The Study On CAI Qing's Yi-ology Under The Vision Of Neo-Confucianism

Cai Qing (1453-1508), who lived in Ming Dynasty, was a well-known thinker in the history of Yi-ology. His most important work is Yijing Mengyin. Principle is the highest category of Cai Qing's philosophy. He followed Songs'meaning-pattern methods and developed Zhu Xi's Yi-ology. Cai Qing thought the Yi book imitated the principle of universe. He paid attention to meaning-pattern and didn't forget for image-number. He thought images was the essence of Yi. Images comes from principle, and is only the approach to comprehending and interpreting the principle. Principle appear through images. Zhu Xi thought Yi was the book of divination, but Cai lighten the divination's influence, and he thought fortune and misfortune were based on moral. So in his interpretation of the Yi book, not much from divination, but emphasized the moral action. Cai Qing thought Yi was a book of moral.In the ontology of Cai Qing's Yi-ology, Cai Qing thought tai-ji was principle and Yin-yang was Qi. His idea was the development and expansion of Zhu Xi's theory. He thought principle was in Qi, and it couldn't exist without Qi. In his theory of heart-mind,Cai Qing thought Xing was the true principle. Principle is the source of the universe and that is also the source of humanity. All principles are in the heart. The heart was the summation of principle and Qi. In addition, CaiQing's thought of benevolence expression his theory of heart. In his theory, benevolence is the human's heart, and the human's heart is the universe's heart. On this basis, the human can arrive at Da-zhong and Zhi-zheng through Jing-xu practice, follow the principle based on times, Fu-yang and Yi-yin.Finally, this paper evaluates both advantages and shortcomings of Cai Qing's Yi-ology. We expect to provide some help to further study of the Yi-ology and the Confucian moral philosophy.