Author ｜
Sato Masayuki
Abstract ｜
Recent research has shed lights on the comprehensive nature in the thought of Lüshi chunqiu, in which seasonal political agenda and the intention of Lü Buwei are regarded as penetrating the order and the arrangement of the whole text. This article advances this assumption to elucidate its central idea, the concept of li (理), to attain such a “hidden”argumentative unity in the various arguments and discourses in it. The concept of li (理) is usually translated into “principle,” “order,” or“rationality,” and has widely known as one of the central ideas in the Neo-Confucianism. This article aims to demonstrate that the concept of li is not only the key concepts to invest the whole contents with consistence and unity, but also is the highest value or the ultimate purpose that all the rulers,ministers, and intellectuals should embody in this world. The importance of the concept of li is presented in the following the four ways: (1) as the purpose of other moral values such as filial piety and moral cultivation; (2) as the central topic from a paragraph, a chapter, to the whole contents by means of arguing its importance in the preface of the “Twelve Months” part; (3) The author requests ruling people to embody this value; and (4) The degree of the embodiment of li is a standard for evaluating whether or not a particular period or state has attained the realm of peace and order. On this observation, this article points out that the whole thought of the Lüshichunqiu contains a double argumentative structure: One is the thought developed from so-called the learning of The Yellow Emperor, a political theory which Lü Buwei wanted to promote. The other is the idea of li, which was proposed by the actual “author” of it. In other words, initially Lü Buwei planned this work on the basis of the Learning of The Yellow Emperor, while the actual author incorporated the idea of li to invest the whole content with a higher level of consistency and unity of thought among its various arguments and discourses.
keywords ｜
The Lüshi chunqiu, Lü Buwei, li (理), liyi (理義)