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Wang Yangming (王陽明, Japanese Ō Yōmei, 1472–1529) was a Ming Chinese idealist Neo-Confucian scholar, official, & general. After Zhu Xi, he is commonly considered the most important Neo-Confucian thinker, with interpretations of Confucianism that denied the rationalist dualism of the orthodox philosophy of Zhu Xi. He was known as Yangming Xiansheng (Brilliant Master Yangming) in literary circles.
Life Born Wang Shouren (守仁) in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, his courtesy name was Bo'an (伯安). He was the leading figure in the Neo-Confucian School of Mind, which championed an interpretation of Mencius (a Classical Confucian who became the focus of later interpretation) that unified knowledge and action. Their rival school, the School of Li (principle) treated gaining knowledge as a kind of preparation or cultivation that, when completed, could guide action. Innate Knowing Due to the conception of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism 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, who argued that because of the Shinto deities, Japanese people alone had the intuitive ability to distinguish good and evil without complex rationalization. His school of thought (Ōyōmei-gaku in Japanese) also greatly influenced the samurai ethic of that time in Japan. 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 a person gained knowledge, they had a duty to put that knowledge into action. This presupposed two possibilities: 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 & The World He held that objects do not exist entirely apart from the mind because the mind shapes them. He believed that it is not the world that shapes the mind, but the mind that gives reason 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, 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" (靜坐 py jìngzùo). This is similar to the practice of Chan (Zen) meditation in Buddhism. Disciples The Japanese Admiral of Russo-Japanese War, Togo Heihachiro was very fond of Wang, and had once made a stamp which quoted, "One Whole life followed the example of Yangming" (一生低首拜陽明) Yangmingshan, a national scenic attraction on Taiwan, is named after him by Chiang Kai-shek. Military campaigns Prior of being a simple philosopher, he was also a known military person that had settled many local unrest and border disputs for Ming and was known for his straight military laws imposed on his troops. | ||||||||
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