Fan Zhongyan and Neo-Confucianism in Song Dynasty

Fan Zhongyan's status as the founder of Song Philosophy was covered up because of the statement that An Ding and Tai Shan are pedestals of Song Yuan Xue An. This paper, firstly, discusses the relationship between Fan Zhongyan and the Three Scholars in Early Song Dynasty, pointing out that Hu Yuan, Sun Fu and Shi Jie are actually apprentices of Fan Zhongyan and it is due to his encouragement, employment and recommendation that the Three Scholars in Early Song Dynasty have made great achievements in intellectual and academic history in Song Secondly, in the period of Qing Li Reform, Philosophy of Balancing Classic Theory and Practice, which was antitype of Taoism, was established owning to the concerted effort of Fan Zhongyan and the Three Scholars in Early Song Dynasty. Taoism came in being under both the negative and positive influences of Qing Li Reform and Xi Ning Political Reform launched by Wang 'Anshi. Thirdly, Wang 'Anshi is proficient in six classics, especially The Book of Changes, and he values The Doctrine of the Mean and The Book of Spring and Autumn a lot. All these have contributed to the development of Taoism. The relationship between Fan Zhongyan and Taoism lies in that he is the first who proposed the issue of Lofty Spirit of Confucians and Yan Hui. Song Philosophy mostly came out from academies because Fan Zhongyan attached great importance of education by setting up large number of schools, which laid a foundation for the growth of academies in Song