「治」より「理」へ : 陸贄・王安石・朱熹

Abstract

It can be contended that one's political thinking is based on one's fundamental understanding of the function of the state in regard to its society and people. The function of the state can generally be divided into two distinctive aspects: to reign and to rule. This distinction is exemplified in the adage "the British sovereign reigns, but does not rule". In Chinese classics, the term usually used to designate the function of the state is "zhi", which can comprise both the meanings of "to reign" and "to rule", with greater emphasis usually placed on the former. For many reasons, the administrative function of the state developed highly and became more dominant during the Tang dynasty. It was around that time that Emperor Gao-zong 高宗 acceded to the throne. Simply because his first name was "zhi", use of this character became prohibited for the following one-hundred and fifty years, and the character "li" was adopted in its place. The character "li" is used in Chinese classical literature as both a noun and a verb to denote the concept of "ruling". It was mostly by accident that the word "li" superseded the word "zhi" as the key term of political thinking in China. However, this shift in effect served better to describe the administrative function, which was at that time becoming more and more important to the state. This paper aims to illuminate the terminological and practical changes that occurred in the political function of the state with reference to the writings of Lu Zhi 陸贅, Wang Anshi 王安石, and Zhu Xi 朱熹.