床前故事

Wang Yangming’s Certification on the Reality of Humanity

Author: Su Xiaobing

Source: “Thinking and Civilization” Chapter 26, Huadong Teacher Fan Daxue Society January 2021

[Abstract] Based on the reflection on the academic direction of Song Confucianism “seeking reason outside the heart”, Wang Yangming developed his thoughts on the problems related to “heart” and “reason”. For Yangming, “seeking reason outside the mind” means two parts between mind and reason, and its more practical theoretical connotation is the denial of the real nature of humanity. In contrast, the “Waste of the saint, my nature is self-sufficient” established by the dragon’s enlightenment is exactly the direct determination of the real nature of humanity. To go further, for Yangming, on the one hand, the fate of “mind is reason” and its associated proposition group, positively demonstrates the intrinsic nature of humanity; on the other hand, the relevant proposition questions based on “no X outside the mind” are explained in reverse. Through the humanistic realism, Yangming not only revised the theoretical imperfection problem faced by theory in the Ming Dynasty, but also reconstructed the Confucian theory represented by Mencius in the realm.

[Keyword] Wang Yangming; Humane theory; Reality; Heart is philosophy

Author introduction: Su Xiaobing (1987-), from Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, Ph.D. in philosophy, and lecturer in the Department of Philosophy of the Xi’an Institute of Electronic Science and Technology. The purpose of the important research and development is: Yangming and comparative philosophy.

For Wang Yangming, who was in the era of Zhu Zi’s official learning, there is no doubt that his philosophical problem and Zhu Zi’s learning is closely related to Zhu Zi’s learning. Liu Weishan once clearly pointed out that “whose teacher and teacher were sick of the Song people because they were seeking reason outside their hearts” [1]. According to this na-collection, for Wang Yangming, the reflection on the Song Dynasty’s academic performance represented by Zhu Zi’s academic performance has become the focus of Yang Ming’s academic performance. The more specific content reflected in this reflection is a criticism of the Song Confucians’ “seeking reason outside the heart”. It is not difficult to understand that this reflection and criticism have formed Wang Yangming’s Jiao in a practical wayPoint the question and know the meaning. Of course, what we need to ask is that the theoretical connotation of Wang Yangming’s idea of ​​this problem is right? How did he solve this problem through analysis and discussion?

1. Two points between “heart” and “reason”. A person’s nature is actually denied by nature

As we all know, Zhu Xi emphasized the importance of “reason”. Taking “reason” as the focus concept, Zhu Xi studies covers aspects such as the nature of the universe, the biochemistry of all things, and the order of human nature and moral standards. However, in the Ming Dynasty, the “reason” of reason began to appear in the question of usefulness. This is not important in terms of the universe, but in terms of daily life, the order of someone, etc. [2] In other words, the “reason” that relies on daily life and standards of long, short, good and evil began to be questioned. On the one hand, this doubt appears as a question about the usefulness of “reason”, that is, whether “reason” can be complete lies in human nature, whether “reason” can be consistent with “heart”; on the other hand, it presents doubts about humanity itself, that is, whether humanity can be good in all situations, and has the ability to be good in all situations. This statement means whether “heart” can be consistent with “reason”. Two are two and one is under the relationship between “heart” and “reason”. [3] The differences in their relationship will solve the origin or usefulness of “reason” on the one hand (“reason” comes from human nature), and at the same time respond to the real nature of humanity, that is, humanity is good, and humanity itself can lead to moral behavior, which is the basis of all values, meanings and humanity; otherwise, it will bring double difficulties. From a pane, the important goal of Wang Yangmingzhe’s efforts is to prove the divergence of this relationship and thus lay the foundation for humanitarianism. [4]

In the post-Zhu Zi era, Wang Yangming once stated as follows:

People do not know that the best good lies in my heart, but seek it outside it, thinking that everything has theories, and seek it to be the best in everything, so they are separated and broken, and they are in a mess, but no one knows that there is a certain direction. [5]

In this paragraph, Yang Ming clearly points out the two problems of “reason” and “heart”. “Everything and things” refers to the generality of the scope. “Reason” or “Supreme Good” can understand the fairness of behavior. “Thinking that everything has a theorem” means that the length and shortness of all situations are inherently dependent on the human nature. Therefore, Integrated ppt, people must connect to the standards through acquired learning. Try to take “filial piety” as an example. For the son, the relationship between father and son can be regarded as a “thing”, and the “reason” of this thing or the appropriate way to deal with this thing is to be filial to the father. In Wang Yangming’s view, filial piety is widespread among all people. When facing the relationship between father and son, Zilu has the acquired nature of filial piety. In this regard, filial piety lies in the human way, which is what is called the reality of human way; on the contrary, there is a view that filial piety is acquired.It is achieved, from the inside of people, in this way, the focus of humanity is no longer the ability to perform filial piety, but the acquired intellectual talent, or perhaps learning talent; at the same time, the morality, value, and order represented by filial piety are all constructed by acquired. Regarding this view that humanity has no real nature (“not knowing that the highest good lies in my heart”) and that “reason” lies in people (“seeking it from the outside”), Yangming has repeatedly expressed criticism, such as:

The learning of a confidant has not been understood in the whole country, for hundreds of years. Those who learn from the world are blinded by the contamination of knowledge and do not know that the principles of heaven are in my heart, but are false from the outside. They all want to seek distance, to give up the easy and difficult, to communicate with each other, to be highly intelligent and to compete with each other, to be in harmony with each other, to be trapped in birds and birds and barbarians without knowing it. [6]

The weak and weak nature of the usefulness of “reason” directly leads to the divisive relationship between the “heart”. What problems will this bring about? From the perspective of internal expression, it can lead to the consequences of human etiquette and the failure of moral atmosphere, which is called “a day by day fall into the wild birds and barbarians without knowing it”; from the perspective of origin, deeper crisis will appear as doubts about humanity, and the article expresses the contradiction between “the law of nature is in my heart” and “the mutual wisdom is high and the mutual respect is in line with respect”, and further shows the contradiction between the true “man” [7] and “birds and barbarians”. In other words, in Wang Yangming’s view, the essence of the problem brought about by the decline of the interpretation of “reason” will be a problem of humanitarianism: perhaps it is a good argument, and believes that all the standards of reality are broadly spread to humanitarianism; on the contrary, it is the kind of “heavenly law” and “to “Good” humanitarian theory, in which “wisdom” is regarded as the focus of humanity, and it is believed that everything in humanity is nothing but acquired sensibility. This means that humanity is not realistic, and the value, meaning, and human order of human society all come from acquired tribute.

From this we can see that discussions surrounding the relationship between “heart” and “reason” can ultimately be reduced to the real humanity problem of humanity, or can be summarized as humanity theory with “reason” (nature principles/supreme goodness/confidence) as the focus, and humanity theory with “wisdom” (observant/intelligence/knowledge/talent) as the focus. It can be seen that the real difficulty that Wang Yangmingzhe faced was the scrutiny of secular humanity theory, which laid the foundation for the reality of humanity. From the perspective of philosophical history, this mission is also a reconstruction of the tradition of Confucianism’s good deeds published by Mencius. Regarding this, Huang Zongxi once sum