In Western Han Dynasty, when Confucians with no experience in institution establishment were confronted with a difficult task to translate virtues into the political system, Sima Tan, as an advocator of Huang-Lao School raised in a distinguished family of historiographers, played a vital role in the process.In his article "On the essence of six main schools", he made an institutional transformation of Confucian virtues from the interior of its system.He pointed out that due to the tediousness of the rituals and the classics, Confucians themselves failed to get the essence of the thought, which in fact deprived the possibility to practice and obey the rules accordingly.Consequently, Confucianism lost both the internal and external integrity.The integrity of Confucianism could only be rebuilt from the exterior definitive property, namely from the perspective of statecraft.Based on this idea, Sima Tan integrated "three-supreme-superiors" with "three-supreme-relatives" in the Confucian mourning apparel system into four main human relations: prince-minister, father-son, husband-wife, and elderly brother-younger brother.However, he virtually removed friendship, one of the original five main human relations in Confucianism.As friends urge each other for kindness, by removing this relation and the underlying ethical reciprocity, Sima Tan actually changed the virtue foundation of pre-Qin Confucianism.Since all of the four human relations implied unidirectional and vertical submission from the inferior to the superior, Confucianism was reconstructed by Sima Tan into a thought system based on obedience instead of care and love.Eventually, Confucianism based on four-human-relations had its successful alignment with the traditional Chinese imperial political system originated from Qin Dynasty and became the ideology and virtual basis of the latter.%从未制定过国家制度的儒生在西汉面临将德性转化为制度的难题.出身史官世家而又尊崇黄老的司马谈在这一进程中起了关键作用.在《论六家要旨》中,司马谈从儒学内部对儒学德性进行了制度性改造.司马谈指出,由于经传礼仪的烦琐,儒者既不能得儒学之"要",事实上也无法不知"要"而仅仅遵从经传礼仪的规定,于是儒学之内在和外在之整体性都亡失了.此后,只能以外在规定性重构儒学之整体性,而重构儒学的外在规定性即贡献何种治术.基于此,司马谈整合儒学丧服中"三至尊"与"三至亲",得出君臣、父子、夫妇、兄弟四伦,无形中去除了儒学五伦中责善的朋友一伦,实则取消了作为先秦儒学德性之根基的伦理之相互性.四伦是单向性的上下伦理,于是服从取代了关爱,重构了儒学.最终,四伦所重构的伦常及基于此伦常的儒学得以顺利对接以秦制为基础的中国传统王朝政制,并成为其德性基础与观念形态.
展开▼
