• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.29
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• pp.231-253
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• 2010

Xiang-xiu(向秀) tried to find compromise between naturalness(自然) and Confucian ethical code(名敎), the individual consciousness and the group consciousness in the Wei-Jin(魏晋) dynasty. He made his views on the human nature through the revealing of desire and morality of human. Xinag-xiu considered that the human nature comes from the ultimate principle of the nature(自然之理), so it's possible to provide reasonable basis to the meaning of the 'desire' and 'morality'. Furthermore, the 'desire' is regarded as the driving force of human life through the reasonable cognition, at the same time he insisted that we should control our passions by sociality and the social norm. So in the view of Xiang-xiu, the human nature has two characteristics, such as the principal of the driving force of human life and the control of the base desires and the negative desires. It could be confirmed by his opinions about the following human's nature and sticking to our last in the his Zhuangzizhu( 莊子注). Through the perspective of the human nature, Xiang-xiu emphasized the unification of the unaffected human nature and morality(sociality), the desire and the social norm.