School
Neo-Confucianism
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Calling Wang Fuzhi a materialist hides more than it reveals
Some older textbooks my students find online still call Wang Fuzhi (Chuanshan) a "materialist". The label comes mostly from twentieth-century scholarship that wanted ancestors for a materialist philosophy, and it has a respectable basis: Wang made qi the sole reality and treated…
Started by Lin Pei-shan5 replies -
Dai Zhen was right: moral principle used to crush desire is itself a cruelty
My students memorise Zhu Xi for their exams, and one slogan of the Cheng–Zhu school always sticks: preserve heavenly principle, eliminate human desires. They write it down without blinking. Dai Zhen (1724–1777) blinked. A Qing scholar trained in the philological methods of…
Started by Lin Pei-shan5 replies -
Knowing without doing is not knowing: Wang Yangming’s strong internalism is simply correct
Every year I teach my students Wang Yangming's slogan that knowledge and action are one, and every year they treat it as an inspirational poster. I want to defend it as a serious thesis about moral motivation. The usual view, in China…
Started by Lin Pei-shan6 replies