The Cheng brothers (Er Cheng, 二程, lit 2 Chengs) were two brothers

Cheng Hao Chéng Hào (, 1032–1085), Courtesy name Bóchún (), was a Chinese philosopher and politician from Luoyang, China. In his youth, he and his younger brother Cheng Yi were students of Zhou Dunyi, one of the architects of Neo-Confucian cosm ...

and Cheng Yi who were prominent Confucian philosophers during the

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

Scholarship

In their early years the Cheng brothers studied under

Zhou Dunyi Zhou Dunyi (; 1017–1073) was a Chinese cosmologist, philosopher, and writer during the Song dynasty. He conceptualized the Neo-Confucianism, Neo-Confucian cosmology of the day, explaining the relationship between human conduct and universal ...

and developed the science of nature from

Mencius Mencius (孟子, ''Mèngzǐ'', ; ) was a Chinese Confucian philosopher, often described as the Second Sage () to reflect his traditional esteem relative to Confucius himself. He was part of Confucius's fourth generation of disciples, inheriting ...

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, establishing a system of science centered on the "Divine Principle". The most important academic proposition of the brothers is that "everything is just a heavenly principle.

Differences

Cheng Hao is lively and natural, but Cheng Yi is serious and upright, sacred and inviolable, and even inhumane, which is the "face of Taoism" seen in later generations. In terms of

Women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

Chastity Chastity, also known as purity, is a virtue related to temperance. Someone who is ''chaste'' refrains from sexual activity that is considered immoral or from any sexual activity, according to their state of life. In some contexts, for exampl ...

, Cheng Yi thought, "...... If you take someone who is out of line to match your body, you are out of line. The first thing that I did was to ask Cheng Yi: "

Widowhood A widow (female) or widower (male) is a person whose spouse has died and has usually not remarried. The male form, "widower", is first attested in the 14th century, by the 19th century supplanting "widow" with reference to men. The adjective for ...

is poor and helpless, can she remarry? Some people are afraid of freezing to death and starving to death, so they use the cold and hunger as an excuse.，As the standard for measuring the virtuous ladies.

Zhu Xi Zhu Xi ( zh, c=朱熹; ; October 18, 1130April 23, 1200), formerly romanized Chu Hsi, was a Chinese philosopher, historian, politician, poet, and calligrapher of the Southern Song dynasty. As a leading figure in the development of Neo-Confuci ...

(1130–1200) also agreed with this statement in his "Letter to Chen Shizhong": "In the past, Mr. Ichuan tried to discuss this matter, thinking that starving to death is a small matter, but losing modesty is a big matter. But when viewed by a gentleman who knows the scriptures and understands reason, he can see that it is not easy. He advocated that women should "be devoted to one another" and suppress "human desire".

Rating

Jiang Chenying has summarized: "Henan Erchengzi to hold respect for the study of teaching. Its purpose to strict and respectful as scrupulous, its work began to move appearance, correct color, out of the rhetoric gas between, and pushed to the end of sex up to the sky to know the fate of the base of the work of the sage, the scholar no time and can leave." Xiong Zhichu said: "Since Yao and Shun, the saints and sages have passed on to each other without crossing one respect. The one who respects is the one who goes through the top and the bottom, and becomes the way of the beginning and the end. ...... Ercheng both to a respect to receive the transmission of a thousand saints, and Yichuan is especially for the main nothing suitable for the solution, and thus repeatedly invented, so that the scholars have to hold, as a transcendent into the sage. Zhu Zi said Cheng's merit in the latter, the most is the main respect."熊赐履：《学统》卷八，《正統·程伊川先生》

References

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Bibliography

* 葛瑞漢（A. C. Graham）著，程德祥等譯：《中國的兩位哲學家：二程兄弟的新儒學》 Duos Chinese Confucianists 11th-century Chinese philosophers

Scholarship

Differences

Rating

See also

References

Bibliography