Heaven's Lives Through

The lasting concern about the whole universe and human life makes the Heaven-Man relationship become one of the most important problems in the history of Confucianism. On the basis of Confucianism from Pre-Qin Dynasties to the Han and Tang Dynasties, Neo-Confucianism during the Song and Ming dynasties takes one step further as regards the essence of Heaven-Man relationship. This thesis' aim is to present the development of Confucianism through analyzing Zhou Dunyi's philosophy. Zhou Dunyi lived in the initial stage of Neo-Confucianism, so his philosophy inherited traditional Confucianism, and meanwhile pointed to new directions of its further development. The core of his philosophy lies in the re-interpretation of Heaven-Man relationship from the angle of the inner link between heavenly laws and human life, which makes people's moral life stand more upright. Accordingly, the ultimate aim of his philosophy, i.e., being Sage, is also grounded in the new Heaven-Man relationship. Because of these contributions, he opens a new page for the development of Confucianism.The thesis consists of four major parts.The first chapter mainly introduces the influences of Buddhism and Taoism on the Song Dynasty's Confucianism, as well as the changes of Confucianism itself. After Han Dynasty, Confucianism yielded to the Buddhism and Neo-Taoism in succession, which prevailed from Wei and Jin Dynasties until Sui and Tang Dynasties for its ingenious theoretical systems. Neo-Taoism emphasized the ontology, which made Chinese philosophy change from cosmology to ontology. Meanwhile, Buddha's nature became the focus of Buddhism, which promoted the level of the nature and mind theory of Chinese philosophy. All those theoretical fruits had deep influences on the Neo-Confucianism's development. At the same time, Confucianism itself was changing at several aspects. In the aspect of interpretative methodology, Confucians annotated the classics changing from exegesis to emphasizing the meaning between the lines. In the...