A Study Of Personality Ideals Of Pre-Qin Dynasty Confucians

The understanding of personality ideals for the pre-Qin Dynasty Confucians was discussed according to their principal literatures. The personality ideals were one of the important life questions which were explored by the ancient Chinese thinkers for a long time. Especially for the Confucians, how to train and shape the personality ideals was not only the core and root of their moral theory, but also the starting point and destination point. Confucians and other various scholars had their own personality ideals in the pre-Qin Dynasty, but the Confucians' was perfect, which could be summarized as positive, responsible and moral'saint and gentleman personality models'. Saint and gentleman are personality ideals advocated by the Confucians, including Confucius, Mencius and Xun Zi. Saint is the perfect personality style for Confucians, and gentleman is the life goal of Confucians. In the Confucian literatures, saint, is also known as saint king, is the supreme model of a person. Yao, Shun and Yu are saints in Mencius'and Xun Zi's view, who have lofty moral and personality. Saint is in charge of the whole world, which not only cares self-cultivation, but also helps everyone in the world to realize their own value. Saint is regarded as the perfect personality ideals by Confucians, and generally difficult to reach for an average person.Gentleman is an important part of Confucianism and a kind of rule for the average person designed by Confucians, which is the complement of saint personality. Saint must be gentleman, and gentleman can convert into saint through continuously hard improvement. Compared with saint, gentleman is more workable and realistic. Thus gentleman is taken most seriously by Confucians, which is their lifelong goal.Although the definition and characteristic of the personality ideals were different defined by Confucian, the basic content is the same for the pre-Qin Dynasty Confucian, that is,"Neisheng-Waiwang", which is the basic modality of the pre-Qin Dynasty Confucians personality ideals. They have different understanding for the connotation of"Neisheng-Waiwang", that is different characteristics and ideological bias. In comparison, Confucius and Mencius more stressed"Neisheng", and Xunzi paid more attention to"Waiwang".The background was different between Confucians in pre-Qin Dynasty and western personality psychologists which belonged to doctors. Confucians are outstanding persons of society, and concerned about the people's plight, and want to help people. In comparison, the western personality psychologists only could treat individual patients, but Confucians tried to save the society through the culture. Confucians thought of personality ideals could be realized through struggle. If the western personality psychology is the mental healing, then pre-Qin Confucians'personality thought is the social treatment, the cultural treatment.In short, the personality ideals of pre-Qin Dynasty Confucians are positive, responsible and moral'saint and gentleman personality'and they are still significant in the present era. I hope the time and the national barrier can be overstepped through this kind of research and a basic point can be found for the Chinese localilzation of the personality psychology.