李二曲（顒，字中孚，1627~1705）在清初與孫夏峰及黃宗羲為時人喻稱是「海內三大儒」。二曲與夏峰二人在理學心性論上皆承陸王一系，肯認先驗的道德本心為儒學主幹。今人林繼平在其《李二曲研究》一書中謂陽明所倡「立體達用」的大人之學中「僅有道德的主體，沒有知體的作用。此後確能彌補這一缺失的，只有二曲的明體適用之學了。」 筆者認為二曲對知體的提出當出於其倡明體適用以切合經世致用的時代需求。本文試由明清之際儒學的困境與二曲所關注的核心問題；二曲對「儒」與「學」的歷史批判及哲學涵義剖析；二曲以「明體適用」之命題界定「儒學」之內涵特徵；二曲儒學觀之關學脈絡以及其知體在其儒學觀中得失之檢討，來考察二曲儒學觀的形成之面面觀。
Li Er-qu (1627-1705) was called one of the three prominent Confucians in the early Qing Dynasty besides Sun Xia-Feng and Huang Zong-xi. Li and Sun were the successors of Lu and Wang’s school in terms of the Neo-Confucian theories about mind-nature, recognizing the transcendental essence of morality as the corpus of Confucianism. Now according to The Study of Li Er-qu by Lin Ji-ping, Wang Yang-ming’s virtuous doctrine about the “utilization of the fundamental entity” has only morality subjects instead of knowledge subjects, while the only thing that could fill in the missing part afterwards is Li Er-qu’s doctrine about understanding and timely utilizing the fundamental entity. We believe that Li’s suggestion about “knowledge subjects” owed itself to the need of the times to advocate understanding and timely utilizing the fundamental entity as well as to improve the world. This paper is intended to explore various aspects about the formation of Li Er-qu’s views about Confucianism through the predicament of Confucianism during the turn between the Ming and the Qing Dynasties, the essential issues that Li cared about, Li’s historical critique and philosophical analyses about Confucianism and knowledge, how Li defined the features of Confucianism with the proposition of “understanding and timely utilizing the fundamental entity”, the context of the doctrine of Guan as part of his Confucianism, and the merits of knowledge subjects in his views about Confucianism.
