The Historical Study On The Science Of Li In The Republic Of China

As a crucial period of the traditional culture's change in succession in modern times, culture of the Republic of China containing cultures of domestic and foreign, ancient times and nowadays, was carrying forward the old into the future. During this period, autocracy was struggled with democracy, while obscurantism was challenged by science. Feudalism was dying and so did Confucianism. Along with the broken of the mythology of Confucius, the"Jing Xue Era"died away from people's thoughts. The science of Li, as a branch of"JingXue"presented new features.This thesis concentrates on academic research, political movement and social reformation which all connected with the classical works of Confucian school. At present, the research of the science of Li paid attention to some person or school, lack of systematic and whole study. So this thesis is of typical theoretical meanings to study the science of Li in the aspect of analyzing the national characteristics and the time's characteristics of traditional Chinese culture in the Republic of China. It is of academic value to clarify the system and evolving regulation of traditional Chinese culture in modern history. And it's also of realistic significance for the great development of our nation.This thesis has explored and quoted a set of firsthand materials and has made use of theories of such disciplines as history, sociology, science of culture and cultural anthropology to investigate the development of the science of Li.This thesis divides into eight parts. The first chapter is the research of documents. From the catalogue, the distinguishing between truth and falsehood and the research of documents, it shows the characteristic of documents in the Republic of China. It can also be seen from the discovery of some rarely books. A new stream of research was brought into being in the help of newly found sources of the discovery of DunHuang Books and rarely books back from foreign countries which had disappeared for a long time in China. In a word, to carry on the old of the traditional culture and to steer a new way is the holistic characteristic of the Li documents in the Republic of China. The scholars in the Republic of China not only concentrated on academic study on the science of Li, but also inquired into other aspects. They probed to the scholar's achievements about the author, times, value and so on of the science of Li with the help of new theory and the new methods.The rich thoughts of Li had not used reasonably, and it was a tool to befool people. Nanjing Temporary Government, Beijing Government and Nanjing National Government all advocated"Confucius-worshipping and Confucian classics-reading". In fact, they put the Fascism into practice in the cloak of Confucianism's clothing.For about two thousand years, the mental shackles imposed by feudalism had fettered people's thinking and restrained them from bringing their wisdom and creativity into full play. The next chapter is the critics to the traditional Confucianism or opposing the feudal government. Many scholars, such as ChenDu—Xiu, LiDa—Zhao, WuYu etc. had written articles to discuss Li's influence on democratic politics, social economy, academic research and the people. They were not narrow-minded Chinese specialists, but broad-minded people who were knowledgeable about other fields of Li. More importantly, they have a broad cultural vision and a worldview to differentiated the science of Li from ceremony.In the seventh chapters, the thesis comments on the customs transformation, which concerns sacrifices, funeral and wedding evolution. And most striking of all was the change of marriage customs. The new customs had carried on in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and other large cities, while a slightly change was in many small or remote county.To sum up, the better way to deal with the traditional Chinese Confucianism is to criticize and to inherit, to create and to transform, to synthesize and to innovate.