History of Ancient Chinese Thought

Author: Li Zehou
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: This book begins by analyzing Confucian benevolence and proposes the issue of the "cultural psychological structure" of the Chinese nation. It argues that blood ties, psychology, humanism, and personality are the four major factors. Mencius and Xunzi rise from internal and external perspectives to create a glorious individual personality and a great human characteristic, with pragmatic rationality and a culture of joy as its core spirit. The book also uses this framework to discuss various major thoughts, schools, and figures from the pre-Qin to the Ming and Qing dynasties. It particularly argues that Chinese dialectics is "action-oriented" rather than "speculative," discusses how the "Heaven-M Humanity Resonance" cosmology, which formed during the Qin and Han periods and has an organic feedback mechanism, has persisted to this day, and explores how the philosophy of Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism represents an aesthetic pursuit of metaphysics in life. It also highlights the enduring value of Neo-Confucianism as a moral metaphysics and points out that during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the concepts of "inner sage" and "governing law" began to separate, signaling the potential decline of China's theocratic system and marking an important trend toward modernity.