A Study Of Ideal Personality Of Liushao’s Classfication Of Characters

Ideal personality is a key topic in Chinese traditional philosophy study, everyperiod of time has its own unique point of view of ideal personality. Based on theunderstanding of traditional Chinese philosophy, Liuxun’s ideal personality researchhad gone beyond the ancient studys of ideal personality, and his study has a largeimpact on the following study of this subject. There was a transformation of theconcept of ideal personality during Wei Jin dynasty, and Liuxun’s study had asignificant influnce on the subject. Thus, studying Liuxun’s research of idealpersonality is important and necessary.From current research, most professional studys believe that the general idea ofideal personality which the book presents that is called ‘Sage’, and some of them think‘Sage’ is the expected character of ideal monarch. Likewise, there are also some otherstudys consider that the key point of the ideal personality in the book is ‘Hero’, or thecombination of ‘Sage’ and ‘Hero’. In Ren Wu Zhi, A Man of Noble Character, Sage,all of them can be called ‘Men with Morality’, they have both ability and politicalintegrity, these are the symbol of a wise monarch. In contrast,‘Men with talent’indicates those people who have excellent talent to manage the country, and they canbe appointed as councillors and ministers. There are three types of ‘Men withtalent’,Hero, QiNeng and GuoTi. Similarly,‘Men with morality’ and ‘Men with talent’play different roles,‘Men with morality’ discovers talented people and put them atproper positions,‘Men with talent’ assists the monarch to do the specific work ofmanaging the country. LiuShao’s concept of ideal personality inherits the main idea ofideal personality from Confucianist, Taoists, Mohist, legalists in former Qin and Handynasty. The ideal personality which LiuShao was seeking, that is inner sageliness andouter kingliness. In addition, his understanding of ideal personality are that, moralityand talent are equally important, the way of talking and appearance are key factors forpeople who have ideal personality. LiuShao believed the theory of primordial qi andYin-Yang Five elements. Thus, he pointed that congenital talent is important for aperson. Neverthless, in the achievement of ideal personality, he did not ignorepostnatal efforts. LiuShao stressed that the objective circumstance has impact on idealpersonality formation. Ideal personality represents the highest spiritual seeking and theprinciple of value of mankind. It does not only transcend the reality, and also a consequence of the real world.Ren Wu Zhi is the first book of science of personnel in Chinese history, thecircumstance at that age was very different from the current world, but its theory aboutideal personality is still useful in the modern world. There are lots of theories of theformation and modeling of ideal personality, and discussions of solving thecontradiction between oneself and others in the book, all these theories and discussionsare helpful for us to improve our own moral behavior.