In the Preface, the investigator states that his purpose is to clarify the structure of consciousness in Lao-tse and Chuang-tse. In Chapter Ⅱ, the Moral view of consciousness of Confucius and Mencius stands In contrast to the view of Lao-tse and Chu...
In the Preface, the investigator states that his purpose is to clarify the structure of consciousness in Lao-tse and Chuang-tse. In Chapter Ⅱ, the Moral view of consciousness of Confucius and Mencius stands In contrast to the view of Lao-tse and Chuang-tse's active function of conscioness. Confucius and Mencius formed a moral value system of consciousness, and its morality is ‘matter of course’ morality, to defend and obey the feudalistic system of Joo was a matter of course. Confucius and Mencius applied this same matter of course to consciousness. However, this bears no relation to the function of consciousness. The moralitistic value system of Confucious and Mencius confronts contradictions and failure.
As opposed to Confucius and Mencius, Lao-tse and Chuang-tse, who were based on the view of the function of consciousness, have not tried to establish from consciousness a possible ground for establishing an upper structure of value; they rather tried to dig into a lower level of consciousness as a foundation for falling into contradictions, instead of trying to eliminate contradictions.
There are seven stages in reduction to the lower structures. This in the problem of 7 returns and 9 reductions In 9 reductions. the final two reductions are included.
The purpose of the reduction was not a re-confirmation of intellectual value of consciousness, but its re-definition. The result of the reduction was not the self-clarification of consciousness, but the relative transformation of knowledge and ignorance and self-consciousness and unconsciousness.
Its method of reduction was ‘self-proof and self-attainment,’ which is the method of one's own proof, as opposed to Confucius' and Mencius' moralistic ratiocination. By retraining desires, pure senses prove to be actual phases of transformation, and the proved results of the pure senses, the thought comes to include the errors of one's judgements. In Chapter Ⅲ, by following the process of 7 returns based upon self-proof and self-attainment, the investigator has attempted to clarify the relative transforming structure of the depths of consciousness.
In chapter Ⅳ, in conclusion, he has attempted to point out the transforming structure of
consciousness. As a result of the first method of reduction, the ground, comitting contradictions of consciousness, has come to self-realize the fact that by the too intensive demand, the consciousness of value was unconscious of the relative transformation of value. In the second method of reduction, that is the reduction to the 9, one reaches to the self-consciousness that one has been unconscious of, the fact that relative transformations of values were grounded on the correlation between life's naturalness and unnaturalness, on two forces of life and death, on two energies of life and death, on two forces of material fullness and emptiness, and on a relative transforming action of mental and physical powers.
What is called consciousness is nothing but the relative transforming body in action, moving between ignorance and knowledge, and vice versa It is in life-in-death and death-in life that these two forces are included. The depth consciousness of a man explains its own structure, and it proves the transforming structure by participating in things and society, where it could be defined as the world consciousness that helps to transform it. As stated above, the theory of consciousness structure maintained by Lao-tse and Chuang-tse, abandoning the theory of self-evidence and the view of absolute value which used to be regarded as mysterious, has contributed to establishing the view of relative value. This kind of theory of relativity has greatly influenced every field of leaving and the domain of the culture of China.