Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen

The three biggest figures in Pre-Qin Confucianism are Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi.The date of Xunzi's birth and death is unknown, but it may be between 298 BC and 238 BC. Xunzi, also known as Xunqing, was born in Zhao State (now Hebei Province and southern Shanxi Province). The "Biography of Mencius and Xunqing" in "Historical Records" says that he came to Qi State at the age of fifty. At that time, Jixia was a large academic center in Qi State, and he may be the last great thinker in Jixia. There are thirty-two chapters in the "Xunzi", many of which are detailed and logical essays, probably written by Xunzi himself.

Among Confucianism, Xunzi thought is the opposite of Mencius thought.Some people say that Mencius represents the left wing of Confucianism, and Xunzi represents the right wing of Confucianism.This statement, while plausible, is an oversimplification.Mencius has both the left and the right: the left and the left emphasize individual freedom; the right and the right emphasize super-moral values, so they are close to religion.Xunzi has both the right and the left: the right is the right to emphasize social control; the left is the left to play naturalism, and thus directly opposes any religious concepts.

Xunzi is best known for his theory of sexual evil.This is in direct contrast to Mencius's doctrine of the goodness of nature.On the surface.It seems that Xunzi underestimated people, but in fact the opposite is true.Xunzi's philosophy can be said to be the philosophy of education.His general point is that all good and valuable things are the product of human efforts.Value comes from culture, and culture is created by people.It is at this point that man is as important as heaven and earth in the universe.As Xunzi said: "Heaven has its time. The earth has its wealth, and people have their governance. The husband is said to be able to participate." ("Xunzi·Tianlun")

Mencius said: "Those who do their best will know their nature, and those who know their nature will know heaven." Xunzi, on the contrary, believed: "Only a sage does not seek to know Heaven." ("Theory of Heaven") According to Xunzi, the three forces of the universe: heaven, earth, and man, each have their own special duties. "The stars are revolving, the sun and the moon shine together, the four ages are governed, yin and yang are magnified, and the wind and rain are generous, so that all things can live in harmony" (ibid.), this is the duty of heaven and earth.But the duty of man is to use what heaven and earth provide to create his own culture.Xunzi said: "Think about the sky, who controls it with animals and animals!" (Ibid.) He also said: "So if you make mistakes (measures) people and think about the sky, you will lose the love of all things." (Ibid.) According to Xunzi , If you ignore everything that people can do, you will forget your responsibilities, and if you dare to "think about heaven", you will pretend to be heaven and perform the duties of heaven.This is "If you give up what you want to participate in, but want to participate in it, you will be confused." (Ibid.)

Human nature must also be cultivated, because according to Xunzi, anything that has not been cultivated cannot be good.Xunzi's argument is: "Human nature is evil; those who are good are false." ("Xunzi·Natural Evil") false is man-made.According to him, "Sex is simple in nature; fake is rich in literature and science. If there is no sex, the fake will have nothing to add; if there is no fake, the sex will not be beautiful." ("Xunzi Rites") Although Xunzi's theory of human nature is exactly opposite to that of Mencius, he also agrees that everyone can become a saint.Mencius said: Everyone can be Yao and Shun.Xunzi also admitted: "A man of Tu can be Yu." ("Xunzi·Xin Evil") This consistency makes some people think that the two Confucians are not different.In fact, it is not, although this point is superficially the same, it is very different in essence.

According to Mencius, the "four virtues" of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom are innate, and as long as these four virtues are fully developed, a person becomes a sage.But according to Xunzi, people are not only born without good qualities, but actually possess evil qualities.In "Nature and Evil", Xunzi tried to prove that people are born with the desire to seek profit and pleasure.But he also affirmed that, in addition to evil, people also have wisdom, which can make people do good.In his own words: "Tu's people are also. They all have the quality of benevolence, righteousness, law, and righteousness, and they all have the potential to be benevolent, righteous, law, and righteous. Therefore, it is clear that they can be Yu." ("Xing Evil" ") It can be seen that Mencius said that everyone can be Yao and Shun because people are inherently good; Xunzi argued that people who are Tu can become Yu because humans are inherently wise.

This raises a question: In this case, how can a person be morally good?For if everyone is born evil, where does morality originate from?In order to answer this question, Xunzi put forward two arguments. In the first aspect, Xunzi pointed out that it is impossible for people to live without some kind of social organization.This is because it is necessary for people to cooperate and help each other if they want to live better.Xunzi said: "A hundred skills can be achieved, so one person can be raised. But if you can have both skills, a person can't be an official. If you live apart and don't treat each other, you will be poor:" ("Xunzi·Fuguo") is also because people need to unite to be able to Subdue other animals.Humans "are not as powerful as oxen, and not as powerful as horses, and oxen and horses are for use, why? It is said: People can be herds, but they cannot be herds. . . . One has more strength, and more strength makes it stronger, and strength wins over things." ( "Xunzi King System")

For both reasons, people must have social organization.In order to have social organization, people need rules of behavior.This is "ritual".Confucianism generally attaches great importance to propriety, while Xunzi especially emphasizes propriety.Talking about the origin of rituals, Xunzi said: "Where did rituals originate from?" He said: People are born with desires, and if you don't get what you want, you can't do without seeking. If you seek without measuring and dividing, you can't do without fighting. Conflict leads to chaos, and chaos leads to poverty. The former kings hated chaos, so they established etiquette and righteousness to divide them, to nourish people's desires, and to make people's demands, so that desires will not be exhausted by things, and things will not be subdued by desires. Also." ("Xunzi Rites")

Xunzi also said: "If you want to hate the same things, if you want more but have few things, you will fight for less." ("Xunzi·Fuguo") What Xunzi pointed out here is one of the fundamental troubles of human beings.If what people want and what they hate are not the same thing, for example, if one person likes to conquer and another likes to be conquered, then of course there is no trouble between these two kinds of people, and they can live together in perfect harmony.Or there is an abundance of what everyone wants, like air to breathe freely, and of course there will be no trouble.Or people could live in isolation, disconnected, and the problem would be much simpler.But the world is not so ideal.People must live together and live together without contention, and each must accept certain limits in the satisfaction of his desires.The function of ritual is to establish this limitation.Be polite and have morality.To act according to the propriety is morality, and to act against the propriety is immoral.

This is one aspect of the argument made by Xunzi to explain the origin of moral goodness.This argument is entirely utilitarian, very similar to that of Mozi. Xunzi also put forward another argument.He said: "The reason why people are human is not because they have two legs but no hair, but because they have distinctions. Husbands, animals, and beasts have father and son, but no relationship between father and son, and there is male and female, but there is no difference between male and female. Therefore, there is no distinction between human beings. , there is nothing greater than distinction, and nothing greater than propriety." ("Xunzi Feixiang")

Here Xunzi pointed out the difference between what is natural and what is man-made, which is also the difference between heaven and man made by Zhuangzi.It is natural for animals to have father and son, and male and female.As for the relationship between father and son, the difference between men and women is not natural, but a social relationship, a product of man-made and culture.It is not a product of nature, but a creation of the spirit.Human beings should have social relations and rituals, because only these make human beings different from beasts.Judging from this aspect of the argument, people should have morality not because they cannot avoid it, but because they should have it.The argument in this respect is more similar to that of Mencius. In Confucianism, ritual is a comprehensive concept with rich content.It refers to etiquette, etiquette, and also refers to the social code of conduct.But in the above argument it has a third sense.In this sense, the function of ritual is regulation.People want to satisfy their desires and adjust them politely.But in the sense of etiquette and etiquette.Ritual has another function, which is to make people elegant.In this sense, etiquette refines and purifies people's emotions.explanation for the latter.Xunzi also made significant contributions. Confucianism believes that funerals and sacrifices (especially ancestor worship) are the most important in rituals.Funerals and sacrificial ceremonies were popular at that time, and inevitably contained many superstitions and myths.In order to rectify.Confucianism made new interpretations and injected new concepts into them, which can be seen in "Xunzi" and "Book of Rites". Among the Confucian classics, two are devoted to etiquette.One is "Rituals", which is a record of various ceremonial procedures performed at that time.The other is the Book of Rites, the Confucian interpretation of these ceremonies.I believe that most of the chapters in "Book of Rites" were written by Xunzi disciples. There are two sides to the human heart: the intellectual and the emotional.When a dear one dies, one knows intellectually that a dead person is dead, and there is no reason to believe that the soul is immortal.If only reason dictated it, there might be no need for a funeral.But the emotional side of the human heart makes people hope that the dead will be resurrected when their loved ones die, and that a soul will continue to exist in another world.To act upon such fantasies is to accept superstition as truth and deny rational judgment. So, what you know and what you want are different.Knowledge is important, but we cannot live on knowledge alone, we also need emotional satisfaction.Both intellectual and emotional aspects cannot be ignored in deciding on an attitude towards the dead.According to Confucianism, the ritual of funeral sacrifices does just that.As I have already said, these gifts originally contained many superstitions and myths.But after Confucian interpretation, these aspects are purified.The religious elements are transformed into poetry.So they are no longer religious, but simply poetic. Religion, poetry, both are expressions of human fantasies.Both are the fusion of imagination and reality.The difference is that religion speaks of it as true, while poetry speaks of it as false.What the poem says is not true, and it knows it is not true.So it is deceiving itself, but it is conscious self-deception.It's very unscientific, but it's not against science.We derive emotional satisfaction from poetry without impeding intellectual progress. According to Confucianism, when we perform funeral rituals, we are deceiving ourselves, but we are not really deceiving. "Book of Rites" records Confucius said: "It is not benevolent to cause death. It is not humane, and it cannot be done. It is not wise to cause life. It is not wise." Treat the dead.We can't just do what we know, or only what we want.A middle way should be adopted, dealing with both what we know and what we want.This way is to treat the dead as if he is still alive. Xunzi said in his "Li Lun": "Li is concerned with governing life and death. Life is the beginning of a person; death is the end of a person. The end is good from the beginning to the end, and the human way is complete.  … It is the way of a good man to be rebellious.... Letting go of death is the way, and once you can't get it again, the reason why I pay attention to it A gentleman, the son's attention is paid to his relatives, so it is all over." "The funeral ceremony is to decorate the dead with the living, and the elephant's life is to send it to death. Therefore, death is like life, death is like existence, from beginning to end. Also....Therefore, there is nothing else for funeral ceremonies. It understands the meaning of death and life, and it is also a gift of mourning and homage for the whole week." "Theory of Rites" also said: "The sacrificial person, the aspiration, the admiration, the loyalty, the love, the respect, the etiquette, the etiquette and the appearance, the sage, no one can know it. The sage knows it clearly, the gentleman walks safely, Officials think of it as guarding, and common people think of it as vulgar. For the gentleman, they think it is humane; for the common people, they think it is a ghost thing....Death is like life, and death is like existence. Interpreted in this way, the meaning of funerals and rituals is entirely poetic rather than religious. In addition to ancestor worship, there are other kinds of sacrifices.Xunzi explained them from the same point of view. There is a passage in "Tian Lun" that says: "What is it that rains when there is rain? Said: There is no such thing, it is like rain when there is no rain. Save them by eclipses of the sun and moon, save them by drought, and then decide big things by divination. Don't think that you can ask for it." Yes, it is also based on writing. Therefore, the gentleman thinks of writing, but the common people think of it as a god. Thinking of writing is good, and thinking of god is bad.” Pray for rain.Divination for making important decisions is all about expressing our worries and nothing more.It would be superstition and all the consequences of superstition to think that prayers could really move the gods, and that divination could really foretell the future. Xunzi also wrote "Yue Lun", which said: "People can't be happy, and music can't be invisible. If the shape is not the way, there can be no chaos. The ancient kings hated chaos, so they made "Ya" and "Song" The sound is the way. Make the sound enough to be merry but not flow, make the text enough to distinguish without thinking (no such word: ocr), make it straight, complicated, simple, and rhythm enough to move people's kindness and make husbands There is no way to catch evil spirits, and this is how the former kings established music." Therefore, in Xunzi's view, music is a tool for moral education.This has always been the music view pursued by Confucianism. "Xunzi" has "Rectification of Names".This is an old topic in Confucianism. "Rectification of names" was proposed by Confucius, which was discussed in Chapter Four.Confucius said: "Monarchs, ministers, fathers, sons." ("The Analects of Confucius Yan Yuan") Mencius also said: "There is no father and no king, and they are animals." ("Mencius Teng Wen Gong Xia") Confucius, Mencius was only interested in ethics, so the scope of their application of rectification was basically limited to ethics.However, Xunzi lived in an era when famous scholars were prosperous, so his theory of rectification of names has both ethical and logical interests. In "Rectification of Names", Xunzi first described his theory of epistemology, which is similar to that of later Mohists.He wrote: "Those who know what is in humans are called knowledge, and those who know what is combined are called wisdom." That is to say, the cognitive ability of human beings is called "knowledge", and what is combined with cognitive ability is called wisdom", that is, knowledge. The faculty of cognition has two parts. One part is what he called the "heavenly organ," such as the organ of the eyes and ears. The other part is the heart. The heavenly organ receives impressions. The heart interprets impressions and gives meaning to them. Xunzi wrote: "The heart has Ask for information.To know, one can know the sound by relying on the ears, and one can know the shape by relying on the eyes. ... If you don't know the five sense organs, and don't know the symptoms of the heart, then people will say that they don't know. "(Ibid.) That is to say, the heart gives meaning to impressions. It gives meaning to impressions. Only at this time can you know the sound with your ears. You can know the shape with your eyes. Although the five sense organs can record something but cannot distinguish it, the mind tries to If discerning it fails to tell the meaning, at this time, people can only say that they have no knowledge. Regarding the origin and function of names, Xunzi said: "Names are made to refer to reality, the upper level is used to distinguish the superior and the inferior, and the lower level is used to distinguish similarities and differences." (same as before) That is to say, the origin of names is partly ethical and partly logical . As for the logical function of names, Xunzi said that names are given to things, "the same is the same, and the different is different. ... Knowing the different names of those who have different realities. Therefore, those who make different reals have different names, and they cannot be confused. , so that those who have the same reality have different names.” (Ibid.) Regarding the logical classification of names, Xunzi further wrote: "Although all things are many, sometimes they want to be universal, so they are called things. Things are also named in common. If they are pushed together, there are common things, and if there are no common things, then Stop. Sometimes I want to mention them everywhere, so they are called birds and beasts. Birds and beasts are also called different names. If you push them away, they will be different, and if there is no difference, then stop." (Ibid.) Two types: common name and alias.Co-names are a product of the synthetic process of our reasoning, aliases are a product of the analytical process. All names are man-made.If the name is still in the process of being created, there is no reason why the entity must use this name instead of another name.For example, if an animal that is already called a "dog" is called a "cat" instead of a "dog", it will do the same.However, a certain name.Once applied to certain realities by agreement, it can only be attached to those realities.As Xunzi explained: "There is no fixed name, it is appropriate to make an appointment, and what is agreed is called appropriate" (ibid.) Xunzi also wrote: "If there is a king, he will follow the old name and create a new name." (Ibid.) Therefore, it is the function of the monarch and his government to create a new name and determine its meaning.Xunzi said: "Thus, the king's name is established and verified, and the way is clear, and he is careful to lead the people. Therefore, the analysis of the words is good at making the name to correct the name, making the name confusing, and many people debate lawsuits. It is a big treachery; its crime is still the crime of talisman and measure." (Ibid.) Xunzi believed that the arguments of famous scholars and later Mohists were mostly based on logical sophistry, so they were fallacious.He divides them into three categories of fallacies. The first type of fallacy, he called "confused by the use of names to confuse names" (ibid.).He put Mo Bian's "killing robbers is not killing people" into this category.This is because, according to Xunzi's view, being a thief implies being a person, because in terms of extension, the category of "person" includes the category of "robber".Therefore, when it comes to "thieves", it means that he is also a "person". The second type of fallacy, he called it "confuse the name with the facts" (ibid.).He put "Shan Yuanping" into this category, and this sentence was rewritten according to Hui Shi's "Mountain and Zeping".Reality is concrete and particular; name is abstract and general.Whoever wishes to deny the general law by individual exceptions.The result is to use the name indiscriminately.A certain chasm on a high mountain may really be as high as a certain mountain in a lowland.But it cannot be inferred from this exceptional case that all deeps are as high as all mountains. The third type of fallacy.He is called "confused by using names to confuse facts" (ibid.).He put Mo Bian's "A cow and a horse are not a horse" into this category, which is exactly the same as Gongsun Long's "A white horse is not a horse".If you examine the name "ox and horse".It is indeed not equal to the name "horse".But in fact.Some animals belong to the category of "cattle and horses", but as a matter of fact, they are indeed "horses". So Xunzi asserted that all these fallacies occurred because "the sage king is gone" (ibid.).If there is a holy king, he will use political authority to unify people's hearts and guide people to walk on the right path of life, so there is no possibility or need to argue. Here Xunzi reflects the spirit of his turbulent age.It was the antithesis of a desire for political unity to end unrest.This kind of unification, although in fact it is only the unification of China, but in the eyes of these people, it is tantamount to the unification of the world. There are two most famous students of Xunzi: Li Si and Han Fei.Both of them had great influence in Chinese history.Li Si later served as chancellor to Emperor Qinshihuang, who finally unified China by force in 221 BC.The two monarchs and ministers worked together to unify.Not only the unity of politics, but also the unity of thought. The apex of this movement was the burning of books and burying Confucianism in 213 BC.Another student, Han Fei, became the leader of Legalism and provided theoretical defense for this political and ideological unity.Legalist thought will be discussed in the next chapter.