Cultivating Qi,Analyzing Views and Eulogizing Confucius——A New Interpretation of"Zhi Yan Yang Qi"in Mencius
In ancient Chinese culture,Qi(气)can be divided into two categories:material and spiritual.The latter includes blood Qi,emotional Qi,and moral Qi.Among the three,blood Qi mainly refers to human physiological desires,and emotional Qi refers to emotional activities(such as joy,anger,sorrow,and sadness),while moral Qi is related to moral and/or emotional activities,such as benevolence,righteousness,and so on.Magnanimity(浩然之气)advocated by Mencius is not from blood or emotion,neither is it the rational sublimation of the two.Instead,it is from the benevolence and righteousness,which is yielded by"combining righteousness义).Both Mencius'night Qi and morning Qi refer to moral Qi.Mencius claimed to be able to understand views critically and to identify errors in them,but he failed to propose a theoretical method to analyze erroneous views.The main reason for this is that Mencius emphasized excessively on conscience and the intuition,but neglected,to some extent,the role of experiential cognition.It takes,as is known,not only conscience and ability,but also empirical observation and logical analysis to identify errors in views.And the latter is what Mencius lacked.Mencius embodied his political ideals into those of Confucius by highly affirming and praising Confucius:he treated Confucius as a new king who influenced politics through culture and morality,from common people to monarchs.To realize his political ideals,in addition to finding the appropriate monarch to practice his belief,Confucius was looking for a path to cultivate people,and even to practice this cultivation for monarchs.Therefore,"Confucius is the top sage among all".
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
