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Study On Huang Zongxi's "New People-first" Idea

Posted on:2008-04-17Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:S B ChenFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360215468743Subject:Chinese philosophy
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Huang Zongxi is one of the most important thinkers between Ming and Qing Dynasty, his "new people-first" idea is a reform compared to traditional Confucian people-first idea. People-first idea is that, the people is the root of a nation, the people bring up the rulers and have decisive function on the rise and fall of the nation; Political activities of the rulers have to be made for the people, and then the rulers can win the support of the people to continue their rule. As early as Spring and Autumn period, people-first idea already got the accept by society broadly, the study on people-first idea developed continuously and year after year. People-first idea is total theories system; its performance is caring for public sentiment on political, caring for people's livelihood in economy, caring for education in thought. On the absolute monarchy history condition, the traditional Confucian people-first idea have important function in checking and supervising monarch's political behavior and have important function on the maintenance of labor people's basic right.Huang Zongxi discussed his people-first idea in the turmoil ages between Ming and Qing Dynasty. This is a break to the traditional Confucian people-first idea both in politics, economy and culture. In his representative work "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu" ,Huang Zong-xi put the political ideal forward that the Doctrine of the state belonging to the people, and pointed out that the society should take people as host while monarch as guest; In the meantime, in order to limit the absolutist power of the monarch, he emphasized the important position and function of the school, and thought that the school should also have functions in education, supervising officials, participating in politics and discussing over the politics; when it comes to the rule of law, he opposed "law of king", and put the idea forward that only when the state has the impactful law then it could has the capable person who can govern the state. But, Huang Zongxi still paid attention to how monarch should manage the nation, lack of the implementation of the objective system.Huang Zongxi's "new people-first" idea was not just democracy thought; this is very obvious to see in the comparison with John Locke. John Locke made extensive thought for the philosophy foundation of government, his theory and principle, should be henceforth regarded as the basic principle of controlling government's each itempower. Huang Zongxi's "new people-first" idea is better than traditional Confucian people-first idea, its main contribution lied in "limit monarch ", but it seemed to be very weak in the contrast. Investigating its reason, actually we learned that the monarch of China is the owner of the political sovereignty. Huang Zongxi still was constrained by the frame of monarch form of government, had no ability to break this tradition. But we also can't deny that, Huang Zongxi's judgment on absolute monarchy was deep, which in many ways expand the traditional Confucian people-first idea. His "new people-first" idea made important function in the democracy revolution sport from the late Qing Dynasty to the modern age. We construct the socialism democracy with the Chinese special features now, should plant the root in our country's excellent and traditional political culture.
Keywords/Search Tags:"New people-first" idea, Political Philosophy, Democracy
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