試論子思遺說

子思將西周政治理論的“天命論”轉釋為人性根源，並標舉“中和說”以將“情感”與“德目”相聯系，儒家學說遂能推極于自然而歸本於人事。“五行論”則以《禮記‧表記》為坐標，知子思以水火土比附於父母，但尚未有嚴格之“五行即五常”的思想。“仁義內外之說”可藉《中庸》以窺子思“成、誠”盡性的學說，確立人性美善並得自然擴充、內外一貫、本末終始的體系,鋪陳出嚴密的、動態的、內外相拓復相制約的人性論，為孟子性善之說,奠立了重要基礎。20世紀初，王國維提出“二重證據法”，影響深遠。近世學術界治古文字學及古文獻學的學者，藉此方法獲得不少新結論。然而，研究簡帛佚籍之中的思想史問題時，因涉及抽象觀念的分析、思想體系的比較，以及思想流派的發展等三方面的問題，並非簡單標舉“以地下之新材料補正紙上之舊材料”一語即可，“二重證據法”能有多少效用就值得懷疑。若先就傳世文獻及思想史發展之大勢考察子思的遺說，再一一檢視出土簡帛文獻的內容，將可以更為慎重、精準地重新勾勒先秦儒家思想譜系。
Zisi reinterpreted the Western-Zhou theory of "Mandate of Heaven" as the origin of human nature,and upheld the theory of "equilibrium" to associate emotion with virtue, thus the Confucian doctrines were extended to include [a discussion of] Nature and eventually returned to human affairs. And the theory of "five cardinal relationships" took the "Biao Ji" chapter in The Book of Rites as the coordinate, comparing water, fire, and earth to father and mother, but Zisi had not yet formed the strict thought of "equating the five elements [in Nature] with the five cardinal relationships". Through Zisi’s theory of "self-completion and sincerity" in the Doctrine of the Mean, the thought of "benevolence within and righteousness without" could lead to the establishment of a naturally extended, internally and externally consistent, rigorous, dynamic system on the beauty and goodness of human nature, thus laying an important foundation for Mencius’ theory of original goodness of human nature. In the early 20th century, Wang Guowei put forward the far-reaching method of "dual evidences", through which modern scholars have gained many new conclusions in classical philology. However, when dealing with the problems in the history of thoughts, we cannot simply advocate "supplementing and correcting the old materials in traditional canonical texts with newly excavated texts", because it involves three problems:analyses of abstract concepts, comparisons between various systems of ideas, and the development of schools of thoughts. If we first examine the philosophy of Zisi through traditional texts and the general trend of the history of ideas, and then explore all the excavated texts, the pedigree of Confucian thoughts of the pre-Qin times will be rebuilt more deliberately and precisely. Copyright © 2013 山東大學.