Confucian Thought of Minben in Mencius Shaped Autocratic Monarchy in China
The thought of minben in Mencius can be categorized into five types of propositions: purposive, institutional, normative, operational, and critical. These propositions are interconnected and serve different functions but share the same goal. From the perspective of proposition combination, Fundamentalist Confucianism and Autocratic Confucianism are essentially the same. This suggests that Fundamentalist Confucianism was aligned with monarchy, explaining why Confucius and Mencius' teachings became dominant in autocratic China.