| Abstract |
Li Zhuo-wu was a celebrated heretical thinker in the Late-Ming Dynasty. All the way, he was considered an iconoclast and anti-traditionalism. Until the past twenty years, the scholars had gradually accepted an opinion that Li Zhuo-wu’s theories originated form the Wang Yang-ming's doctrine of the mind. Keng Ting-hsiang was a scholar of Taichou School being an influence on the academia of the Late-Ming Dynasty. But in the later period, the scholars were ignored to study Keng’s doctrines. For the Li’s advocating staunchly of “true Confucianism”, and the continuous debates among Li and Keng, the scholars generally regarded Keng as a pseudo-Confucian. However, Li criticized severely Keng on the one part, but still eulogized that Keng was a sage on the other part. Then we consider that the evaluation about Keng was prejudiced for a long time. Li’s “true Confucianism” was a distinctive Confucianism about life practice, and he believed that genuine friends should redress errors mutually. The intrinsic quality about the debates among Li and Keng was responding to the debate between friends. Both the learning of Li and Keng were the practical wisdom. Their debates were concerned with the contradiction between Confucian ethical codes and true mind. It could help us to explore the meaning of their theories in Confucian’s development. We could think about the questions comprise the ideal and reality, the dilemma, and the future of Confucianism. |
