Li Zehou refers to the philosophy that should start from "a human is alive" through the fundamental question of “How hamanity possible?” Li Zehou considers the sentence of "a human is alive" as a starting point of philosophy. What does "a human is ali ...
Li Zehou refers to the philosophy that should start from "a human is alive" through the fundamental question of “How hamanity possible?” Li Zehou considers the sentence of "a human is alive" as a starting point of philosophy. What does "a human is alive" mean? To this question, he says "a human is alive" is the first fact and 'being alive' is more fundamental than "the reason of being alive." Because 'being alive' is an established fact. 'Being alive' is not a choice and decision made by humanity, but one fact. Through the sentence that "a human is alive," Li Zehou intends to mention two meanings. These seem to be related to theme or direction that philosophy should deal with. One asserts the historical meaning that "a human is alive," namely, that humanity is a historical being. Humanity is a historical being, what humanity attains in the great practical activities that transform the natural world (external nature) and transform humanity itself(inne nature). The so-called great practical activity is in fact also a historical product, of practice as well as of sedimentation. The theme of philosophy is to study the fate of man and to formulate philosophical questions such as "why does man live?", "Does he/she live well?". But the matter of meaning and value of being alive must be based on the fact that “man is alive". A doctrine of historical ontology must be focused on the daily life of a vivid human (individual), rather than a certain paradigm, conception, absolute spirit, or ideology. Out of this point, the object of research based on the doctrine of historical ontology is expanded to include the psychology and emotions of sensuous individuals from all of mankind or history. “The doctrine of anthropological historical ontology starts from reason (mankind, history, inevitability) and concludes with emotion (individual, incident, psychology). "This represents a form of subversion of traditional philosophy which begins with emotion and concludes with reason. Here, the doctrine of historical ontology regards psychological substance and emotion as the substance of man as an individual. Li Zehou objected to the view that the modern Neo-Confucianism led by Mou Zongsan should be regarded as the third stage of Chinese Confucian tradition, criticizing this variant as nothing more than the 'modern version of the School of Principle of the Song-Ming era’. Li Zehou divided the errors associated with 'the doctrine of three stages of Chinese Confucian tradition into two parts. The first error in his mind was the generalization of Confucianism as a moral theory of heart-mind and human nature.
In this regard, Confucius hardly mentioned the matter of heart-mind and human nature. Moreover, while making mention of the matter to some extent, Mencius attached more importance to social and political issues. The concept of the heart-mind and human nature mentioned in the Guodian Bamboo Slips was not an abstract philosophical concept saliently different from that of emotion. The second error is that the doctrine espoused by the three stages of Chinese Confucian tradition denied Xunzi and the Dong Zhongshu led Confucianism of the Han dynasty. Li Zehou believed that the value of the Confucianism of the Han dynasty was equivalent to that of the Neo-Confucianism of the Song-Ming era. Moreover, he maintained that the Confucianism of the Han dynasty exercised control over Chinese society and its people for a longer period of time, with its influence continuing to be felt today. For Li, any effort to eradicate it represented a reckless action. Here, he denied the doctrine of the three stages of Chinese Confucian tradition, and claimed the existence of four stages of Chinese Confucian tradition. More to the point, while the classical Confucianism of Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi represented the first stage, the Confucianism of the Handynasty constituted the second, the Confucianism of Song-Ming dynasties the third, and the Confucianism of the present and future the fourth.