A Study Of Xunzi 's Thought Of "Rites"

Xunzi is regarded as the last master philosopher of Confucianism in Pre-Qintimes. Confucianism advocated the rule of Ritual (Li), yet the Ritual had beendisintegrated by then. Confucius maintained Humaneness (Ren) to restore the Ritualin Zhou dynasty and Mencius advocated Righteousness (Yi) to reform the Ritual. Butboth of them were facing the Theoretical problems and practical predicament. Thekey problem of them is, in the perspective of analytical positivism jurisprudence, thelost of normativity of the Ritual.This paper will study Xunzi’s thought of the rule of Ritual with focusing on thetopic of normativity. By analyzing the source, content and purpose of Ritual’snormativity, the author attempt to expound that the thought of the rule of Ritualproposed by Xunzi has legitimacy and authority. The source of Ritual’s normativity isindependent of the sanctity of heaven or the moral of people. It is created by peoplein the secular society. The content of Ritual’s normativity not only includes ritual itself,but also contains other social norms such as the penal system and the music system.Therefore the Ritual in Xunzi’s context highly agree with the Law in mordern context.The ultimate aim that Xunzi advocate the rule of Ritual is to return secular society,which means making people be graded and be a group. Specifically, the rule of Ritualis to make clear of the social class and ethical order, so that people are able togenerate the the view of obligations of knowing ritual, recognizing ritual, and oblyritual.This paper hold the perspective of analytical positivism jurisprudence, which is ainnovative comparative method to study Chinese traditional thought of political andlaw. The comparison focus on the solution to the same recurring problems, whichmeans the normativity problem of the political and law system that appear in ancientand modern times. The last part of this paper will project Xunzi’s thought of the rule of Ritual toreality, and inspire them to extract meaning.