儒家思想及其实际应用.doc

毕业论文儒家思想及其实际应用张 超学号：030910313指导教师：夏宏钟专业名称：英 语 专业方向：经贸英语作者单位：外文系 年级班级：03级4班 四 川 理 工 学 院2007年6月Confucianism and Its Practice Supervisor：Xia HongzhongAuthor：Zhang ChaoForeign Language DepartmentSichuan University of Science and EngineeringZigong, Sichuan, ChinaJune 2007AcknowledgementsMy deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to, my supervisor Xia Hongzhong, for his constant encouragement and guidance. He has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. Without his consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form. Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Professor Liu, who led me into the world of Chinese culture. I am also greatly indebted to the Professors and teachers in the Department of English: Zhu Wenjun, Wu Chunrong, who have instructed and helped me a lot.Last, my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving consideration and great confidence in me all through these years. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and fellow classmates who gave me their help and time during the difficult course of the writing.ContentsIntroduction of Confucianism11.1 The background of Confucianism.11.2 Confucianism and its development in the history.11.2.1 Confucianism.11.2.2 Development of early Confucianism.21.2.3 The spread of Confucianism.3 Themes in Confucian thought.32.1 Ritual42.2 Relationships.42.3 Final piety42.4 Loyalty.52.5 Humaneness.52.6 The perfect gentleman.5 Arguments.63.1 Pre-Qin period.63.2 Qin-Han periods.73.3 Wei-Jin-Six-Dynasties periods73.4 The Sui-Tang periods.73.5 The Song-Ming periods.73.6 The Qing period.83.7 In the modern time.8 Practice of Confucianism.84.1 Business.94.2 The people.94.3 Education.94.4 Harmonious society9 Conclusion.10 .Bibliography11ABSTRACTConfucianism is a thought system of benevolence as a fundamental element and taking human in the center of the world. The doctrine about Confucianism or Study of the Scholars for short is the most important traditional culture in China. The effect of Confucianism has been important in political thought and institutions, social relationships and ritual exchange, educational philosophy, moral teaching, cultural attitudes, and historical course.In the first part of this thesis, Ill give detailed introductions about Confucianism. There are the background of Confucianism and its historical process. Mainly, the paper includes Pre-Qin period, the Spring-Autumn, the warring States periods, Han period, Song and Ming periods. And some alterations, reforms and amalgamations in Confucianism by some important scholars are mentioned on the paper. And then, in the second part, the paper talks about the core and the basic system of thoughts of Confucianism. In the third part, the authors views from different angles are presented, and how we should get a right way to Confucianism in modern Chinese society is discussed. And then, the paper discusses the practical applications of Confucianism in business, communication, education and harmonious society in the current social and economic background of our country. By the study, I think we should take more attention to our glamorous national and historical culture. But at the same time, we also should realize that its essence and dross coexist. So we should assimilate the elite and eliminate the dross and make our gorgeous civilization to serve the society.KEY WORDS: Confucianism development themes arguments practice摘 要儒家思想是一个以仁为核心，以民为本的思想体系。儒家学说是中国最为重要的传统文化。儒家思想对中国的政治思想理念，社会交际及礼仪，教育哲学和伦理规范，文化价值观以及历史的演化都产生了重大影响。本论文，在第一部分我对儒家思想进行比较详尽的介绍，其中包括儒家思想产生的背景及历史演变过程，主要为先秦、春秋战国、汉和明宋。以及在此过程中一些重要的儒学思想家对儒学的整理、改进和融合。第二部分综合阐述一下儒家思想的核心以及思想的基本构成体系，并简要提出自己的一些见解。第三部分通过进一步分析，综合探讨历史上不同学者学派，不同时期对儒家的各种评析和看法。然后依据我国现在的社会形势及经济背景，阐述一下儒家学说在商业、交际、教育和构建和谐社会等方面的实际应用。通过本次研究，我认为我们应该对我国灿烂的民族历史文化给予更多关注，同时我们也应该认识到任何文化都有一定的时代性和局限性，因此我们要剔出文化中的糟粕，汲取其中的精髓，让绚丽的文化服务于我们的社会。关键词：儒家，主题思想，探讨，现实意义iIntroduction of Confucianism1.1 The background of ConfucianismConfucius lived in the Spring and Autumn Periods, a time when the old system could not meet the demand of development as the ruling classes of China experienced the change from a slave to feudal society. It was a time of the collapse of ceremony and the deterioration of music, which suggests manners in ones behavior and moralities in society were breaking up. The intellectuals of the day were concerned about the future mode of the society, hence the most brilliant argument of a hundred schools of thought, such as Legist, Taoist, flourished in an unstable period in Chinese history. This is often regarded as the most exciting times for Chinese intellectuals as no single theory was in the ascendant in their lives.Confucius proposal was to cultivate ones manners and to bring back the ethics of Zhou Dynasty. Therefore, he brought forward a series of norms, which step by step developed into Confucianism.1.2 Confucianism and its development in the history1.2.1 ConfucianismConfucianism means The School of the Scholars or less accurately The Teachings of Confucius It is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of the early Chinese sage Confucius. It is a complex system of moral, social, political, and religious thought, which has had important influence on the history of Chinese civilization up to the 21st century. Some people in the West have considered it to have been the state religion of regal China because of the Chinese governments promotion of Confucian value. Debated during the Warring States Period and forbidden during the short-lived Qin Dynasty, Confucianism was chosen by Han Wu Emperor a political system to govern the Chinese state. Despite its loss of influence during the Tang Dynasty, Confucian doctrine remained a mainstream in China for two thousand years until the 20th century. As a leader of a feudal system and a so-called barrier to Chinas modernization, it was attacked, repressed and vilified by radical Chinese thinkers during the Cultural Revolution in the Peoples Republic of China. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Confucianism has been revived in mainland China, and both interest in and debate about Confucianism have surged. The cultures most strongly influenced by Confucianism include those of China (including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao), Korea, Vietnam, and Japan as well as various places (including Singapore) settled predominantly by Chinese people. Confucianism as passed down to the 19th and 20th centuries derives primarily from the school of the Neo-Confucians, led by Zhu Xi, who gave Confucianism renewed energy in the Song and later dynasties. Neo-Confucianism combined Taoist and Buddhist ideas with actual Confucian ideas to create a more complete metaphysics than had ever existed before. At the same time, many forms of Confucianism have historically declared themselves opposed to the Buddhist and Taoist belief systems.1.2.2 Development of early ConfucianismKong Fuzi (Confucius) (551479 BCE) was a famous sage and social philosopher of China whose teachings deeply influenced East Asia for twenty centuries. The relationship between Confucianism and Confucius himself, however, is tenuous. Confucius ideas were not accepted during his lifetime and he frequently bemoaned the fact that he remained unemployed by any of the feudal lords. With many other prominent figures such as Siddhartha Gautama, Jesus, or Socrates, humanity does not have direct access to Confucius ideas. Instead, humans have recollections by his disciples and their students. This factor is further complicated by the Burning of the Books and Burying of the Scholars, a massive suppression of dissenting thought during the Qin Dynasty, more than two centuries after Confucius death. What we now know of Confucius writings and thoughts is therefore somewhat unreliable. However, we can sketch out Confucius ideas from the fragments that remain. Confucius was a man of letters who worried about the troubled times in which he lived. He went from place to place trying to spread his political ideas and influence to the many kings contending for supremacy in China. In the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (771-221 BCE), the reigning king of the Zhou gradually became a mere figurehead. In this power vacuum, the rulers of small states began to vie with one another for military and political dominance. Deeply persuaded of the need for his mission If right principles prevailed through the empire, there would be no need for me to change its state （Analects）, Confucius tirelessly promoted the virtues of ancient illustrious sages such as the Duke of Zhou. Confucius tried to amass sufficient political power to found a new dynasty, as when he planned to accept an invitation from a rebel to make a Zhou dynasty in the East (Analects). As the common saying that Confucius was a king without a crown indicates, however, he never gained the opportunity to apply his ideas. He was expelled from states many times and eventually returned to his homeland to spend the last part of his life teaching. The Analects of Confucius, the closest we have to a primary source for his thoughts, relates his sayings and discussions with rulers and disciples in short passages. There is considerable debate over how to interpret the Analects. Unlike most Western philosophers, Confucius did not rely on deductive reasoning to convince his listeners. Instead, he used figures of rhetoric such as analogy and aphorism to explain his ideas. Most of the time, these techniques were highly contextualized. For these reasons, Western readers might find his philosophy muddled or unclear. However, Confucius claimed that he sought a unity all pervading (Analects) and that there was one single thread binding my way together. The first occurrences of a real Confucian system may have been created by his disciples or by their disciples. During the philosophically fertile period of the Hundred Schools of Thought, great early figures of Confucianism such as Mencius and Xun Zi (not to be confused with Sun Zi) developed Confucianism into an ethical and political doctrine. Both had to fight contemporary ideas and gain the rulers confidence through argumentation and reasoning. Mencius gave Confucianism a fuller explanation of human nature, of what is needed for good government, of what morality is, and founded his idealist doctrine on the claim that human nature is good (性善). Xun Zi opposed many of Mencius ideas, and built a structured system upon the idea that human nature is bad (性恶) and had to be educated and exposed to the rites (礼), before being able to express their goodness for the people. Some of Xun Zis disciples, such as Han Feizi and Li Si, became Legalists (a kind of law-based early totalitarianism, quite distant from virtue-based Confucianism) and conceived the state system that allowed Qin Shi Huang to unify China under the strong state control of every human activity. The culmination of Confucius dream of unification and peace in China can therefore be argued to have come from Legalism, a school of thought almost diametrically opposed to his reliance on rites and virtue. 1.2.3 The spread of ConfucianismConfucianism survived its suppression during the Qin Dynasty partly thanks to the discovery of a trove of Confucian classics hidden in the walls of a scholars house. After the Qin, the new Han Dynasty approved of Confucian doctrine and sponsored Confucian scholars, eventually made Confucianism the official state philosophy (see Emperor Wu of Han). Study of the Confucian classics became the basis of the government examination system and the core of the educational curriculum. No serious attempt to replace Confucianism arose until the May 4th Movement in the 20th century. After its reformulation as Neo-Confucianism by Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming and the other Neo-Confucians, Confucianism also became accepted as state philosophies in Korea and Japan. Korea of the Chosun Dynasty has been termed a Confucian state. Themes in Confucian thoughtA simple way to understand Confucian thought is to consider it as being based on varying levels of honesty. In practice, the elements of Confucianism accumulated over time and matured into the following forms:2.1 Ritual Ritual (礼) originally signified to sacrifice in a religious ceremony. In Confucianism the term was soon extended to include secular ceremonial behavior before being used to refer to the propriety or politeness which colors everyday life. Rituals were codified and treated as an all-embracing system of norms. Confucius himself tried to revive the etiquette of earlier dynasties, but following his death he himself became regarded as the great authority on ritual behavior. 2.2 RelationshipsOne theme central in Confucianism is that of relationships, and the differing duties arising from the different status one holds in relation to others. Individuals are simultaneously held to stand in different degrees of relationship with different people, namely, as a junior in relation to their parents and elders, and as a senior in relation to their children, younger siblings, students, and others. While juniors are considered in Confucianism to owe strong duties of reverence and service to their seniors, seniors also have duties of benevolence and concern toward juniors. This theme consistently manifests itself in many aspects of East Asian culture even to this day, with extensive filial duties on the part of children toward parents and elders, and great concern of parents toward their children. In my hand, we should have extensive duties between different people, but the status should be equal.2.3 Final pietyFilial piety, or filial devotion (孝) is considered among the greatest of virtues and must be shown towards both the living and the dead (ancestors). The term filial, meaning of a child, denotes the respect and obedience from a child, originally a son, should show to his parents, especially to his father. This relationship was extended by analogy to a series of five relationships or five cardinal relationships (五伦): 1. ruler and subject (君臣)2. father and son (父子)3. husband and wife (夫妇)4. elder and younger brother （兄弟）5. friend and friend (朋友)Specific duties were prescribed to each of the participants in these sets of relationships. Such duties were also extended to the dead, where the living stood as sons to their dead family. This led to the respect of ancestors. In time, filial piety was also built into the Chinese legal system: a criminal would be punished more hardly if the prisoner had committed the crime against a parent, while fathers took enormous power over their children. Much the same was true of other unequal relationships. The main source of our knowledge of the importance of filial piety is The Book of Filial Piety, a work attributed to Confucius but almost certainly written in the third century BC. Filial piety has continued to play a central role in Confucian thinking to the present day. 2.4 LoyaltyLoyalty (忠) is the equivalent of filial piety on a different plane, between ruler and minister, friend and friend etc. It was particularly relevant for the social class to which most of Confucius students belonged, because the only way for an ambitious young scholar to make his way in the Confucian Chinese world was to enter a rulers civil service. Like filial piety, however, loyalty was often imposed by the autocratic regimes of China. Confucius had advocated a unconformity to the realpolitik of the class relations during his time; he did not propose that might makes right, but that a superior who had received the Mandate of Heaven (see below) should be obeyed because of his moral rectitude. In later ages, however, emphasis was placed more on the obligations of the ruled to the ruler, and less on the rulers obligations to the ruled. 2.5 HumanenessConfucius was concerned with peoples individual development, which he maintained took place within the context of human relationships. Ritual and filial piety are the ways in which one should act towards others from a basal attitude of humaneness. Confucius concept of humaneness (仁) is probably best expressed in the Confucian version of the Golden Rule phrased in the negative: Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you(己所不欲，勿施于人).Humaneness also has a political dimension. If a ruler lacks humaneness, Confucianism holds, it will be difficult to keep a country calmly. Humaneness is the basis of Confucian political theory: it presupposes an autocratic ruler, exhorted to refrain from acting inhumanely towards his subjects. An inhumane ruler runs the risk of losing the Mandate of Heaven, the right to rule. Such a ruler of lack of culture needs not be obeyed. B