朱熹天即理說在明代中晚期的反響──以《論語》〈八佾〉王孫賈章之經解為中心

目前學界注意到明清之際儒學思想呈現出以「天」為本的面向，並指出部分儒者明確地檢討以「理」釋「天」之詮解策略，及此一策略與儒學經典之說存在著相當大的距離的問題。針對此一現象，本文嘗試從思想史的視角來探究其內涵，並考察朱熹提出「天即理」說以詮解「天」之內涵所產生的效果，及此說在明代中晚期所激起的反響。本文以諸家《四書》注本中對於《論語》王孫賈章之詮解為分析對象，藉以呈現朱熹「天即理」說在明代中晚期如何被回應的情況。部分學者主張「天」有「福善禍淫」之能，此與朱熹之有別，而被視為是儒學經典中「天」之觀念內含的特徵。本文將分析，「天」之內涵在宋、明兩代之間的變化，以及朱熹「天即理」說與儒學經典之說的距離被辨識出來的過程。

The academic community has recently noted that during the Ming-Qing transition, Confucianists largely exhibited a fundamental orientation centered on“heaven”天. It has been indicated that some Confucian scholars explicitly reevaluated their interpretive strategy of explicating heaven through“principle”理and that a significant gap exists between this strategy and the teachings of the Confucian classics. In response to this phenomenon, the present paper explores its meanings from the perspective of intellectual history, focusing on examining the impact of Zhu Xi’s朱熹(1130–1200) proposition of“heaven as principle”天即理in interpreting the connotation of heaven and the reactions it sparked in the late Ming period. This paper primarily analyzes interpretations of the chapter in the Analects論語on a conversation between Confucius and Wang Sunjia王孫賈(?-?) in various annotated editions of the Four Books四書to illustrate how Zhu Xi’s theory was received in the late Ming. Some scholars have argued that heaven possesses the ability to“bless the virtuous and punish the wicked,”which is considered a characteristic inherent in the concept of heaven within the Confucian classics but differs from Zhu Xi’s proposition. This paper asserts that the evolution of the meanings of heaven that occurred between the Song and Ming dynasties as well as correctly ascertaining the gap between Zhu Xi’s theory of“heaven as principle”and the teachings of Confucian classics are central to the discussion on the orientation towards heaven seen in the late Ming.