Wang Yangming
Encyclopedia
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| Wang Yangming | |
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| Family name: (姓) |
Wang (王) (Pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into... : Wáng) |
| Given name Chinese given name Chinese given names are generally made up of one or two characters, and are written after the family name, therefore "John-Paul Smith" as a Chinese name would be read "Smith John-Paul". Chinese names can consist of any character and contain almost any meaning... : (名) |
Shouren (守仁) (Pinyin: Shǒurén) |
| Courtesy name: (字) |
Bo'an (伯安) (Pinyin: Bo'an) |
| Hào 號 Chinese style name A Chinese style name, sometimes also known as a courtesy name , is a given name to be used later in life. After 20 years of age, the zì is assigned in place of one's given name as a symbol of adulthood and respect... : (號) |
Yangming (陽明) (Pinyin: Yángmíng) |
| Posthumous name Posthumous name A posthumous name is an honorary name given to royalty, nobles, and sometimes others, in East Asia after the person's death, and is used almost exclusively instead of one's personal name or other official titles during his life... : (謚) |
Wencheng |
| (Ch: 王文成公 ; Py: Wang Wenchenggong) |
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| Title Chinese nobility Chinese sovereignty and peerage, the nobility of China, were an important feature of traditional social and political organization of Imperial China. While the concepts of hereditary sovereign and peerage titles and noble families were featured as early as the semi-mythical, early historical... : (封號) |
Earl of Xinjian (新建伯) (Pinyin: Xinjianbo) |
| Styled Style (manner of address) A style of office, or honorific, is a legal, official, or recognized title. A style, by tradition or law, precedes a reference to a person who holds a post or political office, and is sometimes used to refer to the office itself. An honorific can also be awarded to an individual in a personal... : |
Master Yangming |
| (Ch: 陽明子, or 陽明先生; |
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| Py: Yángmíngzǐ, or fr. Yángmíng Xiānshēng; |
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| Romanised Romanization In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written... as "Wang Yangming". |
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Wang Yangming (王陽明, 1472–1529) was a Ming Chinese
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
idealist Neo-Confucian philosopher, official, educationist, calligraphist and general. After Zhu Xi
Zhu Xi
Zhū Xī or Chu Hsi was a Song Dynasty Confucian scholar who became the leading figure of the School of Principle and the most influential rationalist Neo-Confucian in China...
, he is commonly regarded as the most important Neo-Confucian thinker, with interpretations of Confucianism
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
that denied the rationalist dualism
Dualism
Dualism denotes a state of two parts. The term 'dualism' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been diluted in general or common usages. Dualism can refer to moral dualism, Dualism (from...
of the orthodox philosophy of Zhu Xi. Wang was known as "Yangming Xiansheng" and/or "Yangming Zi" in literary circles: both mean "Brilliant Master Yangming".
Life and times
Born Wang Shouren (王 守仁) in YuyaoYuyao
Yuyao is a city in Zhejiang province, China, capital of Yuyao County, Ningbo. Administratively Yuyao is under the direct jurisdiction of Ningbo....
, Zhejiang Province, his courtesy name was Bo'an (伯安). His father was an earl and a minister responsible for supervising civil personnel. Wang earned the "recommended person" degree
Imperial examination
The Imperial examination was an examination system in Imperial China designed to select the best administrative officials for the state's bureaucracy. This system had a huge influence on both society and culture in Imperial China and was directly responsible for the creation of a class of...
in 1492 and the "presented scholar" degree in 1499. He served as an executive assistant in various government departments until being banished for offending a eunuch in 1506. However, his professional career was later ensured when he became the Governor of Jiangxi
Jiangxi
' is a southern province in the People's Republic of China. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south, it shares a border with Anhui to the north, Zhejiang to the northeast, Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, Hunan to the west, and Hubei to...
.
Wang became a successful general and was known for the strict discipline he imposed on his troops, repressing several rebellions. In 1519 AD, while he was governor of Jiangxi province, he repressed the uprising of Prince Zhu Chen-hao, and made one of the earliest references in using the fo-lang-ji in battle, a breech loading
Breech-loading weapon
A breech-loading weapon is a firearm in which the cartridge or shell is inserted or loaded into a chamber integral to the rear portion of a barrel....
culverin
Culverin
A culverin was a relatively simple ancestor of the musket, and later a medieval cannon, adapted for use by the French in the 15th century, and later adapted for naval use by the English in the late 16th century. The culverin was used to bombard targets from a distance. The weapon had a...
cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
imported from the newly-arrived Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
venturers to China. As governor of Jiangxi he also built schools, rehabilitated the rebels, and reconstructed what was lost by the enemy during the revolt. Though he was made an earl, he was ostracized for opposing Zhu Xi
Zhu Xi
Zhū Xī or Chu Hsi was a Song Dynasty Confucian scholar who became the leading figure of the School of Principle and the most influential rationalist Neo-Confucian in China...
.
Thirty-eight years after his death, he was given the titles Marquis and Completion of Culture. In 1584 he was offered sacrifice in the Confucian Temple, the highest honour for a scholar.
Philosophy
Wang was the leading figure in the Neo-Confucian School of MindYangmingism
Yangmingism, known in Chinese as Yángmíngxué and in Japanese as Yōmeigaku , is one of the major philosophical schools of Neo-Confucianism, based on the ideas of the Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming. Yangmingism developed as the main intellectual opposition to the Cheng-Zhu school of...
, founded by Lu Jiuyuan
Lu Jiuyuan
thumb|200px|Lu JiuyuanLu Jiuyuan was a Chinese scholar and philosopher who founded the school of the universal mind, the second most influential Neo-Confucian school...
of Southern Song. This school championed an interpretation of Mencius
Mencius
Mencius was a Chinese philosopher who was arguably the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself.-Life:Mencius, also known by his birth name Meng Ke or Ko, was born in the State of Zou, now forming the territory of the county-level city of Zoucheng , Shandong province, only thirty kilometres ...
(a Classical Confucian who became the focus of later interpretation) that unified knowledge and action. Their rival school, the School of Principle
Cheng-Zhu school
The Cheng-Zhu school, known in Chinese as Chéngzhūlĭxué 程朱理学, is one of the major philosophical schools of Neo-Confucianism, based on the ideas of the Neo-Confucian philosophers Cheng Yi, Cheng Hao, and Zhu Xi....
(Li) treated gaining knowledge as a kind of preparation or cultivation that, when completed, could guide action.
Innate knowing
Out of Cheng-Zhu's Neo-ConfucianismNeo-Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism is an ethical and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, that was primarily developed during the Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, but which can be traced back to Han Yu and Li Ao in the Tang Dynasty....
that was mainstream at the time, Wang Yangming developed the idea of innate knowing, arguing that every person knows from birth the difference between good and evil. Such knowledge is intuitive and not rational. These revolutionizing ideas of Wang Yangming would later inspire prominent Japanese thinkers like Motoori Norinaga
Motoori Norinaga
was a Japanese scholar of Kokugaku active during the Edo period. He is probably the best known and most prominent of all scholars in this tradition.-Life:...
, who argued that because of the Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
deities, Japanese people alone had the intuitive ability to distinguish good and evil without complex rationalization. His school of thought (Ōyōmei-gaku in Japanese, Ō stands for the surname "Wang", yōmei stands for "Yangming", gaku means "school of learning") also greatly influenced the Japanese samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
ethic.
Knowledge as action
Wang's rejection of the investigation of knowledge comes from the fact that at the time the traditional view of Chinese thought was that once one gained knowledge, one had a duty to put that knowledge into action. This presupposed two possibilities:- That one can have knowledge without/prior to corresponding action.
- That one can know what is the proper action, but still fail to act.
Wang rejected both of these which allowed him to develop his philosophy of action. Wang believed that
only through simultaneous action could one gain knowledge and denied all other ways of gaining it. To him, there was no way to use knowledge after gaining it because he believed that knowledge and action were unified as one. Any knowledge that had been gained then put into action was considered delusion or false.
Mind and the world
He held that objects do not exist entirely apart from the mindMind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
because the mind shapes them. He believed that it is not the world that shapes the mind, but the mind that gives reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
to the world. Therefore, the mind alone is the source of all reason. He understood this to be an inner light, an innate moral goodness and understanding of what is good. This is similar to the thinking of the Greek philosopher Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, who argued that knowledge is virtue.
In order to eliminate selfish desires that cloud the mind’s understanding of goodness, one can practice his type of meditation often called "tranquil repose" or "sitting still" (jingzuo 靜坐). This is similar to the practice of Chan (Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
) meditation in Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
.
Influence
- Wang Yangming is regarded one of the four greatest masters of Confucianism in history along with ConfuciusConfuciusConfucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
, MenciusMenciusMencius was a Chinese philosopher who was arguably the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself.-Life:Mencius, also known by his birth name Meng Ke or Ko, was born in the State of Zou, now forming the territory of the county-level city of Zoucheng , Shandong province, only thirty kilometres ...
and Zhu XiZhu XiZhū Xī or Chu Hsi was a Song Dynasty Confucian scholar who became the leading figure of the School of Principle and the most influential rationalist Neo-Confucian in China...
(孔孟朱王).
- Wang Yangming founded "Yaojiang School"YangmingismYangmingism, known in Chinese as Yángmíngxué and in Japanese as Yōmeigaku , is one of the major philosophical schools of Neo-Confucianism, based on the ideas of the Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming. Yangmingism developed as the main intellectual opposition to the Cheng-Zhu school of...
(Chinese 姚江學派) or "Yangming School of Mind" (Chinese" 陽明心學), which became one of the dominant Confucian schools in the mid-late Ming period and Qing period China. The typical figures came from this school after Wang were Wang Ji (王龍溪), Qian Dehong (錢德洪), Wang Gen (王艮), Huang ZongxiHuang ZongxiHuang Zongxi , courtesy name Taichong , was the name of a Chinese naturalist, political theorist, philosopher, and soldier during the latter part of the Ming dynasty into the early part the Qing.-Biography:...
(黃宗羲), Li Zhuowu (李卓吾) and Liu Zongzhou (劉宗周). Wang Gen formed Taizhou School (泰州學派), which went left of Wang Yangming's thought. During the late Ming period, Wang Yangming's thought became notably popular and influential in China.
- The Japanese Admiral of the Russo-Japanese WarRusso-Japanese WarThe Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
, Tōgō HeihachirōTogo HeihachiroFleet Admiral Marquis was a Fleet Admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy and one of Japan's greatest naval heroes. He was termed by Western journalists as "the Nelson of the East".-Early life:...
, was influenced by Wang, and made a stamp which read, "One's whole life followed the example of Yangming" (一生低首拜陽明). In Japan, many scholars and politicians (this group of people is named in Japanese as: 陽明学者) came from Wang Yangming's school (Ōyōmei-gaku) in history, including Kumazawa Banzan (熊沢蕃山), Saigō TakamoriSaigo Takamoriwas one of the most influential samurai in Japanese history, living during the late Edo Period and early Meiji Era. He has been dubbed the last true samurai.-Early life:...
(西郷隆盛), Takasugi ShinsakuTakasugi Shinsakuwas a samurai from the Chōshū Domain of Japan who contributed significantly to the Meiji Restoration.He used the alias to hide his activities from the shogunate.-Early life:...
(高杉晋作) and Nakae TōjuToju Nakaethumb|180px|right|Nakae Tōju was a Japanese Confucian philosopher known as "the sage of Ōmi".Nakae was a feudal retainer who lived during the Tokugawa shogunate. He taught that the highest virtue was filial piety , and acted upon this, giving up his official post in 1634 in order to return to his...
(中江藤樹). Toju Nakae is regarded as the founder of Japanese Ōyōmei-gaku.
- Chiang Kai-shekChiang Kai-shekChiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
named a national attraction in TaiwanTaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, YangmingshanYangmingshanOne of the eight national parks in Taiwan, the Yangmingshan National Park is located between Taipei City and New Taipei City, Taiwan. The districts that house parts of the park grounds include Taipei's Beitou and Shilin Districts; and New Taipei's Wanli, Jinshan, and Sanzhi Districts. During the...
, after Wang. And a road in NanchangNanchangNanchang is the capital of Jiangxi Province in southeastern China. It is located in the north-central portion of the province. As it is bounded on the west by the Jiuling Mountains, and on the east by Poyang Lake, it is famous for its scenery, rich history and cultural sites...
is also named Yangming Road after Wang by Chiang-influenced local officials.
- The teachings of Wang Yangming were credited with inspiring many Japanese reformers and revolutionaries during the nineteenth century. This led to a great increase in interest in his thought in Japan at the end of the Meiji periodMeiji periodThe , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...
, when many Chinese activists such as Liang QichaoLiang QichaoLiang Qichao |Styled]] Zhuoru, ; Pseudonym: Rengong) was a Chinese scholar, journalist, philosopher and reformist during the Qing Dynasty , who inspired Chinese scholars with his writings and reform movements...
and Chiang Kai-ShekChiang Kai-shekChiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
were staying in Japan. Some Chinese and Korean thinkers believed that Wang Yangming's teachings strongly influenced the development of modern bushidoBushido, meaning "Way of the Warrior-Knight", is a Japanese word which is used to describe a uniquely Japanese code of conduct and a way of the samurai life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry. It originates from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and...
(the "way of the warrior") in Japan, and promoted both ethics in their countries to strengthen the spirit of their respective peoples.
- Wang's interpretation of Confucianism has been influential in China into modern times. The twentieth-century Chinese warlord Yan XishanYan XishanYan Xishan, was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China. Yan effectively controlled the province of Shanxi from the 1911 Xinhai Revolution to the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War...
attempted to revive Confucianism in ShanxiShanxi' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period....
largely on the model of Wang's philosophy.
See also
- ConfucianismConfucianismConfucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
- Neo-ConfucianismNeo-ConfucianismNeo-Confucianism is an ethical and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, that was primarily developed during the Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, but which can be traced back to Han Yu and Li Ao in the Tang Dynasty....
- Lu JiuyuanLu Jiuyuanthumb|200px|Lu JiuyuanLu Jiuyuan was a Chinese scholar and philosopher who founded the school of the universal mind, the second most influential Neo-Confucian school...
or (Lu Xiangshan) - Zhu XiZhu XiZhū Xī or Chu Hsi was a Song Dynasty Confucian scholar who became the leading figure of the School of Principle and the most influential rationalist Neo-Confucian in China...
- Tu Wei-MingTu Wei-mingTu Weiming , b.1940, is an ethicist and a New Confucian. He is Lifetime Professor of Philosophy and founding Dean of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University...
- Huo Long Jing