英文摘要
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This article seeks to investigate the research on Zhongyong (Doctrine of the mean) undertaken by Nakai Riken, a scholar from the Kaitokudō Institute in Ōsaka, Japan in the Tokugawa period. By reference to Nakai's analyses in his work Zhongyong fengyuan, this article examines how he understood and refuted Zhu Xi's work Zhongyong zhangju while reconstructing his own system. This article identifies five features in Nakai's works: (1) inspecting metaphysical argumentation with positivism; (2) reviewing the transcendental quality of metaphysical argumentation by bringing it back in the context of history; (3) using the method of literature verification to examine whether the sources are authentic and credible; (4) scrutinizing the creative interpretations of metaphysical thoughts in light of Han and Tang scholars' exegeses; and (5) probing the ideas of "everything evolving from one principle" and "the harmonization of objects and ego" in a human-based and secular spirit. Besides, this article attempts to collate Nakai's Zhongyong fengyuan and related writings, so as to construct his system of neo-Confucianism. Moreover, this article discusses the contents of Nakai's works in terms of Confucian orthodoxy, natural law, human nature, self-cultivation, and essence-function, thereby revealing Nakai's attributes of refuting Zhu's annotation system as well as the shared principles between his works and neo-Confucianism.
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