The Dual Perspectives of the Other and the Self——two interpretations of"the limbs are self-evident"in Mencius
There are two different interpretations of the sentence break and annotation of the last sentence of Mencius Chapter on"Vast territory and large population".Of the two,the sentence break of"They produce an aura of purity and moistness that shows up on the face"("其生色也,睟然见 于面")is a more reasonable one.The words"aura of pu-rity and moistness"(睟然),"rich"(盎)and"limbs know what to do instead of waiting for the command"(四体不言 而喻)are all modifiers describing the conditions of the gentleman's"face","back"and"limbs".There are dual perspec-tives on the interpretation of"limbs know what to do instead of waiting for the command"from the perspective of the other and from the perspective of the self.Zhao Qi explains that the virtues of a gentleman can be made known to oth-ers without words from the first perspective.Zhu Xi explains that,from a second perspective,the natural concord-ance between the mind and the body of a gentleman,and the movements of the limbs naturally follow the four virtues.Zhu Xi's interpretation is clearer and more fluent in terms of textual exegesis and sentence interpretation,and it has reasonable Li and appropriate Yi in terms of Yi and Li,which fits into both Mencius'thought and Confucius'school of thought.
Chapter on"Vast territory and large population""limbs know what to do instead of waiting for the com-mand"the Otherthe SelfZhao QiZhu Xi
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
