Research On Feng Youlan's Human Nature Thought

Feng Youlan is a famous philosopher and ethicist in modern China.He is the representative figure of modern New Li Xue and has been devoted to the modern transformation of Chinese philosophy and ethics.On the basis of traditional Chinese Confucianism,especially Neo-Confucianism of Cheng and Zhu,Feng Youlan absorbed the rationalism and logical analysis of the West to rebuilt Confucianism.He made the Confucianism realize logical,rational and systematization.In the thought of human nature,Feng Youlan also put forward many creative ideas which was a meaningful exploration of the modern development of our traditional human nature thought.The article opens up discussion on the Feng Youlan's thoughts of human nature through the research of Feng Youlan's personal works and relevant materials.Feng Youlan took the logical analysis as his research method throughout the whole process.On the question about good or evil in human nature,he inherited the nature of righteousness and temperament of Neo-Confucianism and established the presupposition that human nature is good and got the inference that human nature is good.At the same time,from the perspective of class,he divided creatively the real human nature into the positive,auxiliary and irrelevance,which found the theoretical basis for the good and evil in the real behavior.On questions about human nature,Feng Youlan has introduced the theory of western rationalism to establish rational to be the essence of human nature,which included the morality of traditional Confucian.Going forward from here,he put forward the highest goal of life that is to achieve full rationality and to be a saint who develops both moral rationality and intellectual rationality in an all-round way.In the Feng Youlan's thought,the relationship between sex,emotion and heart is closely related,especially the understanding of the heart,which enables people to make every effort to get rid of rationality.So it is consistent with the process of people's efforts to approach rationality.This also reflects the uniqueness of human beings,which is a sign of the difference between human beings and animals.In this way,Feng Youlan constructs the overall framework of his human nature thought through the concepts "human reason","human nature","rationality" and "perception".Feng Youlan's thought of human nature is an exploration which has great significance under the background of modern history.The article will treat dialectically Feng Youlan's thought of human nature.One the one hand,it will understand theoretical value and positive significance.One the other hand,it will notice historical limitations and theoretical defects.On this basis,we can understand correctly Feng Youlan's thought of human nature and its value.