The Research Of Shen Yiguan And His Lao Zi Tong

This paper mainly presents Shen Yiguan, a senior officer of Ming Dynasty, and his Lao Zi Tong in the method of ideology history and hermeneutics. It focuses on the ideologycal connotations of Lao Zi Tong, together with introducing Shen Yiguan. The paper consists of five chapters.Chapter One gives the social background of Shen Yiguan annotating Lao Zi. That era had political corruption, economic prosperity, and diversified thinkinng. Among them, humanism had the biggest influence on Shen Yiguan. Then introduces Shen Yiguan’s political career according to his biography, and his main writings, especially Lao Zi Tong and Zhuang Zi Tong.Chapter Two is about the orientation and the purpose of Shen Yiguan annotating Lao Zi. Shen Yiguan’s orientation belongs to the "comprehensive school", which is mainly about the methods of managing temporal affairs. And the purpose is combining Confucianism and Taoism, and then applying Taoism to Confucianism.Chapter Three introduces the main contents of Lao Zi Tong, including the philosophical ontology, the way of governing, and Taoist doctrine. Shen Yiguan had little interest in Taoist doctrine, so he didn’t talk about it too much. As to the philosophical ontology, he expressed his views about "Tao", the philosophy of dialectical thought, and so on. The focus of this part is about the way of governing, involving loving the body, desire ect. This is the main part of Shen Yiguan’s Lao-tzu’s theory.Chapter Four evaluates Lao Zi Tong, including its characteristics, meanings, and limitations. The characteristics are ideological harmony, objective stance, and using methods of philology, and so on. There are two aspects of meaning, the one is for Shen Yiguan, the other one is for Ming Dynasty. And its limitations are the feudal ideas of Shen Yiguan, and the utilitarian.The last part is the epilogue. Lao Zi Tong approve of the basic desire, and advocate rationality. This is in accordance with the reality while beyond reality, and according with Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. As to Shen Yiguan, he is a typical representative of the official, and his Lao-tzu’s theory also represents the development of the times thinking.