Research On Wang Xinjing's "Shangshu Doubt"

Wang Xinjing is a famous Neo-Confucianist and a Confucianist of Confucian classics in the middle and early Qing Dynasty.He is a representative of Guan School.He wrote a lot of works in his life and had great influence in the Qing Dynasty.The Queries of Shangshu is Wang Xinjing's book on the study of the Shangshu,which embodies Wang Xinjing's achievements in the study of the Shangshu.At present,the academic research on Wang Xinjing is limited in the aspect of Neo Confucianism,while the research on his Confucian classics,especially on the field of Shangshu,is less involved.We could sort out Wang Xinjing's understanding of Shangshu systematically through doing the research on The Queries of Shangshu,so as to have a glimpse of Wang Xinjing's thoughts about Shangshu studies and his ideas of Confucian classics.It has very important academic significance.Wang Xinjing's life can be described in 16 words which are“be indifferent to fame and wealth,pursuing the holy learning exhaustively,writing books and theories,understanding the system and applying”.The Queries of Shangshu is one of his classics which has finished lasted for several decades.The book quoted widely from other documents and pointed out the every source.It is a collection of Sinology,Song-studies,modern language and ancient language.And it pays more attention to modern language and Song-studies.In terms of the method of interpreting scriptures,Wang Xinjing not only adopted the traditional method of exegesis,but also focused on the interpretation of the scriptures' argumentation;he not only explained the sentences' meaning,but also explained the gist.In addition,he also made full use of the scriptures in Shangshu to cite each other.At the same time,Wang Xinjing inherits the spirit of Confucius and Mencius that “be well-informed and suspend judgment on things in doubt”.When the text is so difficult to explain,we could keep it in doubt and couldn't explicate it deliberately.If one word or sentence has kinds of explaination,we could choose the advanced one.In terms of ideological gist,Wang Xinjing advocated taking the thoughts of Confucius and Mencius as the purpose and returning to the classics,trying to break the long-standing situation of theoretical debate.He also advocated the principle of “Confucian classics and Neo Confucianism are consistent”,so he integrated fully Neo Confucianism into the interpretation of Shangshu,and advocated that doing every things should according to the heavenly principles,removing the evil things and pursuing the good one,so as to maintain the order and achieve the social beauty.At the same time,the mind and nature can not be separated from the ordinary daily life,and the work of holding respect must be implemented in the daily use of human relations.Therefore,Wang Xinjing emphasized the unity of knowledge and practice,he advocated the study of managing the world and practiced it in his daily life.In the interpretation of Shangshu,Wang Xinjing paid special attention to the modern language Yao Dian,and advocated that the present version of Yao Dian and Shun Dian should be combined into one article,and the name should be written in accordance with the Great Learning which named as Imperial Canon.Wang Xinjing's interpretation of Shangshu is mostly based on the modern language Shangshu.In addition,Wang also affirmed that the Mo of Gao Yao and Yi Ji,Gu Ming and the Imperial Command of Kang are a pair of words.However,in the interpretation of Kang Gao,Jiu Gao and Zi Cai,Wang thinks that these three articles should belong to the King Wu of Zhou Dynasty.It is advisable that Wang Xinjing has changed the order of the original classics of Shangshu.