Study On Moral Ontology Of Dong Zhongshu

Ontology came into being as a word in the 17 th century. People regard it as the backbone of the western traditional philosophy from Plato to Hegel or as“the first philosophy” and consider it to be the theory foundation of all branches of philosophy. The development of many major schools of modern western philosophy is based on criticism and reflection to ontology. What’s ontology? What’s the differences and relationship between ontology in western culture context and Chinese culture context? In fact, ontology is a very complicated issue. Only when we can make it clear what kind of philosophical morphology is by ontology, can we tell if there exists ontology in the history of Chinese philosophy. The meaning of Chinese ontology can be very broad. As to Chinese philosophy, these philosophical theories discuss about origin, ontology, essence, basis, reason and beginning of the universe or the word which belong to the category of ontology. However, why do we want to study ontology? What’s the significance of studying ontology? Some people think that it means nothing to study ontology which belongs to historical category and old philosophy that just explains the origin of the universe and the world. Some people think in nowadays ontology has become obsolete, and with rapid development of natural science, there is no need to study ontological philosophy. Other people think it is redundant to research ontological philosophy and we had cast away ontological philosophy since Marxist philosophy had come into being. However, those who hold such views don’t have in-depth understanding in ontology. In recent years,it has stirred up the boom of ontology around the world, which it is enough to explain its importance and value in contemporary society. In China, some scholars pay more and more attention to the study of ontology. However, in China, some scholars in philosophy especially those engaged in research on comparative philosophy are easily caught in some mistakes that they like to take western philosophy as standard to look upon Chinese philosophy so that they think China has no ontological philosophy. Meanwhile, they hold more extreme views that China not only has no ontological philosophy but also no philosophy. Nevertheless, whether western philosophy or Chinese philosophy, they all have their own ontology, merely with different concept and thinking logic.What’s moral ontology? Moral ontology explores the ultimate source of morality and stipulates the essential attribute of morality from the metaphysical level. My paper puts moral ontology thought of Dong Zhongshu as the research object; thus, we can know clearly Dong Zhongshu tried to take the heaven as ontology and the knowledge of Dong Zhongshu can be called heaven knowledge. Heaven is the main line of philosophical system of Dong Zhongshu, which is the starting point of Dong Zhongshu’s philosophy. My paper studies Dong Zhongshu’s moral ontology thought, through which we can see why Dong Zhongshu did this and what kind of method has been used by him to demonstrate his view and what’s the purpose of doing so. Before Dong Zhongshu, some people had already explored and researched moral ontology thought, however, what’s the excellence and deficiency of previous research and what’s been absorbed into Dong Zhongshu’s ideological system. What’s the value of Dong Zhongshu’s moral ontology thought? What kind of influence on the later thinkers? Those will be discussed in my paper. During the study, we will know Dong Zhongshu carried forward and absorbed those ideas of Taoists, Legalism, Confucian, Mohism, Yin-Yang school and so on in pre-Qin period to set up his own ideological system. Dong Zhongshu’s moral ontology thought put the heaven as the starting to demonstrate Humane and Kingly way which demonstrates for the ruling of Han dynasty from the perspective of metaphysics and maintain the autocratic rule of feudal society. Religious natural law concept, theory of nature and human, theory of human nature, Gongyang Commentary on Spring and Autumn Annals, the theory of Yin and Yang and five elements enrich Dong Zhongshu’s moral ontology thought. He is the master of Gongyang Commentary on Spring and Autumn Annals, which regards Spring and Autumn annals as holy work to express god’s will from the height of heaven. He combined Yin and Yang, five elements, heaven, earth and human to improve the theory of interaction between heaven and human thereby provide theological basis for unified centralization,limit monarchy and demonstrate the legitimacy of Qin dynasty being replaced by Han dynasty and the rationality of feudal autocratic monarchy centralization. Everything he did would return to the reality and service reality so that it would meet the needs of politics. Meanwhile, he built a set of ethical concepts named three cardinal guides that had a profound impact on the feudal society. Finally, he completed the demonstration from the metaphysical level and the physical level for the unified theory.