A Comparison Of Hume's And Liang Shuming's Concepts Of "Emotion"

Emotion is an important topic in philosophical discussion at all times and in all countries.Hume was the representative figure of British moral Emotionalism in the 18th century,and Liang Shuming was the representative figure of the revival of Confucian emotionalism in the 20th century.This paper compares the two concepts of "emotion",and then discusses the related issues of morality,emotion and rationality in the sense of moral philosophy.The full text includes the introduction altogether four parts.The introduction examines the "enmotion" dimension in Hume's philosophical research and Liang Shuning's philosophical research,clarifies the gains and losses of previous researches,and explains the thinking and meaning of this research.The first chapter mainly reviews the tradition of emotion for Hume and Liang Shuming,and clarifies the influence of the 18th-century British moral emotionalism tradition on Hume and the Confucian emotionalism tradition on Liang Shuming.In order to clarify some misunderstandings,the author needs to make an in-depth study of Liang Shuming's concept of "emotion".This chapter studies the relationship between "intuition","reason" and "heart" in Liang Shuming's thought with emotion,and clarifies his emotional standpoint.The second chapter examines the similarities and differences between Hume and Liang Shuming's concept of "emotion" through the concepts of"impression" and "instinct","moral sensibility" and "autopsyche","emotion"and "reason".Both Hume and Liang Shuming affirm the existence of emotion in the empirical meaning,but liang Shuming believes that human beings also have the "selfless feeling" beyond "iinstinct"as a more profound emotional manifestation.Hume's theory of "moral sense" is very similar to Liang Shuming's concept of "consciousness".In the relationship between emotion and reason,both insist on the two points of emotion and reason at the beginning.Hume mostly deals with the relationship between emotion and reason in moral philosophy,while Liang Shuming deals with the relationship between emotion and reason in the distinction between "instinct","intellect"and "reason".Although both advocate the dominance of emotion over reason,Liang Shuming is not only limited to Hume's instrumental understanding of reason,but also tends to bridge reason and emotion.The third chapter leads the question to Hume and Liang Shu-ming's aim of "emotion"--morality,and makes it clear that the problems they pay attention to are caused by their times.In them,there are dual appeals of moral reconstruction under the transformation of modernity and responding to the challenge of rationality.Hume and Kant are two western answers to morality;However,Liang Shuming's understanding of morality is as likely to slide into moral relativism as Hume's emotionalism.Therefore,it is necessary to respond to the question whether emotion necessarily leads to relativism in morality.Through response,the corresponding theoretical structure of emotion,reason and morality is finally given.