朱子集宋學之大成，著成《四書章句集注》，是書謹嚴可法，精粹可取，自宋末至元，學者莫不尊奉而發明之，遂使研究《四書章句集注》蔚為風尚，因此一般經學史均將元代視為朱子學之餘緒，鮮有心得。實則宋末迄元也有若干檢討批判《四書章句集注》的著作，如金代王若虛《論語辨惑》及元代陳天祥《四書辨疑》即此類之佼佼者。二人以朱子《論語集注》與宋人說解的缺點有三：「過深」、「過高」、「過厚」；他們主張說解《論語》的方法有三：一、讀《論語》不可以文害義，要以意逆志；二、解經須貼合經旨，不可違戾聖人之言；三、若干分章有待商榷，若干經文有待存疑。本文除了闡明這三點批評與三點主張外，間亦論及陳天祥承繼與發明王若虛處，並比較《論語辨惑》與《論語辨疑》的異同。尤其二人的諸多精到識見，與清代諸學者相較，誠不遑多讓。在朱學興盛的元代，這種與朱子立異的著作，更顯得有不流於俗的價值與特色。 Zhu Xi epitomized the learning of the Song Dynasty in his work Collected Notes on Passages in the Four Books, an erudite work. From the Song to the Yuan Dynasty, many scholars offered elaborated comments on Zhu Xi's work, and the research on Collected Notes on Passages in the FourBooks became a major academic trend for many generations. Most historians of Chinese thought consider the Yuan Dynasty to be a flowermg period of Zhu Xi's thought. In fact, the reviews and critiques of Collected notes on Passages in the Four Books, have already appeared in the period from the late Song to the early Yuan, such as Wang Ruo-xu's Resolution of Perplexities in the Analects in the Jin Dynasty and Chen Tein-xiang's Resolution of Doubts in the Four Books among the outstanding examples. This author examines 91 passages in Wang Ruo-xu's work and 173 passages in Chen Tien-hsiang's, and discuss the differences and similarities of these two works. In view of Chen Tien-xiang as scholarly heir of Wang Ruo-xu, we also examine how the two men considered Zhu Xi's work to be "overly abstruse", "overly sublime", and "overly generous". Their methods of analyzing the Analects are: (1) To read between the lines. (2) To respect the words of the sages. (3) The Classics still contain uncertain passages await discussion. At a time when Zhu Xi's ideas dominated the official world of China, Wang and Chen published views contrary to Zhu Xi's were clearly an execptional event worthy of our attention.
