The Study Of "Heresy" View In Neo-confucianism

Confucius has put forward an important philosophy proposition“heresy”. However, his posterity has many different interpretations about the word, andno unanimous conclusion can be draw. In the period of Neo-Confucianism, Chengbrothers and Zhu Xi consider Buddhism as the primary “heresy”. Lu Jiuyuan regardsthe theory as the fundamental “heresy” that is no succession of teaching or unorthodoxsuccession of teaching. Yang Ming and his students view word chapter utilitariancommon learning as the main “heresy”. These “heresy” views are different, but they areall the Confucian’s criticism aimed at the main challenges in order to maintain thehuman relations discipline and the core values of political governance, thus forming acolorful jurisprudence view of “heresy”. The interpretations of “heresy” cannot begeneralized and different times of Confucianism “heresy” view has the differentcontents in different ages. Therefore, the interpretation of “heresy” concept should bebased on the specific historical context of the times to explore the profound meaningand the times value of existence.In the early Song Dynasty, Confucian follow Han Yu’s ideological orthodoxy tocriticize Taoism and Buddhism, which are considered as “heresy” by Sun Fu, Shi Jie,OuYang Xiu and others. Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi continue the conclusion and regardTaoism and Buddhism as underlying “heresy”, thinking that they make great impact onethical morality. Zhang Zai, Hu Hong, Wu Cheng and others all consider Buddhism andTaoism as the main target of the criticism. In the early stage of the Song and Ming, thereason for this is that Buddhism and Taoism prevail in Sui-Tang Dynasties, andConfucianism relatively lacks speculative theory, Challenged by Buddhism. After that,Han Yu proposes Confucian Orthodoxy against Buddhism. Constantly absorbingBuddhism and Taoism, Neo–Confucianism has been improved gradually, whileexcludes them to strengthen the dominance of Confucianism. So, in the period of time,the scholars of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism mainly criticize Buddhism and Taoism as “heresy”. Many of them continue the pre-Qin Confucianism “heresy”concept and insist on the exclusion of Yang Mo and Shen Han School.Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the three religions fusion was strengthenedconstantly, Confucianism also to perfect his philosophical system through absorbing thetheory of Buddhism and Taoists as well, thus, the orthodox status of Confucianismcannot be shaken neither by Buddhism nor by Taoism. With the development ofNeo-Confucianism, the main contradiction of academic was tending to the dividebetween the disposition and the sense, so the struggle was turning to internal legitimatestatus, and leading to the debate between Zhu and Lu eventually. In the Yuan Dynasty,the Neo-Confucianism became the official philosophy and melting into the secularimperial examination system, and then the basic theory lost the energy for the furtherdevelopment gradually, then become the ways to pursuit utility, as a result, it is calledCommon learning and suffering criticism. The typical representative could be WangYang ming and his students, they consider that the utility common leaning is the main“heresy”, which is official Neo-Confucianism which is fully became the imperialexamination content.Even though the scholars of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism start the critiquewhich revolves “heresy” around, such as Buddhism, Taoists and Common learning, theyhave the conformance purpose, which is to maintain the legitimate status ofConfucianism. At the same time, the Neo-Confucianism did some work to perfect theConfucianism theory by absorbing some parts of theories. For the critique of heresy, itpromotes the development of Confucianism objectively, especially for the developmentof Neo-Confucianism. But the Neo-Confucianism just stand in the shoes of the value ofNeo-Confucianism to criticize the thing so called “heresy”, so the comment haslimitations to some degree. The flowing deformation of the view of “heresy” reflectssideways the evolution process of Chinese academic idea absorbs the essence criticallyand develops creatively. This also reflects the change and the law of the principalcontradiction for the development of Chinese academic, and the ability of self-healingand self-correcting for Chinese culture.