Study Of Ando Shoeki's Thoughts

Ando Shoeki(1703-1762) was a Japanese philosopher in the mid Edo period. He hadcritical thinking and original ideas. Based on his own comprehensive critique to the existingideas and social reality, he founded the Philosophical thought of "Natural True Aura” for anideal society. At the same time, he rejected much of the Buddhist and Confucian thinkingprevailing in Edo period Japan, and opposed feudalism in the political system.Ando Shoeki had numerous and complex writings with multi-manifold structure andmultiplicity of ideas, which caused a great difference, even opposite, in understanding histhoughts and on his evaluation in academia. One of the main reasons for this phenomenon liesin different research perspectives and methodologies of scholars. In view of this, this paperseeks to explore and reconstruct Shoeki's ideological system based on reading through allhis original taxes and the history of Sino-Japanese bilateral study (prior study) by sorting outand analyzing all Shoeki's ideas and views. It has adopted a historical, regional and classnature perspective, and an original-text-based and positivism method in the manner of anobjective and impartial, realistic research attitude.Zhu Xi was a Song Dynasty Confucian scholar who became the leading figure of theSchool of Principle and the most influential rationalist Neo-Confucian in China. Shoeki wasone of many Japanese scholars who were under Zhu's direct influence in Modern Times, eventhough he criticized Zhu's ideology. In fact, Shoeki's theory of "True Aura" is extremelysimilar with the concepts of Zhu's “Vital Force”(qi in Chinese) and “Principle”(li in Chinese)in the basic structure of thinking. Therefore, Shoeki's world value can not be simply definedas "qi monism of materialism", but should be said "True Aura monism", or at most said "TrueAura and qi monism"."True Aura monism"(or "True Aura-qi monism) was consistent withZhu's “li monism"(or li and True Aura monism). It was the core of Shoeki's naturalphilosophy thought, which was the basic principle of Shoeki's whole thought system. Inaddition, the epistemology of Shoeki was very similar with Zhu Xi's. But Shoeki'sgenerativism theory had his own characteristics.Shoeki severely criticized various existing theories (prior thoughts). By criticizing thereligions of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism, he put forward the "NaturalShinto" concept, which is essentially different from Shintoism after Confucianism, Taoismand Buddhism incoming Japan."Natural Shinto" is substantially equal to "Natural True Aura",which is the original "natural world" with farming and symbiotic way. Both are the valuestandards for Shoeki to judge the meaning of all existence, people and things. In his eyes, itwas meaningless and must be denied if someone couldn't conform to his value standards of "Natural Shinto" or "Natural True Aura ".Shoeki's contributions to Japanese philosophy included his thoughts of human beings,interpersonal relationship, social relations, international relations and order. These ideas andtheories embodied in his ethics, social and national views. The theory of "True Aura" hadbeen expanded and used in his anthropology thought system. As "True Aura" was the onlyand eternal, therefore it is the source of equality for all things in universe. So, the diversity"qi" has become the source of difference for all things in the world. His theory of "Man"indeed contains the idea of "equality", but his concepts of man and woman, person andcharacter, career and position, state and nation, show the traits of his more discriminationtendency. So, it can be said?in Shoeki's consciousness, the concepts of equality anddiscrimination exist simultaneously.