A Research On Chen Li's Hermenesutic Ideas

Chen Li(1810-1882)had experienced five emperors of Qing dynasty,including Jia Qing,Dao Guang,Xian Feng,Tong Zhi,Guang Xu.The debate with Li Biling divided his academic career into two periods.When he was young,he wanted to be a writer of poems of prose,and when he became elder,he attended a school,called Xue Hai Tang,and absorbed himself into the studies of Xun Gu and Kao Ju.After his middle age,when he became more and more knowledgeable,he accepted the doctrines of Confucianism of Song dynasty and had deep understanding of Confucianism of Han dynasty,and tried to united them by theories to create a practical doctrine.The purpose,attitude and methods of his interpretation of classical works reflected in his two masterpieces,The General Understanding of Confucianism of Han and The Reading Notes of Eastern School.First of all,he argued that the main purpose of the studies of classical works was to understand the Dao and solve the problems of real world.Chen Li believed that the classical works of confucianism reflected the universal Dao.He advocated scholars to master the main idea of classical works and apply them to cheer up the slack learning atmosphere and maintain the stability of the world which were suffering the chaos.Secondly,he thought that to understand the sages' Dao require both of previous leanings and the abilities to understand the classical works.Thirdly,scholars should not only be knowledgeable,do not establish wrong doctrines,but also focus on one classical work,not to follow their predecessors strictly,but rather to think how to solve the problems of real world.There are four features of Chen Li's interpretation of classical works: Firstly,the authentic understanding of sages ‘s Dao is the uniting of doctrines and personal behaviors even though sages' Dao exists objectively.Secondly,understanding the Dao requires some corresponding premises and basis.Thirdly,it is historical,which means we could give your own comments based on previous doctrines and leave the right of comment to subsequent scholars.Fourthly,we should have strong awareness of protection of academic works.All the comments and interpretations deserve to be protected well because they may contain the intrinsic meaning of classical works.The evaluation of Chen Li's classic interpretation concept presents two poles.First,Zhang Taiyan,Liu Shipei and others focus on Chen Li's practice of extracting the same arguments from Han and Song Confucians,and criticize it for its far-fetchedattachment.The second is Chen's disciples and scholars of the Republic of China,focusing on the role of Chen Li's representative of the Han and Song Schools in the academic evolution of the Qing Dynasty,and praising his corrections and corrections to Qian Jia's Sinology.Liang Qichao and Qian Mu,who specialize in the study of academic history in the Qing Dynasty,believe that Chen Li's reconciliation with the Han and Song Dynasties is to absorb the Song dynasty to correct the sinology and fail to escape the scope of Sinology.However,Liang emphasizes Chen Li's achievements in Sinology research and sums up traditional academics,while Qian emphasizes Chen Li's guiding role in the rise of the new academic style.Generally speaking,Chen Li had inherited the tradition of respecting the ancient times and focusing on one classical work.From respecting the ancient times,Chen Li argued to treat the doctrines of predecessors dialectically,as he put forward to recognize that the understandings of the main idea of classical works and the Dao of sages were relative and finite.Chen Li combined the focusing on one classical work and Zhu Xi's gradual progress and deep spiritual experience together.He recognized we should learn gradually as the understanding of integrity requires the understanding of portion,and also because the understanding of portion relies on the understanding of integrity.Chen Li's narrative about the relative of the recognition and the relationship of portion and integrity of understanding are as similar as the diverse understanding and circulation of western hermeneutics,and have provided valuable enlightenment to the establish of Chinese hermeneutics.To clarify Chen Li's position of classical interpretation in the traditional interpretation of Chinese tradition,it is necessary to explain Chen Li's understanding of the two categories of "criticism" and "examination".The academic changes before and after Chen Li are essentially changes in the attitude of the test.In the early years,the learning of the text was the main purpose of his studies,while after his middle age,the text was used as the basis for the study of the classics.It is based on the evidence to prove and support the theory of reason,and is close to the current literary school.It can be called Chen Li as a transitional figure for the transformation of Qian Jia's Sinology to the modern Chinese classics.Chen Yu's so-called "doctrines " is not only the meaning of the scriptures in the past,but also the way of saints contained in the original text of the scriptures.The idea of understanding the classical works is in line with traditional scholarship.Based on this,it can be considered that Chen Li is a summary of Chinese classic interpretation tradition,especially the tradition of ancient Chinese classics.