The Study of Zengzi's Conception of Filial Piety

• Main Authors: Yu-Ying Su, 蘇玉櫻
• Other Authors: Bing Juang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/84541806870167226404

碩士 === 華梵大學 === 東方人文思想研究所 === 97 === Confucius commented on Zengzi as “being dull but frank”. Zengzi has learned diligently and aimed to refine his personal character, hence finally managed to comprehend Confucius’ thought of benevolence and became known as a dutiful son in history. Lambs keel while being milked and crows feed their parents, the spirituality and intelligence of human is superior to those of the animals, therefore filial piety to parents is the natural display of human instincts and is also the natural expression of blood relatedness. Zengzi is the well-known dutiful son among the Confucianists, therefore current author hopes to study Zengzi’s filial obedience in order to promote it. Current paper is divided into five main sections. In the <Introduction> part, the motivation behind current study and essay as well as the adopted study method will be introduced comprehensively. In the first chapter <Initial Study>, an overview of results from previous research on Zengzi, which are conferred into four categories including his family and biography, origins and passing down of his thoughts, as well as his influence on Menciucian thoughts, will be given. The second chapter, <Confucian filial piety thinking>, will be mainly looking at Confucian thoughts on filial piety and Zengzi’s succession of Confucian’s thoughts of filial piety. In the third chapter, <Zengzi's life and ideas of the study>, the full view of Zengzi’s thoughts will be illustrated through combining Zengzi’s biographical details with his representative thoughts on how to study and behave. The fourth chapter, <Investigation of Zengzi’s filial thoughts>, will mainly be examining the practice of Zengzi and his successors as well as the application and development of their thoughts within the multi-layered system that incorporates philosophy, education and politics. In the fifth chapter, <Appraisal of history of thoughts of Zengzi’s filial pietys>, the history of how Zengzi acquired filial thoughts will be investigated from a history-of-thoughts point of view. In other words, from Zengzi’s early stage of abiding filial practices, to the maturity of filial thoughts as a result of teaching during his middle-aged years and finally his holistic understanding of filial thoughts and elaboration of these thoughts in terms of religious significance in his later years.