國立臺灣大學哲學論評

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This article aims to “deconstruct” the two approaches which have overwhelmingly influenced the history of the research on Xun Zi’s philosophy. In the first approach scholars have stuck to the idea of “Human nature is bad” as of the core of Xun Zi’s philosophy. In the second approach, scholars have urged that Xunzi had separated the sphere of men from that of Heaven. This article introduces critical viewpoints by three scholars on these two approaches, and then attempts to search for the third way to illuminate the characteristics of Xunzi philosophical system more systematically as a synthesizer of the pre-Qin Warring States’ thoughts. For this purpose, it focuses on the significant role of the concept of cheng (truthfulness) in Xunzi’s philosophical system on Heaven-human relationship, which has left in the dark by aforementioned two approaches. It delineates the analogical linkage by the concept of cheng between the expansion of virtue and the creation of all livings on earth. In Xun Zi’s thought, an ideal ruler can assimilate himself into the process of its natural providence by means of his promoting virtuous power of cheng. Here, Xun Zi’s image of ideal rules is an analogical synthesizer of these two spheres of Heaven and men, in stead of separating them into two different worlds.