Taixu and Tianli also reflect the changes of the discourse system of the early Neo-Confucianism.In a word,from the perspective of phylogeny,compared with various philosophical forms such as Buddhism and Dark Learning in the period of pre Neo-Confucianism,the early Neo-Confucianism represented by the five persons of the Northern Song Dynasty experienced a significant transformation in the four dimensions of philosophical mission,thinking mode,values and discourse system.In other words,Neo-Confucianism occurred in these four dimensions.