Rituals as the Normative System—— Modern Significance of Classic Studies in The Rituals,Rituals of Zhou Dynasty,and The Book of Rituals

Ritual is related to political and ethical system,and it takes right principles as its content.The normative concept in it must be noticed first in investigating The Rituals,Rituals of Zhou Dynasty,and The Book of Rituals,in the process of social activities.As a normative system,ritual belongs to right principle,and concerns different sides in social domain,from daily life to political practice,from life activities of individuals to social communication between humans,almost everything has the concrete norms of ritual.With norms as the content,ritual contains aims,and the premise of the latter is the acknowledgement of human value of existence,which is related to that the ritual (norms) pays close attention to harmony between persons,and refers to a reasonable construction of social order.In this sense,“how to do: and “what is it” converge with each other.As for human activities (doing things),ritual is,at the same time,related to means,and focuses on “how to do”.The content of these three books of rituals investigate the multi-side of “how to do”.The first ones presented in them are the forms,procedures of activities.As the norms of activities,ritual itself does not have ultimate significance,while its existence is closely related to multiple reasons.Fundamentally speaking,ritual comes from reality and governs back to reality.Its normative function (and for sure) could not be divided from reality and necessity.Meanwhile,ritual contains human ideal of value,thus make it different from pure law of nature.The different reasons contain substantial meaning,while its variation embodies the sublation of normative forms.Furthermore,ritual as right principle is hard to avoid a debate of substance and form.In the relations between ritual and music,between ritual and sentiment,and between ritual and reason,etc.,the dimension of substance of ritual as well as its form are prominent.