Wang Shouren (Chinese:王守仁, 26 October 1472 – 9 January 1529),courtesy nameBo'an (Chinese:伯安),art nameYangmingzi (traditional Chinese:陽明子;simplified Chinese:阳明子), usually referred to asWang Yangming (traditional Chinese:王陽明;simplified Chinese:王阳明), was a Chinese statesman, general, andNeo-Confucian philosopher during theMing dynasty.[1] AfterZhu Xi, he is commonly regarded as the most importantNeo-Confucian thinker,[2] for his interpretations ofConfucianism that denied the rationalistdualism of the orthodox philosophy of Zhu Xi. Wang andLu Xiangshan are regarded as the founders as theLu–Wang school, or the School of the Mind.
In China, Japan, and Western countries, he is known by his honorific name rather than his private name.[3]
Wang was born inYuyao,Zhejiang Province, to a scholarly family with a tradition of bureaucratic service. His father, Wang Hua, was first (Zhuangyuan, 狀元) in theImperial Examination of 1481, and rose to become the vice-minister of theMinistry of Rites, but was later demoted and subsequently expelled from government service for having offendedLiu Jin, a eunuch.
Wang earned thejuren degree in 1492 and thejinshi degree in 1499. He later served as an executive assistant in various government departments until banishment for offending a eunuch in 1506.[4] However, his professional career resumed when he became the Governor ofJiangxi.[5]
Wang became a successful general and was known for the strict discipline he imposed on his troops. In 1517 and 1518, he was dispatched in response to petitions to suppress peasant revolts inJiangxi,Fujian andGuangdong. Concerned with the destruction that came with war, he petitioned the court to allowamnesty, and successfully destroyed rebel military forces.
In 1519 AD, while he was governor of Jiangxi province and on his way to suppress the revolts inFujian, Wang was suddenly faced with thePrince of Ning rebellion, led byZhu Chenhao the fourth Prince of Ning. Given that the prince's base inNanchang allowed him to sail down theYangtze River and capture the southern capital ofNanjing, Wang actively prepared for battle to prevent that possibility, while engaging in deception to convince the prince that armies were moving to surround him. The prince, deceived by this, hesitated and gave time for Nanjing to be reinforced. Eventually, forced to engage governmental forces, the Prince of Ning was defeated and captured.
In this campaign, Wang also made one of the earliest references to using thefo-lang-ji in battle, abreech loadingculverincannon imported from the newly arrivedPortuguese venturers to China.[5] 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 opposingZhu Xi.[4]
Thirty-eight years after his death, he was given the titlesMarquis and Completion of Culture. In 1584 he was offered sacrifice in theConfucian Temple, the highest honour for a scholar.[4]
Wang was the leading figure in the Neo-ConfucianSchool of heart, founded byLu Jiuyuan (陸九淵, or Lu Xiangshan) of theSouthern Song. This school championed an interpretation ofMencius, a Classical Confucian who became the focus of later interpretation, that unified knowledge with action. Their rival school, theSchool of Principle (Li) treated gaining knowledge as a kind of preparation or cultivation that, when completed, could guide action.
Out of Cheng-Zhu'sNeo-Confucianism that was mainstream at the time, Wang Yangming developed the idea ofinnate knowing, arguing that every person knows from birth the difference between good and evil. Wang claimed that such knowledge is intuitive and not rational. These revolutionizing ideas of Wang Yangming would later inspire prominent Japanese thinkers likeMotoori Norinaga, who argued that because of theShinto 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 stands for "school of learning") also greatly influenced the Japanesesamurai ethic.
Wang's rejection of the pure investigation of knowledge comes from the then traditional view of Chinese belief 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 or that one can know what is the proper action, but still fail to act.
Wang rejected both of these which allowed him to develop hisphilosophy of action. Wang believed that only through spontaneous 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 gainedthen put into action was considered delusion or false.
He held that objects do not exist entirely apart from themind because the mind shapes them. He believed that it is not the world that shapes the mind, but the mind that givesreason 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.
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jingzuo). This is similar to the practice of Chan (Zen) meditation inBuddhism.
Wang Yangming is regarded one of the greatest masters ofConfucianism in history along withConfucius,Mencius andZhu Xi (孔孟朱王).He founded "Yaojiang School" (姚江學派) or "Yangming School of Mind" (陽明心學), which became one of the dominant Confucian schools in the mid-late Ming period andQing period China. The typical figures came from this school after Wang were Wang Ji (王龍溪), Qian Dehong (錢德洪),Wang Gen,Huang Zongxi,Li Zhuowu and Liu Zongzhou (劉宗周). Wang Gen formedTaizhou 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.Wang's interpretation of Confucianism has been influential in China into modern times. The twentieth-century Chinese warlordYan Xishan attempted to revive Confucianism inShanxi largely on the model of Wang's philosophy.[6]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 theMeiji period, when many Chinese activists such asLiang Qichao andChiang Kai-shek were staying in Japan. Some Chinese and Korean thinkers believed that Wang Yangming's teachings strongly influenced the development of modernbushido (the "way of the warrior") in Japan, and promoted both ethics in their countries to strengthen the spirit of their respective peoples.[7]
The Japanese Admiral of theRusso-Japanese War,Tōgō Heihachirō, was influenced by Wang, and made a stamp which read, "One's whole life followed the example of Yangming" (Japanese:一生低首拜陽明). In Japan, many scholars and politicians (this group of people is known in Japanese as "Yōmeigakusha" (Japanese:陽明学者) came from Wang Yangming's school (Ōyōmei-gaku) in history, includingKumazawa Banzan,Saigō Takamori,Takasugi Shinsaku andNakae Tōju. Toju Nakae is regarded as the founder of JapaneseŌyōmei-gaku.
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyXi Jinping urges theparty and government officials to learn from Wang's credo "the unity of thought and action".[8]
Chiang Kai-shek named a national attraction inTaiwan,Yangmingshan, after Wang; and a road inNanchang is also namedYangming Road after Wang by Chiang-influenced local officials. Additionally,National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan is also named after the philosopher.People inGuiyang, provincial capital ofGuizhou Province, dedicated a statue to Wang Yangming as well as a museum and theme park; a robot version of Wang Yangming is in the city.[9]The city government in Wang's hometown,Yuyao,Zhejiang Province, named a middle school after his honorific name.
Media related toWang Yangming at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related toWang Yangming at Wikiquote
