Abstract

This thesis aims to justify the naturalistic interpretation on the Spiritual beings and the Sacrifice in Neo-Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism interprets the spiritual beings as two matter-energy, i.e. Yin-Yang. Originally the spiritual beings, which is called Kui-Shin(鬼神), have been regarded as spiritual or supernatural beings, but Neo-Confucianism explains them something activating like other natural things. This is very special understanding in East Asian intellectual history. This interpretation on the Spiritual beings, however, adopting the area of the Sacrifice, difficult problems are generated. For ancestor's spirits as objects of sacrificial rites can not continue after the death, the spirits are never able to present on sacrificial rites. Ancestor worship, very most essential ethos of Confucianism, would lost the positive meaning. Many of researchers have regarded this difficulty as the logical contradiction of interpretation on the Spiritual beings and the Sacrifice in Neo-Confucianism. But this thesis maintains the logical consistency between the Spiritual beings and the Sacrifice. This thesis is based upon the premises as follows. It is a naive misunderstanding that Ki is considerd as mere matter or matter-energy. The life and death in East Asia, including Neo-Confucianism, can never be understood as the separate mode of being from Tien-Ti cosmology(天地自然). Thus ancestor's spirits do not exist in the world which transcends this cosmology, but continue to exist within living descendants. In conclusion, For Neo-Confucianism's interpretation will not be contradictory, the logical consistency between the Spiritual beings and the Sacrifice will be affirmed.