Research On The Miscellaneous Confucianism At Early Western Han Dynasty

Miscellaneous Confucianism is a specific phenomenon, and its emergence and development has a critical connection with the social stability. Therefore, the development of the connotation of Miscellaneous Confucianism is in a dynamic way. In this paper, the research object is a specific group from 207 BC to 207 BC, that is, from the extinction of Qin dynasty (the setting up of Western Han dynasty) to the death of emperor Zhao of Han.As there is few detailed studies on the Miscellaneous Confucianism, so the primary task is to clarify the connotation of Confucianism during this period. As for Miscellaneous Confucianism, it can easily be understood as "heterogeneous Confucianism" that is to say, taking Confucianism as the foundation, mounting the doctrine of other groups. "Miscellaneous" means positive and abundant instead of chaos or complex in the context of the early stage of the Western Han dynasty.In that case, compared with pure Confucianism (the early western han dynasty Confucianism, the Five Classics Doctorate), the prominent feature of the Miscellaneous Confucianism is the openness of thought. In other words, in the academic system of pure Confucianism, Confucianism does not stand for the complete picture, Legalism, Taoism, Yin and Yang and many other thoughts constitute the kernel of Confucianism. Meanwhile, two points can explain the purpose of the appearance of Miscellaneous Confucianism at the early stage of Western Han dynasty. The first one is to solve the present social problems and the other one is to set up the mainstream position of Confucian ideology. Both of them determine that the academic of Miscellaneous Confucianism contains strong utilitarian. Moreover, being different from the pure Confucianism, Miscellaneous Confucianism tends to probe into the social problem rather than academic issues, to break down the current ills rather than academic inheritance. What’s more, as the way to solve the problem is practice and its sponsor is the monarch, so Miscellaneous Confucianism is positive and practical by taking the monarch as the center, pragmatic. Compared with Syncretism, we can easily conclude that the foundation of Miscellaneous Confucianism is Confucianism. And the Confucianism in the Miscellaneous Confucianism is always a necessary part, which is a special form in a special period. As a result, Confucianism is also its salient features.From the viewpoints mentioned above, we can easily conclude that Confucianism, openness, utilitarian and practicality are the basic connotations of Miscellaneous Confucianism at the early stage of the Western Han dynasty.Lu Jia, a scholar from Qin, advocates the Confucianism in his thought. Moreover, many other schools take Lu Jia as the first hybrid in the early Western Han dynasty. So from the study of Lu Jia, we can better understand his identity properties and practical characteristics, and analyze the characteristics of Confucianism in a detail way.It is seems that Miscellaneous Confucianism is just a combination of Taoism and Confucianism, but it is not so simple. Although the combination of various elements is based on a common purpose, the ways, degree and emphasis of the combination are all different. For convenience, in the process of research on Lu Jia’s Confucianism, we divide it into two parts, the Confucianism and the thoughts of other school.In his book "Xinyu", we can clearly understand Lu Jia’s Confucianism, especially the "benevolence" "ceremony" and "righteousness". As the academic thoughts always serve practice, these thoughts of Lu Jia doesn’t contain the basic content, they also have their own characteristics. And the clues of these thoughts are the utilitarian and practical. The "benevolence" in Lu Jia’s thought is not the subjective feeling breeding from the inner-minds, it is a moral request. So Lu Jia focuses on both righteousness and "benefit". And the ceremony contains standard, degree, custom and positive. In "Xinyu", Legalists, Taoist and the thoughts of Yin and Yang together constitute the Lu Jia’s complex properties. Before Western Han dynasty, as Huang Lao Taoist thought occupies a leading and the society also needs to recuperate, Lu Jia proposed the thought of "doing nothing". What’s more, the thoughts of Yin and Yang in Lu Jia’s propose also made bedding for the "heaven-human induction" by Dong Zhongshu. The import of ghosts and catastrophe in the political reality is also an attempt and breakthrough in the reform. Review the development of Western Han dynasty, Lu Jia’s thought also contains Legalism. He states that the standard does not stands only for punishment, but also contains reward. When Lu Jia leaves Qing, he first warned Liu Bang to use violence and punishment with caution.The property of Lu Jia’s Miscellaneous Confucianism is based on Confucian school, which is a special phenomenon to deal with the real problems, but its historical commonality is inspected in the whole history. To study Lu Jia from the aspects of Miscellaneous Confucianism, we can find the special characteristics of Lu Jia, on the contrary, to examine Miscellaneous Confucianism through Lu Jia, the influence of Miscellaneous Confucianism can be easily explored.