Author ｜
Tomoko Kusano
Abstract ｜
Around the 1950s, it was boomtime for Japan’s researchers who studied in concept about Chinese ancient ideology. Since then, a lot of research books in this area have been published, such as Naomi Kurita’s Study of the Ancient Chinese Thought（《中國上古思想研究》）, Teruo Takeuchi’s Study of the Antique Interpretation of Ren（《仁的古義研究》） , Joken Kato’s Origin and Development of Li（《禮的起源及其發展》） and Mikisaburo Mori’s Development of Concept of Xing-ming Between Ancient time and Han Daynasty（《上古至漢代性命觀的發展》） and so on. These were the representative works about Xin 心 and Shen 神, Ren 仁, Li 禮, and Xing-ming 性命 respectively. By comprehensively analysing the data of Confucian school or the Taoist school from ancient time to the beginning of Han dynasty, Kurita differentiated the connotation and status of Xin and Shen in Confucian thought and Taoist thought. Takeuchi considered that Ren only refers to the beauty of appearance, after the middle of the Spring and Autumn period, it went to refer to inherent goodness. Especially, H is meticulous and organized description of the development of Ren is impressive. From the perspective of etymology, Kato analysed the connotation of Li, Yi 義 and Ru 儒 with novel viewpoint. He also used the anthropological research methods to explore the origin of Li of ancient Chinese thought, which was one of the representative works of the academic frontier at that time. Mori’s study enriched the Chinese schools’ existing researches. His description of the concept of Xing-ming is comprehensive. Recently, taking the advantage of the newly excavated documents to review the ancient Chinese thought, a lot of research books have been published in Japan. Previous studies are obviously important foundation for further study, which means that these books are of great academic and referential value.
keywords ｜
the concept of ancient Chinese thought, Xin 心, Ren 仁, Li 禮, Xing-ming 性命