A Study On Ideology Of Confucius, Mencius And Xunzi From The Perspective Of Mankind

Over the history of philosophy human beings have been the core of attention since ancient times. To illustrate, in Pre-Qin Period when philosophers started their study, the first and foremost eye-catcher is mankind rather than nature, and continued to be so.The history of mankind is a journey of alienation. Due to different cultural background Chinese philosophers vary from those of the West in understanding of this concept, which has also called various opinions among philosophical schools with similar background. Reflection upon alienation, to be exact, upon how people get rid of being alienated, results in the establishment of Pre-Qin philosophy, Confucianism in particular.The Pre-Qin, Spring & Autumn, and Warring States Periods can be traced back as a time in which rites and principles were destroyed. Nevertheless, it is none other than this ideology mess-up that has propelled confucianists represented by Confucius to get down to serious thinking on human nature. They consider alienation as leading to man's getting away from the real self as the root of being messed over the periods. In the mean time, maintaining the real self evidences the practice of being loyal and faithful. Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi, three representatives accordingly have proposed in the hope of reviving human nature.Confucius, starting from his hypothesis on human nature, came up with such ideas as benevolence and rite; as a result, his theories boil down to an ideal state of being wise and benevolent followed by his proposal of how to achieve the ideal state, full of expectation on human nature. Mencius successively enriches Confucius' theory, stating, "All men are born good" and the essence of human nature in his inborn morality. However, Xunzi overturns his predecessors with his philosophical idea that "All men are born evil", believing the natural perspective outweighs. Despite all their difference,the shared attention on human nature has led these three masters to the same destination. As a matter of fact, their ideology if reviewed from a historical, dynamic perspective, is closely related.This paper aims at outlining a map of how their thinking is evolved along with their respective ideas on the issue of human beings. It is no exaggeration to address the importance of Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi who set the tone of reflection upon mankind for future philosophers. To be more specific, "how a man is supposed to be" matters the most; nevertheless, "what a man is" simply states factual information and thus shall not remain an issue.This 5-part paper starts with Introduction to the main effect that Chinese philosophy pays the most attention to human beings and an explanation of how theories on human nature have been originated. The second part covers Confucius ideology that actually heralds the realm of theoretical research on MAN. Further to Confucius' theory Mencius contributes to a more systematical, improved Confucianism. Mencius' proposal of "All men are born good" happens to serve as the base for Confucius' "benevolence", thus broadening the applicability of some ideas. What brings up a sharp contrast is Xunzi's "All men are born evil", which makes him stand out while keeping to the style of his predecessors in the mean time. With all their brilliant pondering on human nature, the author maintains in the Conclusion that ideology of those three should be taken as a whole for reference-a man distinctively exists with a nature entailing both the good and the evil.