WANG SHOUREN’S ETHICO-EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE DOUBLE NATURE OF RECOGNITION

Year, pages: 2021, 368 - 386

Wang Shouren 王守仁 (1472 – 1529), who appears more frequently in the history of Chinese philosophy under his pseudonym Wang Yangming 王陽明, is generally recognized as the most important exponent, indeed founder, of the Neo-Confucian “School of the Heart-Mind” (Xin xue心學). In the context of Neo-Confucianism, Wang's philosophy is of great importance, especially with regard to his views on the inseparable unity of ethics and epistemology and his latent syntheses of Confucian and Chan Buddhist thought. Within this framework, this article will provide a critical introduction to his epistemology, focusing on the innovative elements of his paradigm of the unity of knowledge and action (zhixing heyi 知行合一) and the underlying concept of innate knowledge (liangzhi 良知). For Wang, these two epistemological concepts were rooted in the human heart-mind (xin 心) and possessed intense moral connotations that were reflected in practical ethics. On this ethico-epistemological basis, the paper will illuminate the methods of gradualism and subitism and critically address their connection to the Chan Buddhist view of gradual and instant enlightenment.

Rošker, J. 2021. WANG SHOUREN’S ETHICO-EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE DOUBLE NATURE OF RECOGNITION. In Asian and African Studies, vol. 30, no.2, pp. 368-386. 1335-1257. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/aassav.2021.30.2.04

Rošker, J. (2021). WANG SHOUREN’S ETHICO-EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE DOUBLE NATURE OF RECOGNITION. Asian and African Studies, 30(2), 368-386. 1335-1257. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/aassav.2021.30.2.04

Publisher: Institute of Oriental Studies

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