立人极、续道统:宋儒视域下的“孟子与《易》之关系”思想发微

The Theory about Song Confucians’ Viewpoint of the “Relationship between Mencius and Yi”

在面对《孟子》文本中并没有引用《易》的相关内容的情况下,宋儒仍坚持“孟子是知《易》”的,并从义理的角度加以阐释。他们之所以重视孟子和《易》的关系,其原因在于:一是为了肃清汉儒解经的繁琐与随意,力求恢复儒家经典的义理思想;二是从“道统”传承的角度出发,认为孟子是继孔子之后的集大成者,以此来抬高孟子和《孟子》一书的地位,重建儒家道统体系,并以此来抗击佛老对儒学的冲击;其三则是基于“时”“变”的思想,强调在变化中“人”的价值,以此来“立人极”,这也是最为重要的一点,是整个儒家发展的归向问题,即要突出人的主体性,从天人关系的角度来提高人的地位,彰显人的重要性。

In the face of the fact that the text of Mencius does not quote any relevant content of Yi, Song Confucians still think that “Mencius knows Yi”, and explain it from the view of reason. The reasons why they attach importance to the relationship between Mencius and Yi are: first, to eliminate the tediousness and randomness of the Han Confucians’ interpretation;second, to restore the Confucian classic righteous thought to raise the status of Mencius and Mencius, to rebuild the Confucian Dao system in order to combat the impact of the Buddha on Confucianism;and third, based on the thoughts of “time”, “change”, to emphasize the value of people in the change, so as to “establish the principle of conduct”, which is most important. The third reason is also the question of return for the whole Confucian development, that is, to highlight the subjectivity and importance of human beings, in order to improve the status of people from the perspective of the relationship between heaven and man.