试论早期儒家对人的自然属性的认识

早期儒家对人的自然属性的认识是从“性”开始的,通过“性”他们得以对人的自然属性进行界定,以此为他们各自的理论学说服务。早期儒家认为人的自然属性包括感官之欲和情。同时还认为道德构成了人的本质,用道德因素制约人的先天属性,才能使人性由物性状态升华到人性状态。早期儒家既看到了人的自然属性具有客观必然性,也看到了它潜在的危险性,认为对人的自然属性要进行以节欲、养性和修心为内容的调控,才能稳固人伦秩序和向理想的人格飞跃。

Trial Remark on the Early Confucian People's Understanding of Man's Natural Attribute

The early Confucians' understanding of man's attribute started from "nature". Through "nature" they could divide man's natural attribute and by this they used this to serve their theory respectively. The early Confucians held that man's attribute included the desire and feeling of sense organ; meanwhile, they also held that the virtue constructed man's essence, only by use of virtue to limit man's innate attribute can man's nature be distillated from material nature state to man's nature state. The early Confucians had seen that man's attribute had objective necessity, as well as seen its latent dangerous nature. They held that man's attribute should be regulated by taking controlling desire, disciplining temperament and cultivating moral heart as the content, only then can the human relation order be solidified and leap to the ideal moral quality.