On Baidu Encyclopedia, Zhu is defined as "a philosopher, thinker, philosopher, educator and poet in the Southern Song Dynasty in China". A Neo-Confucianism, a thinker and a philosopher are not much different in essence. Confucianism can be used to unify the three, which means that Zhu is the most outstanding master of carrying forward Confucianism since Confucius. In this way, Zhu has three main identities: Confucian scholar, educator and poet.
First of all, let's learn about Zhu's identity as a Confucian or thinker. Some people compare the Song Dynasty to China's "Renaissance" according to the analogy of some historians, so Zhu is undoubtedly one of the most shining thinkers. Emperor Kangxi's evaluation of Zhu is enough to explain Zhu's position in history. The evaluation of him is that he has learned from thousands of years, learned from ignorance and stood for hundreds of millions of years.
In fact, Zhu's achievements in natural science are not low at all, such as: the originator of natural science in Zhu Shixi; Zhu is the first discoverer of "binary"; Zhu is the first person to identify fossils in the world, more than 400 years earlier than the West. Zhu studied the change of the earth from the investigation of snail shells in high mountains; Zhu put forward the theory of the origin of the solar system, which was more than 500 years earlier than the German philosopher Kant and the French astronomer Laplace. Zhu has made in-depth research on geological fossils, denial of creationism, origin of the universe, geocentric theory, earth rotation, solar and lunar eclipses, tides, formation of hexagonal crystals of snowflakes, rainbow, influence of geography on climate, origin of organisms and humans, diagnosis of traditional Chinese medicine, agricultural production structure, crop layout and specific production technology.
However, Zhu's achievements are rarely known and mentioned, because Zhu's other auras are so great that they almost drown out his achievements in other fields. This aura, the neo-Confucianism system he founded, has always been the official philosophy of the feudal ruling class in Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty. Neo-Confucianism, represented by him, has a considerable influence and function in China society, East Asian countries and nations, and even the Chinese society in the world.
Zhu's Neo-Confucianism is based on the Neo-Confucianism of the Northern Song Dynasty, integrating Buddhism and Taoism, and constructing his own huge Neo-Confucianism system. So what is Zhu's thought? His ideological system can be summarized into the following three categories: first, reason is the origin of the world, and the core of Zhu's philosophical thought is "reason"; Secondly, the theory of "learning while learning" advocates paying attention to people's moral cultivation, but also strengthening the investigation of foreign things; Thirdly, it puts forward the idea of "observing nature and destroying human desires". If you want to understand the principle of heaven and earth, you must get rid of human desires.
The core category of Zhu's ideological system is "reason", namely "Tao" and "Taiji". Zhu's so-called "reason" has four interrelated meanings: ① reason is a metaphysical person who precedes natural phenomena and social phenomena. (2) rationality is the law of things. ③ Rationality is the basic principle of ethics. (4) The principle is human nature. Zhu believes that everything has its reason, and the reason of everything is one after all, which is "Tai Chi". Taiji contains the principle of everything, and everything can embody the whole Taiji alone. This is that everyone has the spirit of Artest, and everything has the spirit of Artest.
There is a story about Zhu's theory of "dividing things by things", which can be illustrated by comparison. It is said that Wang Yangming observed bamboo for seven days in a row in the academy in order to test the theory of "governing by things". He didn't eat for days, couldn't sleep at night, and observed bamboo intently. Finally, he fell ill, but he didn't realize the truth about bamboo. The difference between Zhu and Wang Yangming's understanding of things is that Zhu tends to explore external things rationally, while Wang Yangming points to internal subjective experience.
The best evaluation of Zhu's "Heaven governs human desires" is a sentence that Zhu himself said: "Eating and drinking is also a matter of heaven. Asking for delicious food, people want it. " Zhu's point of view is that diet is natural and natural; Asking for food is later, and there are selfish desires in it, so it belongs to people's desires. But the delicious food is still diet, so Zhu said that "people want to be reasonable". In order to be delicious, it is often easy to "order the food improperly" and then someone wants to serve it. But it doesn't mean that the pursuit of delicious food is a human desire. Give consideration to both diet and delicious food, and if you solve it properly, there will be no desire. In more popular terms, people's desires should have a degree.
There is an idiom called "writing a book", which is not too much for Zhu. Throughout his life, Zhu's research tentacles involved all fields of Confucian classics. According to the description statistics of Sikuquanshu, there are 25 kinds of Zhu's works with more than 600 volumes, with a total word count of about 20 million words. This is still a very incomplete statistic, but this set of figures alone is enough to build a monument for a diligent thinker.
Zhu's major works include The Original Meaning of Zhouyi, Enlightenment, Textual Research on Guagua, Biography of Poems, The Doctrine of the Mean in Universities, Four Books or Topics, Notes on the Analects of Confucius, Notes on Mencius, Explaining Taiji Diagram, Explaining Various Scholars, Explaining Mingxi and Explaining the Analects of Confucius. In addition, there are collections of 100, sequels of 1 1, anthologies of 10, and various sub-languages of 140 are compiled by admirers.
"Words fail to convey the meaning" is a Confucian tradition starting from Confucius. The so-called "narration" is essentially a creative way to explain one's own thoughts and theories by means of annotation and interpretation of Confucian classics. Zhu is the most successful and active scholar who established his own neo-Confucianism system in this way. If these works of Zhu are piled together, they will definitely exceed his height. Zhu is worthy of the title of "the first person in ancient and modern writings".
Some people think that the literati in the Song Dynasty were more romantic, and it is speculated that Zhu was also lingering in the fireworks Liuxiang. In this regard, I can only respond with a smile, "Summer insects can't talk about ice", which is not worth wasting your breath for a person who doesn't know Zhu at all. Anyone who knows a little about Zhu and has a little common sense will know that even if it takes 50 years, more than 600 volumes of 20 million words can be completed by a person who lingers in Yanhuaxiang. In fact, Zhu devoted his life to writing teaching. The day before Zhu's death, he was still revising the chapter "University Honesty". Zhu has a classic quotation, "study hard until you die." This is his vivid portrayal of himself.
Among Zhu's numerous works, the most famous one is Notes on Four Chapters of Siro. Notes on Four Books and Sentences is a masterpiece that integrates the Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius and Mencius. It is the most representative work of Zhu and the most important classic work in feudal society.
For the first time, Zhu juxtaposes The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean in The Book of Rites with The Analects of Confucius and Mencius, which can be passed down continuously. Zhu called the annotations of Daxue and The Doctrine of the Mean "chapters and sentences", while the annotations of The Analects and Mencius were called "concentrated notes". Later generations are collectively referred to as "four books and chapters" or "four books" for short.
Notes on Four Books *** 19, 1 190 Zhu was published in Zhangzhou. In the ranking order, Daxue ranked first, The Analects of Confucius and Mencius ranked second, and The Doctrine of the Mean ranked last. Zhu's original intention is that people should read "University" first to determine its scale; Read the Analects of Confucius for the second time to establish its foundation; Read Mencius for the second time to see its development; For the subtleties of the ancients, read The Mean.
The purpose of Zhu Zhu's annotation of the Four Books is not only to sort out and standardize Confucianism, but more importantly, to construct its whole ideological system based on the philosophical thoughts in the Four Books. In this sense, Notes to Four Books and Sentences is not only the achievement of Confucianism, but also the foundation of the system of Zhu Neo-Confucianism.
After the publication of Notes on Four Books, it was highly praised by feudal rulers in past dynasties and gradually replaced the Five Classics. Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties after the Song Dynasty all took the notes in the four books as the standard answers to the textbooks for academic officials and the imperial examinations. Neo-Confucianism thus became the official philosophy, occupying the dominant position of feudal thought. As an important work of Neo-Confucianism, The Notes on Four Books was also praised by the rulers as the truth of every sentence, which had a far-reaching and great influence on China's thoughts in the later feudal society.