A Study Of Religious Characteristic Of Tang Jun-yi’s Learning And Life

As an important representative of the Modern Neo-Confucianism, Tang Jun-yi devotes his life to study traditional culture and to establish a humanistic ideal world. Because his writings works great and far-reaching, Tang Jun-yi is called as " a Giant of the Cosmos of Cultural Consciousness " after his death. Compared with other scholars, Tang Jun-yi’s learning is not separated from his life, his personality inherites directly some temperament of scholars of the Song and Ming Dynasty, which shows a true Confucian tolerance. What he had done were exemplifications of Confucian ethics he advocated. Since Tang Jun-yi had practiced the spirit of Confucianism throughout his life, which was similar to Western religions believers had done, he was considered as a special Modern Neo-Confucianism who had strong religious feelings.In this paper, based on the Confucian value system since the May 4th movement was decomposed into background, in comparison with early Modern Neo-Confucianism learning and life, selecting typical material and analyzing how he realized the fundamental change of life in step by step from four aspects included learning orgin, life’s goal, the practice of life and the destination of life, to try to present Tang Jun-yi’s learning and life which were fulled of religious feelings.The thesis includes five parts. The first part is introduction, which first analyzes the reasons and the relevance of the topics, then makes a specific sort of research status of Tang Jun-yi’s thought at home and abroad, and points out the research object of the whole paper is Tang Jun-yi’s learning life rather than a particular theory. The last part makes a brief description of the family background and history of the conceptions of life of Tang Jun-yi.The second part discusses life’s goal of Tang Jun-yi. Firstly, it explains three important points including the inner meaning of" transcend "that closely contacted with the life’s goal, the different understandings of " transcend "between Chinese and Western Culture, and the discussions of early Modern Neo-Confucianism who absorbed many factors of western religious culture. Next, this part points out how Tang Jun-yi to establish his life’s goal from his understanding of the core of Chinese and Western culture, his study of destiny and the certainly of the real life. And then, making sure the existence of Heart Ontology which was philosophy foundation of his thought, Tang Jun-yi futher emphasizes the transcendence and immanence of the Heart Ontology, which paves a road to achieve the goal.The third part discusses the practice of Tang Jun-yi’s learning life. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of traditional religious practice, this section which combines the unity of knowledge and practice, points out some similarities between Confucians’moral practice and traditional religious activities. And then, this section analyses every process of his whole life from some aspects, such as the manner of communicating with others, the road of academic and the dissemination of culture, to show what Tang Jun-yi had said and done are exemplification of Confucian ethics that he upholds.The fourth part discusses the life’s destination of Tang Jun-yi, that is Tang Jun-yi thinks the ultimate concern of Confucianism is much more real and full than other religions. This section first discusses the origin and meaning of "ultimate concern", then recognizes that Tang Jun-yi approbates the value of religions on the basis of his study of religions. However, Tang Jun-yi believes that Confucianism can solve the crisis caused by Scientism and Nihilism better. Standing on the position of religious dialogue, Tang Jun-yi insists that Confucianism is the only doctrine that can be fused to other major religions of the world. Then, he constructs the nine compasses of life realm which covers all of Eastern and Western culture and regards Confucianism as the highest realm. Tang Jun-yi tries to provide a philosophical approach to live a life in truth for people on the false world.The last part is epilogue, it restates the theme of this paper, that is how Tang Jun-yi merges his learning and life. This section emphasizes some achievements of moral self and religious studies. Yet, the last part agrees that what Tang Jun-yi had said and done is the nature of his life.