本文的目的主要在於了解荀子對於孟子生死觀的繼承與發展。根據我們的探討，荀子雖然與孟子採取不同的生死進路，但是他們基本上還是堅持孔子的道德路線，只是荀子強調的是客觀面的建構，而孟子則是主體面的建構。由於強調面的不同，荀子不像孟子那樣，將超越生死的依據放在主體的道德心上，而放在客觀的禮義之統上。經由客觀的禮義之統，荀子不再強調超越的道德天，而轉向社會的存在。這種轉折，不僅讓儒家的生死觀失去了形而上的永恆基礎，只剩下此世的經驗現實，也坐實了一般人對於孔子「未知生，焉知死」的誤解。

The purpose of this article mainly lies in understanding Hsün Tsu regarding Mencius’ inheritance and development about standpoint of life-and-death. According to our discussion, although both Hsün Tsu and Mencius adopted the different passage of life-and-death, but basically they adhere to Confucius’ moral route. Except that, Hsün Tsu stressed on objective constitution, whereas, Mencius stressed on subjective constitution. Due to different emphasis, Hsün Tsu is not likely to place the transcendence of life-and-death on the basis of subjective conscience such as Mencius, rather then on the unity of objective propriety and righteousness. By this way, Hsün Tsu no longer emphasized the transcendent moral Heaven, but trended to community. This swerve not only caused Confucianism’s viewpoint of life-and-death missing out the metaphysical eternal foundation, leaving only the profane experience，, furthermore, solving the common misunderstood of Confucius’ point of view of ‘If we do not yet know about life, how can we know about death?’(or“ Not knowing life, let alone death”.)