What is the difference between today’s Confucianism and ancient Confucianism?

Ancient Confucianism included many people, each with different ideas.

There are also many giants in modern Confucianism, and their thoughts are also significantly different.

First of all, it is necessary to mention the three concepts of "Confucianism", "Confucianism" and "Confucianism".

Guo Qiyong explained these three concepts in "The Spirit of Chinese Confucianism":

"Confucianism is also called Confucianism or Confucianism today. Starting from schools and groups, it becomes' "Home"; starting from knowledge and scholarship is called "learning"; starting from faith and belief is called "teaching". In fact, the three are the same thing, and the three titles can be used interchangeably. ”

Therefore, I will comprehensively grasp the "Confucianism" mentioned by the subject here from these three aspects.

Liu Shuxian, a representative figure of Chinese New Confucianism, once advocated that "Confucianism" has three different aspects, which are divided into:

(1) Political Confucianism; (2) Folk Confucianism ; (3) Spiritual Confucianism.

Political Confucianism has died out today, while folk Confucianism still continues in some countries in East Asia, while spiritual Confucianism specifically refers to Confucius, Mencius, King Cheng, Zhu, and Lu.

Considering that the subject of the question should be more ideological, I will talk about it from the perspective of "spiritual Confucianism".

Spiritual Confucianism can be divided into stages. Regarding the stages of Confucianism, Liu Shuxian once divided the development of Confucianism into three stages in the book "On the Three Great Era of Confucian Philosophy", including Pre-Qin Confucianism, Song Dynasty Confucianism Ming Confucianism and modern Neo-Confucianism.

(1) Pre-Qin Confucianism: representative figures Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi.

Confucius advocated "benevolence" and "restraining oneself and restoring etiquette as benevolence". He respected the Zhou rites and believed that people should be on par with the saints and learn to restrain their selfish desires, which is the so-called way of "inner sage" . In addition, Confucius also respected heaven, "Heaven is nothing to say. The four seasons move and all things come into being." These thoughts of Confucius had a great influence on later generations of Confucian scholars.

Mencius advocated good nature. He believed that compassion is the "original heart" of human beings, and that people can approach the way of heaven by dedicating their hearts, minds, and knowledge to heaven. This thought of respecting heaven by Confucius and Mencius formed the source of discourse for later generations to elevate Confucianism to "Confucianism".

Xunzi advocated "evil nature" and believed that "evil nature makes people false". He paid more attention to the restraint of external etiquette on people's behavior.

(2) Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties: Representative figures: Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, Lu Jiuyuan, Wang Yangming

Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties can be divided into two schools: Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism and Lu-Wang Xinxue, but each There are also significant differences in ideas.

For example, Mou Zongsan subdivided the two schools into three different ideological systems in "Heart Body and Nature Body": one is the "Treasure of Heavenly Way" represented by Zhou Dunyi, Cheng Hao and Zhang Zai; The "nature theory" represented by Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi; the third one is the "mind-nature theory" represented by Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming. This is recognized by many scholars.

(3) Modern New Confucianism

Liu Shuxian believes that modern New Confucianism can be divided into "three generations and four groups", specifically as follows:

The first generation and the first group : Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili, Ma Yifu, Zhang Junmai

The second group: Feng Youlan, He Lin, Qian Mu, Fang Dongmei

The second generation and the third group: Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan, Xu Fu

Looking at the third generation and the fourth group: Yu Yingshi, Liu Shuxian, Cheng Zhongying, Du Weiming

Modern New Confucianism originated from the challenges of Western "democracy" and "science" trends in the early 20th century , the mainstream idea at that time was total westernization, and the popular slogan was "Down with the Confucian Family Store". Confucianism seeks new development after self-denial. For example, Liang Shuming believed in "Eastern and Western Culture and Philosophy" that Western culture is forward, Indian culture is backward, and Chinese culture is in the middle.

Since then, various theoretical attempts to save Confucianism have been launched. Especially after the founding of New China, New Confucianism in Hong Kong and Taiwan carried out the so-called "spiritual self-plantation" in the hope of reviving Confucianism.

After the above summary, we can roughly distinguish the main differences between ancient and modern Confucianism as follows:

The original Confucianism emphasized the "relationship between heaven and man", emphasizing the relationship between human nature and nature. The law of heaven is not violated.

On the basis of inheriting the original Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties produced different branches. Just like "the moon reflects thousands of rivers, and the principles are different", it can be divided into Neo-Confucianism that insists on transcendent "reasons" and those that emphasize The psychology of human nature. Both are on par with each other and both have developed very well.

As for modern New Confucianism, it actually has two focuses: First, in the face of the invasion of Western civilization, Confucianism needs to find ideological resources that can dialogue with the West. The second is how to carry out modern theoretical evolution and keep pace with the times when Confucianism is moving from the center to the periphery.

Whether it is ancient Confucianism or modern Confucianism, as an idea, it must have the background factors of the times that produced it. Therefore, it is best to conduct a comprehensive investigation based on the times, which will be helpful to understand related ideas.