國立臺灣大學哲學論評

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Jia Yi (賈誼) was a political philosopher active in the West Han Wendi (西漢文帝) period. At this time, Li (‘禮’) was growing in importance and Jia Yi was one of its leading proponents. Most academics point out that Jia Yi’s conception of Li was influenced by Xunzi (荀子). However, in Jia Yi’s book Jia Yi Xinshu (賈誼新書), we cannot find any obvious influence from Xunzi. On the contrary, when Jia Yi spoke about Li he quoted ancient documents such as Guanzi (管子), Qingshishi zhi ji (青史氏之記), Xueli (學禮), Quli (曲禮), Wangzhi (王制).
This article will first examine Jia Yi’s conception of Li based on the analytical constructs of ‘visualization (可視化)’ and ‘discipline (規訓化)’ in Jia Yi Xinshu. Second, it will discuss the relationship between Xunzi and Jia Yi Xinshu. Though there is a strong resemblance between the two, Jia Yi Xinshu does not refer to Xunzi. Why is this? On the one hand, Jia Yi was very conscious of the Qin (秦) dynasty, at which time one premier, Li Si (李斯), was a student of Xunzi. However, in the early days of the Han dynasty, the Qin was not held in particularly high esteem and thus Jia Yi could not overtly refer to Xunzi. Furthermore, Jia Yi had read not only Xunzi, but also many other ancient documents, no longer extant today, and so he did not necessarily need to quote from Xunzi. We should not neglect these points, and accordingly, we must reconsider the role of Xunzi’s thinking at the beginning of the Han dynasty.