Realizing The Innate Mind-heart:A Study On The Thought Of Tang Yi-an

In the Mid-late Ming,the Zhan Gan-quan’s and Wang Yang-ming’s teaching were popular.As a student of Zhan Gan-quan,Tang Yi-an integrated their theories and created a new theory which have distinctive personal characteristics.Undoubtedly,it has a positive significance for us to understand the similarities and differences between Zhan Gan-quan’s and Wang Yang-ming’s theories furtherly and deeply based on the study of Tang Yi-an’s philosophical thought.There are few independent researches on Tang Yi-an’s philosophy thought at present.Although these studies can basically touch the core concept of Tang Yi-an’s philosophy thought which is"Realizing the Innate Heart-mind"(讨真心)and give different degrees of interpretation,it has a lot of room for explanation.This paper is centered on the core concept of Tang Yi-an’s philosophy thought and attempts to show the systematicness,richness and uniqueness of his philosophical thoughts through the interpretation of what is the"Innate Heart-mind"(真心)and how to"Realize"(讨)it.First of all,Tang Yi-an gives"Innate Heart-mind"with dual connotations of Confucian nature theory and realm theory.It not only absorbed Zhan Gan-quan’s concept of"Heavenly Principle"(天理),but also blended with Wang Yang-ming’s thought about"Innate Knowledge"(良知),In essence,there is no difference between the"Innate Heart-mind","Heavenly Principle"and"Innate Knowledge".It is worth noting that Zhan Gan-quan’s concept of"Heavenly Principle"was more transformed into"Creative Principle"(生理)in Tang Yi-an’s theory,while Wang Yang-ming’s"Innate Knowledge"thought also had a new form of expression.Secondly,Tang Yi-an’s so-called"Tao"(讨)is essentially the same as Wang Yang-ming’s"Zhi"(致)and Zhan Gan-quan’s"Ti-ren"(体认).They are all natural effort,but Tang Yi-an also has his own unique interpretationTang Yi’an’s philosophical thought system is a self-consistent system which not only integrates the theories of Zhan Gan-quan and Wang Yang-ming,but also integrates the relevant resources of Buddhism and Taoism.Although Tang Yi-an had contacts with both Buddhists and Taoists,he always insisted on regarding himself as a Confucian.In a word,although Tang Yi-an was a student of Zhan Gan-quan,his thought is more inclined to Wang Yang-ming.Therefore,this paper redefines Tang Yi-an as "people who believe in Wang Yang-ming’s teaching with the background of Gan-Quan school".