Review Tao And Bureaucratic Technique Of Legalism From The Perspective Of Consensus

The relation between heaven and human is a major topic of Thought in ancient China.To know what the Thought of thinkers is in the Pre–Qin Dynasty,we must realize how the concept of heaven and human belongs to the thinker define his politics.From Yin and Chou period to Spring and Autumn period,the concept of our ancestors about heaven and human changed slowly and kept continuous.And its systematic idea was unveiled by many thinkers in Spring and Autumn period,and Warring State period.During this period,Gods and Spirits were fating out,but human were looming.The nature and merit of humankind was founded.Meanwhile,the opinion and interest of people had been concerned.Even though appeared lately,Legalism were creative and comprehensive.In addition,they involved in politics deeply in which they known a lot about what politics is.Their Thought had significant influence in solving with Feudalism crisis and made peace at that time.Though making sense in Chinese ancient political history,Legalism was underestimated by Confucianism in intellectual history and academic history all the time.As one kind of Thought boomed in several different dynasty facing wars,firstly among Warring State period and Han Dynasty,later Song Dynasty and modern times,Legalism must has its unique character.Once we can get rid of bias from schools and modern value,then read the context in a comprehensive way and two different conclusions will be made as follow.On one hand,Legalism has its time character and schools character;On the other hand,Legalism has common sense with other schools in political ideal and value,even the way of government.On the aspect of intellectual world,the Legalism was related to Tao and bureaucratic technique of the ancient time from the long term perspective,and was influenced by the humanism from Spring and Autumn Dynasty from a shorter term perspective.On the aspect of historical world,Legalism was influenced by underlying realism from ancient time and experienced a series of social transformation,the latter shaped Legalism with time characteristic.Otherwise,this paper uses the concept :Knowledge,Thought,and Belief from Ge ZhaoGuang to describe the intellectual world before Pre-Qin Philosophers and under Pre-Qin Philosophers,and the creative thought of Legalism had great gap with it.The Tao and bureaucratic technique of ancient is a theory containing knowledge about cosmos and human.Although Legalism has lost the characteristic of the whole comprising with ancient theory,their theory still contains the same structure like the former and part of one is about human included a treatise of human nature and politics.The theory about Tao is their ontology,whilebureaucratic technique is their concert politic theory.With the evidence of literature,we can know Shang Lord and Han Fei –tzu both accepted the theory of Tao as their ontology from Laozi and the Huang-Lao school in order to transfigured political craft,meanwhile Tao also defined what political craft ought to be.Hence,Legalism should be regard as a school looking for unification between Tao and political craft.Logically the theory of Tao defines a treaties of human nature,at same time also defines concrete political craft.Therefore,we should remember of the definition of the theory of Tao when analysis the concrete opinion about dealing with political affairs.From the perspective of consensus,we can make a conclusion that legalism reached agreement on concerning power.Because the definition of Tao,Legalism pointed out the way of rule should change as condition,this historical concept can reach agreement on the way of rule with Confucianism and Taoism in special condition.Legalism gave up constructing political legitimacy by Gods because of its disenchanted Tao,and wanted to ensure the rule of emperor by power and law.Facing with crisis and dealing with bureaucratic affair,Legalism didn't believe religion and requested less use of magic.Although Legalism pointed out who should be accused of serious penalty even though his crime didn't desert it at special time,They still searched for Tao and had a ideal that create a realm without the use of law.Because the definition of Tao,the bureaucratic technique of Legalism mainly is political craft which can be institutionalized rather than political trickery.Ensuring the political legitimacy with rational reason,Legalism had great difference with other schools let alone Knowledge,Thought,and Belief.Unfortunately,it led to defect in legitimacy justification,so Legalism had to re-enchanted by bureaucratic technique.Perhaps because they walked too far and lost way,legalism could not check and balance the power of emperor by Gods,nor could justify legitimacy with enough source.Focus on Book of Lord Shang and Han Fei-tzu,this paper mainly discuss their concept of heaven and human,and how it define their politics,at the end describes what their politics are in detail as present of legalism.And it is divided into free parts.The first part describes the environment of Legalism,historical world and thought world included;the second part discuss what the thought is that influence their concept of heaven and human,and describe what their concept of heaven and human is;the third part mainly talks about politics by key words,such as power,law and bureaucratic technique.