Why to say "the two characters of daotong are the idioms of corrupt scholars"
——On the theoretical basis of the criticism of the orthodoxy by the early Enlightenment scholars in China
Xu Sumin, professor and doctoral supervisor of the center for Chinese thinkers research, Nanjing University, and director of the academic committee of the center.
The original is published in Jianghan forum, 2016, issue 6.
Abstract:
In the early Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Chinese enlightenment scholars criticized the theory of Daoism, and revealed the following theoretical mistakes from the academic source and philosophy theory: first, they lacked the philosophy spirit of "know yourself", thought they exhausted all the truths of the universe and life, set up their mind, life, and open the Taiping "seal binding the world", their "good self-esteem, great banner", "and the flow of the Yellow River to promote their ancestors to establish their ancestors There is no difference in the wind; the second is that the "mind method imparted by Confucius" it advertises comes from the fake academic books, and its so-called Tao is "taking one's own view as the meaning of the ancient sages to make a speech", and its "one line and one legend" about Tao is not in line with the fact that "Tao is not one way, sex is not one" social life history and cognitive history, and its "Tao has no end" theory is not in line with "Tao is not in line with" Tao no end "in Chinese academic history The third is the lack of an all inclusive multi-cultural mentality. The essence of judging all the academic works by "periodical determines the death base" is "fengyao and Shun think it is the target of suppressing people's hearts", and the "non monarch's heart" it advertises is also an outdated theory of the rule of man. Inheriting the essence of China's early criticism of Confucian orthodoxy and seeing China's philosophy and culture in an equal perspective will help to explore, inherit and carry forward the essence of Chinese philosophy and culture more comprehensively.
Key words: the critique of orthodoxy; know yourself; human beings carry Tao without exception; holding one is harmful to Tao; abolish the orthodoxy;
Since the late Ming Dynasty, there have been many critiques of Daoism. Li Zhi criticized the Daoists for their "good self-esteem and great banner, but he didn't know how to criticize them. Huang Zongxi took" Confucius taught the mind method "as the" moth of Neo Confucianism ", and" Hengqu four sentence teaching "as the" broad theory "of" Qian bound the world ". Wang Fuzhi said that the" unification theory "is no different from those who pushed up their ancestors and established their own customs" by the flow of the Yellow River, which is the scholars and the government According to Gu Yanwu's opinion, all the words of "Wei Wei Jing Yi", Dai Zhen's criticism of the Confucians in the Song Dynasty, "taking their own views as the meaning of ancient sages' opinions", Yuan Mei's "the two words of daotong are the idioms of corrupt scholars" and "the theory of abolishing daotong", Wang Mingsheng's ridicule of "those who open their mouths to daotong are the scholars in the village of decapitated turbans". And so on and so on. But up to now, it seems that there are not many scholars who know all this. The word "daotong" still appears frequently in the works of many famous scholars at home and abroad. The way of thinking of daotong theory is still accepted by some scholars engaged in the study of humanities, especially Hong Kong and Taiwan Scholars. In this case, looking back on the criticism of the scholars of Ming and Qing Dynasties on the theory of Daoism, asking why they said that "daotong" is the idiom of corrupt scholars, and what is its theoretical basis, is not totally meaningless. Generally accepted academic norms in the world only focus on facts and logic.
1、 "Good self-esteem is a big mark, but I don't know how much it's accused."
——Li Zhi's criticism of the orthodoxy
Li Zhi insisted on opposing the Confucian orthodoxy in Song Dynasty. As early as the 16th year of Wanli (1588), Li Zhi pointed out that the death of Yan Hui marked the loss of Confucianism. The other disciples of Confucius have been moved by wealth and wealth. Where can they preach? From Han Confucianism to song Confucianism to Ming Confucianism, all of them regard Confucianism as orthodox, but it is "people benefit from despicability and wind benefit from below" (1). He also said, "koni's father also talks about the ears of Taoists, but he doesn't know its disadvantages." (2) if there is any inheritance between Confucianism and learning, then Taoists just inflated the disadvantages of Confucianism maliciously. In the burning book published in 1590, Li had the pluralistic view that "all human beings carry Tao", which he generalized in his later years. He believed that "Tao" is in the hearts of "people who cultivate, cultivate, cultivate, and fish", in the hearts of "small men in the market" and "businessmen", and in the hearts of "thousands of saints and thousands of sages" including all kinds of families, "I only take it (3) Li Zhi's "ancient records of Ming Deng Dao" in his later years and his "collection of books" in his later years, due to the influence of the philosophical spirit of "know yourself" embodied in Matteo Ricci's "God's righteousness", his inner criticism on the theory of Daoism is more in-depth.
First of all, the most fundamental mistake of the orthodoxy lies in not being able to know oneself or others correctly.
In the ancient records of Mingdeng Dao, Li Zhi transformed Matteo Ricci's saying that "human beings are the same as God, over respected; human beings and things are the same, over humble" into a criticism of the self worship of Confucianism, the worship of saints and the worship of emperors (4). He invited the Confucianism and its saints and the emperors they worshipped to the altar. As for the self worship of the Confucians, he pointed out that it was "a great mark of good self-esteem, and I don't know how much it was criticized.". For the sage worship of Confucians, he criticized and said: "don't regard those who respect virtue as outsiders. What they do is just what everyone can do. A man should do what he is willing to do, and should not regard saints too highly. Yao and Shun are one with passers-by, sage and mortal. " (5) He added: "the world knows that the common people and the couple are unworthy, and does not know that the saints are also unworthy?" What a saint can do, a couple can't do it. Don't regard the couple in the world as well What a couple can't do, though a saint can't do it, don't look up to all saints. " (6)
He gave full play to the meaning of "from the son of heaven to the common people, one is based on self-cultivation". He thought that this sentence should have a premise, that is, "if we say" one is ", then the common people and the son of heaven, etc." Therefore, it is necessary to confirm that "no one in the world is not the original." Only in this way can we talk about "no one is not the first to establish its own.". But the problem lies in: "those who look at the world today, are ordinary people, and regard themselves as too low; too low, they call themselves the responsibility of being unjustifiable, and they fall into a rather remote position and ignore it. For the son of heaven, I think I am too high; for too high, I think I have the right to manipulate, and I don't care about the common people like ants. " (7) The reason why the emperor thinks too highly of himself is also related to the Confucian saying that "king and heaven are the same".
He thought that the fundamental drawback of traditional society is that the monarch and scholar officials "think too highly of themselves" and the common people "think too low of themselves", and all social evils come from it. The high self-esteem and deification of the monarch and the scholar officials are the epistemological roots of the emergence of despotism; the low self-esteem and low self-esteem of the common people are the epistemological guarantee for the maintenance and continuity of despotism; however, both the high self-esteem and the low self-esteem are the expression of the philosophical spirit of "knowing yourself".
Secondly, in Chinese culture, Tao is originally pluralistic. Mencius' theory of "exhausting all the people" not only contradicts his own theory that "one is harmful to Tao", but also his reasons for excluding all the people are illogical.
As early as in the eighth year of Wanli (1580), Li Zhi put forward the pluralistic view of "Tao is not one way, and sex is not one way." he said: "a man of Tao has more than one way, and a man of sex has not only one way, but also one way." (8) In his later years, Li Zhi gave further play to this viewpoint in his works such as the ancient records of Mingdeng road and Jiuzheng Yiyin. He said, "the world is great, the people are great, the things are not complete, and the feelings of things are also." (9) From the point of view that human beings are formed by the Yin and Yang of heaven and earth, it can be said that "all things are unified into one Qianyuan, which is the protection of harmony, and can not be different from each other". However, from the point of view of specific things, "each thing has its own Qianyuan, which is the right of life, and can not be obtained with the same" (10), and the specific performance of human nature also has its own uniqueness, so it can be said that "everyone has its own Qianyuan There is the first capital of common things "(11). Since everyone has a unique and extraordinary endowment and quality, and the road of life is not only one way, so the Tao can only be diverse.
Mencius is the originator of the theory of orthodoxy, but Li Zhi also noticed that there is a saying in Mencius that "to hold one is to harm the way" (12), which is obviously contradictory to his view that "to exclude all the people" and that other theories are regarded as heresy. He revealed this contradiction when commenting on Mencius in the book collection, and pointed out that: "the Mencius' learning, knowing its greatness, is really like going to the Confucius' hall and receiving the mantle, and it is no doubt that it is sufficient to follow the legend of Confucius. His speech is also very good, but to the exclusion of all the people, it is still necessary to insist on the speech to gallop their own views, and want to talk about the living with the dead. Madame is a living person, so her goodness is the best There is no good, no bad If you insist on a certain theory, holding a magazine will determine the death of the book, and want to print it to connect the world, it is also the same. To hold on to one is to harm the way. Meng said it to himself If you don't insist on one word, you can pass. If you don't decide on death, you will live forever. " (13) Taking the theory of human nature as an example, he thought that Mencius was right in his theory of good nature, but he rejected the theory of human nature of other schools. He didn't see the side of "learning is far away" and "learning is sex and success", as Confucius did. It was wrong to deny that the theory of human nature of other schools also has its rationality. It's not logical to see that "holding one is harmful", but to follow the "holding one is harmful". In order to avoid this logical error, we must take a higher level of theoretical thinking, to "the most good, no good, no bad" to contain various theories.
Li Zhi believed that in Chinese learning, Tao was originally pluralistic, each of the hundreds of schools had its own "Tao", and each of them was equal, without distinction of superiority and inferiority. They had their own families, each of them had a certain degree of learning, and each had a certain degree of merit (14). He also logically criticized Mencius' slander of Mozi's theory because of his self-esteem of "fighting against heresy". Mencius regarded Xia Yu as the ancient sage king. Li Zhi used his son's spear to attack his son's shield. He pointed out: "Mozi's Zong Yu, Mencius's Bi mo, was also the Bi Yu." (15) Mencius said that "Mozi loves both, and he has no father." Li Zhi refuted that "those who love both, they love each other. How to say "evil benevolence" is to make people love each other? If that is to say that "evil benevolence" is to make people love each other, then people will not hurt each other. I love my father, and then all people love my father, and what is to say that "no father" is to make people love my father, but no father is to make people thief my father? "(16) therefore, it is totally illogical to condemn Mozi to love both father and animals. While defending Mozi's theory of "festival burial", Li Zhi also pointed out that "the festival burial in the Ming Dynasty is not to neglect his relatives and abandon the ravines to eat with foxes. What's wrong with the crime of forcing a man into a man? It's a good crime for a Confucian to enter a man since the Mencius. " (17) Mencius dealt with Mohism in such a rough manner in order to gain the supremacy of Confucianism. Li Zhi's exposure and criticism of "Confucian's crime of being easy to enter people" was a powerful attack on the cultural autocracy of the orthodoxy.
In Li Zhi's view, human life and practice are originally the most vivid, active and colorful, and they are "most alive". We can't regulate the diversified social life with the "certain theory" which is set in one place, and the "death method" which is set in the "dead book" which has long been dead