The emergence of an idea not only has ideological roots that cannot be ignored, but also has a profound social background. Academic circles have expounded a lot on the social roots of Lao Tzu and his Taoist thought, and we do not intend to make a comprehensive consideration of the social background of the emergence of Lao Tzu and Taoist thought, but only to investigate the relationship between Taoism and the social background, the central category of Lao Tzu and Taoist thought, in order to achieve the purpose of peeking at the whole leopard.
At the time of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the whole society was in a period of intense transformation, and in this historical period of "a meeting of great changes in ancient and modern times", the social reality was undergoing drastic changes. Economically, first of all, it manifested itself in the destruction of the old well field system and the complete disintegration of the clan commune structure, and with the destruction of the well field system, it led to the rise and dispersion of the private land system, the emergence of the private small-scale peasant economic mode of production, thus destroying the absolute dominance of the natural economy, so that industry and commerce developed greatly, and people could "cultivate as much as they wanted, count the nobles and lows, take what they own, change what they didn't have, and buy the lowly and expensive" ("Guan Zi Xiao Kuang"), so that they could take what they needed, complement each other without being restricted by trades and settlements." Ze people are enough wood, mountain people are like fish, farmers do not cut, do not cultivate but use enough weapons, and workers do not cultivate the fields but have feet of millet" ("Pipes and King's System"), although this situation eventually formed in the middle and late Warring States period, its beginning should be very early. Otherwise, during the Spring and Autumn Period, there would have been no record of "merchants, peasants, and workers, undefeated in their business" ("Zuo Chuan, The Twelve Years of Xuangong").
This economic change made the class struggle at that time very intense, which was embodied in the fact that the working people under the new system of exploitation were not willing to endure slaughter and rose up one after another to resist. With the disintegration and decline of the old system, the rulers on the one hand launched a large number of wars aimed at fighting for the city and the land, making countless unjust souls violently in the wilderness, "fighting for land, killing people and winning the wilderness; Fighting for the city, killing people to win the city" (Mencius Li Loushang) is a true portrayal of this cruel war; On the other hand, in order to enhance national strength, increase the chips of foreign wars, brutally exploit their own people, increase taxes and servitude, and "thicken the people and violently seize the people's clothing and food" ("Mozi Cijie"), causing serious inequality between the rich and the poor, polarizing, "the rich accumulate tens of thousands, and the poor eat chaff", "there is fat meat, there are fat horses, the people are hungry, and the wild is hungry" ("Mozi Ci"). People who are not willing to be slaughtered have taken risks one after another, gathered as "thieves", and used the criticism of weapons to deal with the weapons of criticism. Therefore, the words "many thieves" in the historical records are not uncommon, and "Lu Duo Thieves" and "Twenty Years of Zuo Chuan Xianggong" have "Zheng Duo Thieves", "Zuo Chuan Xiang Gong Twenty Years" have "Zheng Duo Thieves", "Zuo Chuan Xiang Gong Thirty-one Years" has "Pirate Branches" of the Jin Dynasty, and more famous is the "rebellion" led by "Thieves" in the late Spring and Autumn Period.
This change in the economic base, especially the "rebellion" of the lower-level rulers, had a major impact on the ideological circles at that time and played a major role, "under certain conditions determined the spiritual outlook of philosophical thought, and under certain conditions gave the philosopher a question" (Ren Jiyu, "The Role of the Peasant Revolutionary War in Past Dynasties on the History of Chinese Philosophy", Guangming Daily, April 5, 1959), the emergence of Lao tzu's "Tao" category reflected the spiritual outlook of this philosophical thought, and gave the answer to this question.
At the beginning of the emergence of human thought, due to the low level of productivity, people control the weak force of nature, the changes and disasters in the natural world can not be predicted, can not resist, so there is a purposeful worship of nature, the formation of ancient primitive religion, with the evolution of human civilization, after entering the civilized society, the ruling class borrowed this primitive religion as a tool of thought for their own rule, they claimed to be the son of the heavenly emperor, in an attempt to use the authority of the heavenly emperor to maintain the supremacy and mystery of their royal power. to ensure the consolidation of their own rule.
The "Book of Poetry and Shang Ode" says, "Emperor Lizi gave birth to shang." "Shang Shu Duoshi" says: "It is not my small country that dares to bow its life, but the sky is not bounded." However, the rulers also understood that relying solely on the authority of heaven could not fully explain all social phenomena, so they put forward the ruling theory of "worshiping heaven and respecting the ancestors", so that the harsh class rule was covered with a veil of warmth, but the ruthless reality tore through this veil of warmth, and in the turbulent environment of increasingly serious social crises, internal and external troubles, and natural and man-made disasters, people generally had serious doubts and complaints, and complained, so they began to point the spearhead directly at rewarding good and punishing evil. The supreme god who sends calamities and exorcizes disasters - heaven.
"Poetry Xiaoya Rain Without Justice":
Hao Hao Tian, not Junqi Virtue, descending on famine, and cutting down the four kingdoms. Wu Tianwei, Fu Shu Fu Tu, Shebi is guilty, and he is guilty; If this is not guilty, it will be supplemented by a sin. Emperor Zhouzong was destroyed, and Jing was stopped; The doctor left the house, and he didn't know what I was doing. Doctor Three Things, Moken Dream Night; Princes of the state, Moken Day and Night. Shu Japanese Zang, overthrowing evil, how haotian, words do not work, such as the other line, then the best. All the gentlemen, each respectful body. Hu is not afraid of each other, not afraid of the sky?
This means: What mercy do you have in the heavens, which are vast and insignificant, and who cannot always give favors, but who have fallen to the ground of death and famine and slaughter the kingdom of the four directions? Is this your goodness that the heavens are violent and violent, that they refuse to think about it, that they let go of criminals, that they do not punish the guilty, but that they cause a large number of innocent people to suffer miserably and suffer? There is nothing to kill, the vast heavens, and the unbelief in the words of the Dhamma, just like traveling thousands of miles and having no way to reach another place, from this point of view, it is not credible for heaven to reward good and punish evil. Gentlemen and secretaries of state, each cautious and solemn, why do they not know reverence, and do not fear the vast heavens? It's a disappointment of expectation and confusion.
Disappointment brings discussion, confusion means awakening, and objective reality causes people to develop the gods of heaven from doubts and doubts to accusations and criticisms: "The people are now dead, they see the heavens and dreams, they are determined, the heavens are victorious, there is the emperor God, who is the cloud of hatred?" ("Poetry, Xiaoya, New Month") The broad masses of the people are suffering, but you are ignoring the heavens, you are dazed, and your heart is at peace! If God can really stop the chaos, according to its magic, it should be invincible, and no one can restrain it, but it is "guilty of giving up the other, and if it is innocent, it is supplemented by it", is this not a reversal of right and wrong, confusing black and white? Ask, great God, to whom you hate and to whom you hate.
It is in this kind of heavy criticism and deep doubt that the mysterious aura of heaven begins to dim, the heavens are no longer the masters of everything, no longer the "righteous" who reward good and punish evil, "the mandate of heaven is not complete" ("Poetry Xiaoya, the turn of October"), the mandate of heaven does not follow the law, people no longer have to worship it, so people openly shouted out the "mandate of heaven is not credible" (Shangshu Junyi), "do not fear the heavens" ("Shangshu Xiaoya, Bai Rensi"), which is undoubtedly a heavy bomb. The barriers constructed by the theological worldview have been destroyed, showing the greatness of the power of human reason.
The shaking of faith in heaven is actually a reflection of the crisis of earthly kingship, because the Son of Heaven is the spokesman and incarnation of heaven. The loss of divine prestige provides an opportunity for reason to arise, and a concept of God's supremacy arises. This Word is the mother of heaven and earth, and before God, all things in heaven and earth were born from it and returned to it. In this way, a cosmology and methodology constructed by the spirit of reason were established, thus thoroughly sweeping away the remnants of traditional religious concepts since Yin Zhou, conforming to the academic trend of thought at that time of "getting rid of the various conceptual traditions of primitive witchcraft religions" and "beginning to lay the cultural-psychological structure of the Han people" (Li Zehou, "The Course of Beauty", p. 59, China Social Science Press, 1984). It has become an important part of the advent of the era of Chinese cultural self-consciousness.
The emergence of the Category of Taoism was also closely related to the development of natural sciences, especially astronomy, at that time. China is one of the countries with a relatively developed ancient astronomical calendar, and the "Shang Shu Yao Dian" contains the names of birds, ang, virtual, fire and so on; There are stars such as good rain and good wind in "Hong Fan", and there are stars such as fire, ji, bucket, room, morning glory, and weaver girl in the Book of Poetry. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the division of stars was established, and a large number of eclipse phenomena were recorded, and 37 eclipse records appeared in the Spring and Autumn Classics and the Zuo Zhuan, according to modern calendarists, 33 of which were correct and only 4 were misremembered, which indicated that the level of the astronomical calendar at that time was quite high.
In ancient times, astronomy and calendar were not completely separated, and the two were often intertwined, and the Zhou Li Chunguan Zongbo downloaded, Bao Zhangshi "palmed the stars of the heavens to the stars and the changes of the sun and the moon, to observe the migration of the world, to discern its auspiciousness." The land of Kyushu is distinguished by the stars and earth, and all the sealed domains have stars to see the auspiciousness of the demons. With the appearance of ten and two years old, look at the demon of the world, with the things of the five clouds, discern the auspicious water and drought, the immersion of the abundance and desolation, with the ten have two winds, observe the sum of heaven and earth, and the fate of the demon." Feng Xiangshi "holds the position of two years old in ten years, two months in ten, two days in ten days, ten days and twenty-eight stars, and discerns their narratives, so as to meet the heavenly position, winter and summer to the sun, and spring and autumn to the moon to distinguish the narrative of the four hours." The former focuses on astronomy and the latter on calendars. In the long-term astronomical observations, people have also found the operation of constellations. In the middle of the Warring States period, the Qi people Gandwei Shi Shen compiled a stellar table including the yellow longitude of 120 stars and the degrees of distance from the North Pole, which is the world's first stellar table, dating back about 2400 years.
It is precisely with the progress of the astronomical calendar that people gradually realize that the operation of the Heavenly Dao has a certain law, and this law cannot be changed by anyone, and the results of the operation of the Heavenly Dao can be known in advance, not mysterious and unknowable, so people abstract the "Tao" as a general category from the specific laws of the Heavenly Dao to summarize the universal laws of the development of natural, social and human thought. This effort of abstraction was realized and completed here in Laozi, who developed "Tao" from the "Tao" as the basic concept and core category of his philosophy, so that Laozi's description of the "Tao" from time to time revealed the scientific source of his philosophical category.
(Excerpt from: Zhang Yunhua, "Research on the Taoist Thought of the Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties", pp. 26-31.) ）
Press: This platform is a pure public welfare academic platform, most of the articles published on this platform are original, the content published is only for learning and exchange, and all the content reproduced on this platform is indicated by the source. In addition, the Platform refuses any person to give any form of donation to the Platform.