An Exploration of Mencius and Zhuangzi's View of Life and Death

Although Mencius and Zhuangzi belonged to different schools, both of them lived in the same era and their most important content of philosophy are life and death. They deducted an ideal for life which was very profound and unique through the thought of life and death and so their view of life and death naturally became two mainstreams in pre-Qin. Their outstanding achievement witnessed a splendid page in the history of human civilization. This page not only guarded the souls of all human beings but also made them achieved the substance of why man became man. Their view of life and death is not the same. In order to capture the thought of Mencius and Zhuangzi wholly the paper aims at expounding the material meaning of their view of life and death as well as to clarify differences and sameness of them. Besides, it explains why their views had held the key meaning for the characteristic of Chinese culture. And it might help us to maintain a broader perspective while we make a comparative study between them. When we comprehend their view of life and death we should have similar lofty experience of life.