What is a person? I'm afraid this is a long-standing problem in philosophy and the most attractive one. As long as people exist for one day, thinking about this problem will not stop.
In the next series of articles, we will carefully sort out the human nature thought shining with the light of wise men in the history of Chinese and western philosophy.
First, China's philosophy.
According to the characteristics of China's philosophy, human nature can be roughly divided into these schools: theory of good nature, theory of evil nature, theory of good and evil, theory of transcendental good and evil, dualism and monism.
Mencius, as the representative, advocated the "transcendental" theory of goodness. He first put forward the idea of "goodness", that is, it is inherent, that is, everyone has an innate goodness, and its content is benevolence, righteousness, courtesy and wisdom. This kind of goodness is hidden, but it is not obvious. Only by expanding and filling it, can we devote ourselves to and understand the sky rationally.
Xunzi's basic proposition is: "human nature is evil, and good people are illusory." People's passion is easy to relax and hate work. Naturally, human nature will spontaneously expand the worst side, leading to chaos and disorder. Therefore, human nature must be "corrected and reformed", and the purpose of good nature can be achieved by artificially correcting deviations (that is, standardizing human nature through etiquette).
In short, no matter whether human nature is good or evil, readers can notice that these are different means and the ultimate goal is the same:
Mencius started from the innate foundation, and human nature was born with "one thought is good", while Xunzi started from the acquired "lust", and people wanted to enjoy leisure and hate labor; Specific practical approaches: one emphasizes "expansion" and the other emphasizes "transformation", and the ultimate goal is to achieve a perfect saint personality.
"Note: Mencius' nature of speech is based on differences (different from the characteristics of animals), and it is benevolence, righteousness and propriety, while Xunzi's nature is based on human nature, and there is no benevolence, righteousness and propriety, which must be supplemented and reformed. "
Another representative of the pre-Qin Dynasty was Lao Zi and Zhuangzi. Taoism and Confucianism, on the other hand, actively corrected their mistakes and eliminated their disadvantages when they joined the WTO. They don't think that human nature is good or evil. However, from the perspective of the unity of man and nature, it advocates that Taoism is natural and inaction, such as Zhuangzi's "Everything is one", and people interact with everything in the world alone, without arrogance or rashness. Man has forgotten himself in the pursuit of the highest personality realm of man, god and saint.
Taoism is non-sexual starting from "lust", which is the same as Xunzi; Sex is not "benevolence", which is the same as Mencius; However, Xunzi believes that sex needs to be corrected and reformed, and Laozi is the most opposed to this transformation and harm. Mencius believes that sex is meaningful, and Laozi is the most opposed.
Therefore, Laozi can be said to be "beyond good and evil".
In addition to the nature of good and evil, the mixture of good and evil is also very representative, introducing a sexual-emotional structure. Dong Zhongshu believes that sex contains "feelings", so on the whole, sex can't be said to be good.
He proposed that the surname of a saint and the nature of zhào are not strictly sexual, and only the "surname of China people" that can be good and evil is sexual. Wang Chong continued to improve into "three products of sex", and only the Chinese products mixed with good and evil can be changed through education.
We can see that this kind of humanity highlights the acquired "enlightenment", and most people can change themselves through hard work, which is a synthesis of the pre-Qin period.
During the Song and Ming Dynasties, the theory of human nature was systematically upgraded in an era of Confucian innovation, and the key to the upgrade was the introduction of "Qi" and "Reason". Cheng Zi said, "No matter how angry you are, you are not prepared; Shangqi is gender-neutral and unknown. "
Regarding human nature, although there are the most elements from pre-Qin to Han Dynasty, some questions cannot be completely answered: Is human nature innate or acquired? What is the relationship between congenital surname and acquired surname? Can people return to nature through acquired efforts?
With the introduction of qi theory, such questions have been well answered: ① the nature and reason of heaven and earth are the best; ② The nature of qi is clear and turbid. Therefore, people are "virtuous and stupid." It is the temperament of temperament itself; So what people have to do is to keep learning knowledge through things and try to change their temperament the day after tomorrow. As long as they can "get rid of one point of human desire, they will regain one point of justice."
Take a deep breath, and the structure of sex-reason-qi completely explains most of the problems. The dualism of sex integrates good, evil, good and evil, super good and evil, and the theory of human nature draws a relatively complete conclusion.