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

• Authors: Rošker Jana
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Wang Shouren (1472 – 1529), who appears more frequently in the history of Chinese philosophy under his pseudonym Wang Yangming is generally recognized as the most important exponent, indeed founder, of the Neo-Confucian “School of the Heart-Mind” (Xin xue). 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) and the underlying concept of innate knowledge (liangzhi). For Wang, these two epistemological concepts were rooted in the human heartmind (xin) and possessed intense moral connotations that were reflected in practical ethics. On this ethic-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.

Keywords

EN

WANG SHOUREN; WANG YANGMING; CHINESE; ETHIC-EPISTEMOLOGY; LIANGZHI; ZHIXING HEYI; SUBITISM; BUDDHIST

• Publisher: Institute of Oriental Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Asian and African Studies
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 30
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 368 - 386

Contributors

author

Rošker Jana

• Department of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana University, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/aassav.2021.30.2.04