The Duality of Xun Zi' s Nature Doctrine

The studies of Xun Zi's nature doctrine have always stressed on the perspective of value judgment and regarded him as the representative of ancient nature doctrine. As a matter of fact, this stressed on the surface and devalued the internal matter instead, since it ignored the question of what is nature from the perspective of fact judgment. It was with this point of view that Xun Zi defined nature as inborn, clearly separating human being from other categories. Furthermore, he took the thought on human nature in the Pre - Qin Dynasty from the experiential level to the rational one. As far as value judgment is concerned, there was no essential difference between Xun Zi and Mencius on nature doctrine. The only difference lies in the logical starting point, in which Mencius' is embodied in the truth part, valued on inborn nature and idealization, while Xun Zi's is included in the hypocritical level, valued on postnatal nature and reality.