A Study On Liang Shu-ming’s Theory Of Human Nature

This article is the Research on Liang Shuming’s Human Nature Theory. Heborrows intuition, reason and rational concepts to construct the theory of human nature,by which, he expresses his attitudes to life and culture. His views of human nature formthe basis of Liang Shuming’s thought. They bridge Liang’s thoughts in different periods,connect his Confucianism and religion, and at the same time form the bases of hisconception of life philosophy and culture Philosophy.Liang Shuming life practice generally follows a four-stage phases—firstly, herealizes the most immediate issue of national survival, and then the awareness of thehardship in life, and then the breakthrough of ego, and finally the attitude toward life.This whole process is not only the self-realization process of life Liang Shuming, butalso is the perfection of his social and cultural life. During the process, Liang takes themoral pursuit and national prosperity as his duty and engages himself in the academicareas of both Western and eastern countries. By citing the words of the saints andparticipating in social and political issues, Liang makes full use of his knowledge abouthuman nature and aims to work out the details of virtue personality.There are two issues accompanying Liang’ life span–life and social problems, which,from Liang’s point of view, need to be solved. It is this exploration and enquiry processthat determine Liang’s conclusion of human nature. The main purpose of this article isto explore the content and internal connections of Liang Shuming’s human naturetheory.The thesis is composed of four parts: the first part presents the origins of LiangShuming’s human nature theory and thoroughly analyzes them by adding Liang’s lifestories; The second part discusses the development course of human nature theorywhich is adopted from Liang Shuming’s books and thoughts; The third part specifies thereasonability of Liang Shuming’s human nature theory and the traditional Chineseculture and modern Western psychology will be the major sources from which theanswers can be justified; The fourth part is devoted to prove the central roles thatLiang’s human nature theory plays among his thoughts and from his religion views,morality ideas and Confucian attitudes, the function and importance of it can beproved. The main purpose of this thesis is to dig out the functions and status that the humannature theory has among Liang Shuming’s thoughts. The discussions on human naturetheory are the attempts aiming to interpret Liang Shuming’s thoughts by which moreknowledge can be revealed.