Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College to teach Ruism, global philosophies and religions.

We have used one session to introduce the thought of Zhu Xi as the reservoir of the Daoxue movement. As explained in that session, the term “reservoir” means that not only the thought of Daoxue prior to Zhu Xi confluenced into him, but that later thinkers may disagree with him after learning him. Therefore, in this session, we’ll introduce the thought of Wang Yangming (1472-1529 C.E), a major dissent from Zhu Xi in the later Daoxue movement.

A major historical context to understand the rising of Wang Yangming’s thought is that since being endorsed officially by Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), Zhu Xi’s philosophy, which emphasizes the intellectual investigation and analytic analysis of the principles (理) of things and affairs, had been misused by many Ru literati as an excuse of pedantry and formalism just for tactically making it through the civil examination. This engendered strong critiques from devoted Ru practitioners such as Wang Yangming. Moreover, after the defeat of Song Dynasty by the nomadic Mongols, the imperial regime became increasingly authoritarian, and the royal families headed by mercurial emperors were also more and more reluctant to accept the co-governing role of Ru governmental-officials. Since the top down approach of relying upon emperors’ support to realize Ruism being shut down, Ru activists had to pave an alternative path from the bottom up capable of propagating Ruism extensively among commoners. Wang Yangming advocates the attainment of the “conscientious knowing (良知, liangzhi),” an innate intuitive awareness of morality, as the sole and final pursuit of individuals’ self-cultivation, and hence, furnishes a new foundation for the changing ethos in the conclusive stage of the Daoxue movement.

No dissent of Wang Yangming from Zhu Xi is more visible than their varying interpretations of the spiritual steps of self-cultivation in the Great Learning. For Zhu Xi, whether one is able to authenticate their intentions so as to rectify their heartmind depends upon a cumulative process of investigating things to attain the knowledge of principles. The dimension of the heartmind which complies with principles comprises the innately good human nature endowed by Tian, whereas the one of the heartmind which does not entirely abide by principles is considered as human feelings, which include sensations, emotions, desires and other embodied human dispositions. Therefore, a dictum of Zhu Xi’s philosophy is “the heartmind encompasses (human) nature and feelings (心统性情).” (Chen 2000: 251-256) Self-cultivation is accordingly characterized as a process of perfecting human feelings via cumulatively investigating things so as to preserve the good human nature rooted in the cosmic principle of Tian. Nevertheless, for Wang, the authentication of intentions does not rest upon this outwardly oriented process of investigating principles of things. Traditional Ru virtues (such as humaneness, righteousness, ritual-propriety and wisdom) are thought of by Wang as being inherent to the heartmind. Consequently, the principles of these virtues, which speak to the ways how individuals co-flourish in nurturing human relationships integral to a sustainable civilization, are also inherent to the heartmind. Instead of considering the heartmind as encompassing the “nature” and “feelings” of which only the nature abides by principles, Wang insists that “the heartmind is the principle (心即理)” and “no principle outside the heartmind (心外无理).” (Wang 1992, 传习录 Instruction for Practical Living: 2)

Zhu’s insistence upon the necessity of investigating principles of things leads to his tendency of emphasizing the temporary priority of knowledge over action. However, since he advocates no principle outside the heartmind, Wang exhorts “the union of knowledge and action (知行合一),” which implies that the sheer awareness towards a concrete case of being moral leads immediately to one’s attitude of affirming as well as the action of executing it. (Wang 1992: 3-5) For instance, if one merely knows the virtue of filiety (孝) towards their parents without actually doing anything about it, this is for Wang not a genuine kind of moral knowledge. In the more mature stage of his thought, Wang furthermore developed the idea of genuine moral knowledge into one of “conscientious knowing (良知, liangzhi),” and pivoted his entire moral philosophy upon the action of “attaining conscientious knowing (致良知).” In other words, Wang believes that there is an innate dimension of the human heartmind which provides individuals with spontaneous and infallible moral intuitions to varying situations. Rather than construing zhizhi (致知) in the Great Learning as “attaining the knowledge” of principles which comes after investigating things (格物, gewu), Wang interpretes zhizhi as “attaining conscientious knowing” and gewu as “rectifying things.” Wang claims that the primary step of self-cultivation should be to recover one’s innate conscientious knowing which does not derive from empirical knowledge of the outside world, and then, to rectify outward things from evil to good using the standard of moral intuitions furnished by the conscientious knowing. (Wang 1992, 大学问 An Inquiry into the Great Learning: 967-973)

In the second before the last year of his life, Wang developed a “four-sentence teaching (四句教),” which crystallizes all the aforementioned major propositions of Wang’s moral philosophy and has engendered riveting debates and controversies among later Ru thinkers. Wang says “The fundamental state of heartmind is neither good nor evil. There are good and evil when intentions are aroused. The conscientious knowing knows good and evil. Doing good and eliminating evil is to rectify things.” (Wang 1992: 117) An exegesis is furnished as follows:

The term xinti (心體) in the first sentence reminds of Mengzi’s contemplative practice of oceanic vital-energy conducive to the unitary feeling of one body with the universe, and signifies the ontological bond of humanity with Tian. The fundamental state of human existence is neither good nor evil because Tian has its mysterious power to have everything exist and change together in the broadest cosmic scale. From the perspective of Tian, any created thing is ipso facto good since it manifests Tian’s sublime creativity by default. This sort of “goodness,” characterized by Wang also as “utterly good (至善),” has no dialectical relationship with “evil,” and is thus nondualist par excellence. (Wang 1992: 29, 119) More importantly, if the fundamental state of heartmind endowed by Tian is well maintained, the way one does good and eliminates evil in the human world would be just as spontaneous and non-contrived as how Tian’s creativity proceeds in the cosmic realm. Such a naturally flowing state of being moral appears to be “as if there is neither good nor evil.” (Wang 1992: 29) Wang highlights this ideal state of morality in order to prevent humans from being mired into dualistic or oppositional moralistic wars, in which they may fight each other using one limited perception of goodness against another.

Wang construes the yi (意) in the second sentence as “the arousal of heartmind,” viz., the affective reaction of heartmind to external things, such as the feelings of love towards benefits and of hate towards harms. (Wang 1992: 6)Therefore, it means intentions. One’s intentions towards concrete things could be good and evil because it is not the case that every intention complies with the utter goodness of Tian’s all-encompassing and spontaneous creativity, and is able to respond to things appropriately so as to create evolving harmonies in the human world. Instead, one’s “habitual dispositions (習氣)” and “selfish desires (私慾)” (Wang 1992: 2, 984) obscure the original good state of heartmind, and force them to intend benefits and avoid harms not according to the cosmic principle of Tian, but per their possessive, divisive and combative needs. One’s perceptions and pursuits of good and evil would consequently lose the nondualist nature of the fundamental state of heartmind, and inevitably lead to disharmonies in society.

However, despite the potential of intentions to go astray from the fundamental state of heartmind, there always remains a consciousness integral to the state, which can pull back the strayed intentions and reorient them towards the right path. Wang terms the consciousness as conscientious knowing (liangzhi), and believes it has an innate epistemic ability of knowing morals as stated in the third sentence. Since liangzhi belongs to the fundamental state of heartmind continuous with Tian’s creativity, moral judgements made by liangzhi are also spontaneous and natural, as Wang says, “The heartmind can naturally know, … as one naturally knows to be commiserate with a baby about to fall into a well. This is what I mean by ‘conscientious knowing.’” (Wang 1992: 2) Finally, since the liangzhi spontaneously and perfectly knows good and evil, one just needs to invest efforts maintaining it while rectifying things into good per the injunction of liangzhi.

Among the four sentences, the first one has been the most controversial because devoted Ru after Wang opposed the seemingly Buddhist language using which Wang described the cosmic root of human nature as with no good nor evil. Ru scholars more prone to Zhu Xi’s thought also reemphasized the role of empirical knowledge in one’s moral pursuit, and hence, disapproved of the apparently anti-intellectual moral intuitionism hinted by Wang’s teaching of liangzhi. The origin of evil as rooted in one’s selfish desires is also frequently challenged, since these desires, as being integral to human heartmind, are also supposed to be manifestations of the utterly good cosmic creative power of Tian. In a historical hindsight, Wang Yangming’s four- sentence teaching is a potent catalyst for the conclusive stage of the Daoxue movement, which has continually stimulated the innovation of Ru thought in its modern and contemporary forms.