Research On The Wang Ting Xiang's Ethics Thought

With the ethical thought of Wang Tingxiang as the research object, this paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter introduced the background of Wang Tingxiang ethical thought and its methodology basis. The author thinks that Wang Tingxiang was influenced by business culture and experienced an official career, where the political and military crisis faced by Ming dynasty as well as the problems shown in the development of science and philosophy let Wang Tingxiang have a deep anxiety, so all of these prompted Wang Tingxiang to inherit Zhangzai's study of Qi on the ontology and to advocate humanistic pragmatism on the ethical thought, showing the characteristics for reality. On the methodology, however, Wang Tingxiang advocated the spirit of doubt, with the pursuit of "complacence" learning, where he applied the empirical method in the studies of natural science, philosophy and ethics.The second chapter introduced the so-called nature by Wang Tingxiang. On the one hand, Wang Tingxiang adhered to the basic idea of ontology of Qi, to interpret the nature with Qi, which criticized Zhuzi's binary nature theory, and on the other hand, he integrated the thought of life called as the nature with the nature meaning the truth to interpret the nature with the truth of life. The life called as the nature made the connection of nature and life divided by the science, and the interpretation of the nature with the truth of life surpassed the life called as the nature, which linked the nature with morality. On the human nature of good and evil, Wang Tingxiang took the good and evil of Qi to interpret the tendency of good and evil of the nature, but his investigation about the nature was essentially based on "to observe nature with temperament", and on the basis of detailed study about the nature, he emphasized the role of "Confucian ethical code", and he thought that "the character is missing without the life and no rule between good and evil without Confucian ethical code, so he claimed not to review the good and evil of the nature with the nature, but to review the good and evil of the nature with the postnatal behavior. From these points of view, he criticized the theory of original goodness of human nature. Wang Tingxiang also inherited the thoughts of Confucius to advocate "Habits becoming one's second nature", and on the traditional thoughts of emphasis on habits, he particularly highlighted the role of practice. From the discussions about the human nature thought of Wang Tingxiang, it is not hard to see that it was different from Gaozi's life called as the nature, also different from Mencius's theory of original goodness of human nature and Xunzi's theory of original evil of human nature, so his humanity thought was not only the inheritance and development to Confucius'theory, but also stemmed from his concern for social reality.The third chapter introduced the so-called philosophy by Wang Tingxiang. On the issues of relationship between philosophy, nature and temperament, Wang Tingxiang inherited the theory of Zhang Zai and Zhu Xi's "philosophy dominates temperament", to further propose the view on the consistency of the philosophy, nature and temperament. In viewpoint of Wang Tingxiang, the philosophy had the function of perception (intellectual), where cognition was the result of the thoughts and observations. The philosophy also included the human philosophy and moral philosophy, where the moral philosophy was the moral feelings including benevolence, righteousness, courtesy and wisdom, and the human philosophy was the perceptual desire of a person. Wang Tingxiang thought, in the formation of morality, due to its involvement in the cognition of the Confucian ethical code, the wisdom played a key role, but moral feelings also played an important role for virtue cultivation; First of all, It was takes the establishment basis of the Confucian ethical code, and secondly, it was related to the moral perfection.The fourth chapter introduced the moral cultivation and moral practice of Wang Tingxiang. On the issues of moral cultivation, Wang Tingxiang advocated few desires and advocated worship, which was the result of the succession and development of the cultivation of neo-confucianism. For Zhou Dunyi's doctrine of "being quiescent" Wang Tingxiang put forward the doctrine of "being both quiescent and active", where the essence of "being both quiescent and active" required people to unite the static cultivation with the dynamic observation, so that both the purpose and behavior were ethical. On the relationship of knowing and doing, Wang Tingxiang inherited and reformed the concept of knowing and doing by Zhu Zi, where he advocated "combination of knowing with doing" and claimed the unification of moral cognition with moral practice, where the moral practice was taken as the bond between the speech and practice.The fifth chapter was based on the above research to make a brief evaluation on Wang Tingxiang's thought; Wang Tingxiang's thought stemmed from its statue of Confucius, with the integrated theories, where his holiness guardian was very strict, and proposed the insightful ideas in behavior theory, the views on knowing and doing, etc., but his thought had the deficiencies such as not attaching importance to morality and metaphysics.