Cao-Duan’s Ne-Confucianism

As a Neo-Confucianismist in the early Ming Dynasty,Cao Duan’s ideological theory was developed on the basis of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism,and it was further enriched and developed by his time background and his own thinking.Development,although his thoughts are based on Cheng-Zhu,but in his Mind-nature theory and Literature theory also has the germination of Philosophy of Mind thought,so he attaches great importance to the role of "Heart",so his theory also Known as the "the Learning of Cultivating Heart ".In the early and middle periods of the Ming Dynasty,Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism occupies an absolute dominant position,and in the middle and late periods of the Ming Dynasty,Mind theory of Yangming has been able to compete against Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism,or even more popular.Therefore,the study of Cao Duan’s philosophy,which is with both Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism and quite a feature of Mind theory,is helpful for us to better understand the transformation process of inner of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism from(Cheng-Zhu)Neo-Confucianism to Mind theory.In Cao Duan’s ideological system,his Ontology mainly inherited Zhu Zi’s theory,using "Tai Chi" as the universal ontology,thus laying the ideological nature of his objective idealism.In Mind-nature Theory,Cao Duan has proposed "Mind-nature Tai Chi",which made his academic thoughts show a certain color of Mind theory,and had a certain academic impact on the scholars later after him.In Literature theory,Cao Duan has regarded the classics as dross to some extent,and proposed "Learning is mainly in the heart",which is different from Cheng and Zhu’s "Knowledge is acquired through experience." From this,we can also tell that although Cao Duan studied under Cheng and Zhu,his ideological system still has great personal characteristics.Cao Duan’s ideological theory can be said to be inherited from Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianis,and an inspiration of Mind theory of Yangming.in the fourth chapter of this article,a systematic review of the relevant ideas that he inherited and developed is sort out,and carries out the discussion on what particular thoughts of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism have been inherited by Cao Duan’s Neo-Confucianism,and what specific theoretical developments and innovations it had on the Cheng-Zhu Theory.In the process of inspired the Mind theory,this article has also discussed in which aspects did his thought have the psychology of mind,and which scholars of future generations were affected,and in the process that Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism’s dominance in academia was evenly divided or even surpassed by Mind theory of Yangming,what impact did Cao Duan’s thought of Neo-Confucianism have had.The characteristic of Cao Duan’s philosophy lies in not only staying at the level of speculation,but also attaching more importance to the implementation of the theory into the realm of social education.He believed that every individual in the society should promote their own spiritual realm,so that the mind will be able to be immersed in the realm of benevolence and righteousness,while at the same time,they also need to regulate their own behaviors and behaviors,so that they can be surrounded by Ritual rule,if these are insisted,a kind of individual life state of harmony between man and nature can be achieved,and if everyone is so,then people only need efforts of three generation can restore to the prosperity,and a harmonious and healthy social environment can be established.