On the margins of the grand unity: Empire, violence, and ethnicity in the virtue ethics and political practice of Wang Yangming (1472--1529)

This is a comprehensive study of the military campaigns of the renowned Ming Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529), with the aim of better understanding the relation between, on the one hand, his Neo-Confucian political philosophy and ethics and, on the other, empire, ethnicity, and violence during the Ming. Previous studies of Wang Yangming have placed emphasis on his philosophy and intellectual development, while remaining satisfied with simplistic readings of this most important phase of his career as a Ming scholar-official. By taking advantage of his corpus of memorials to the Ming court and other official communications, and placing them within a broader context allowed by other relevant Ming sources, this study achieves a reconstruction of the argumentative- and decision-making context for Wang Yangming as he went about the process of suppressing rebellions and resistance by a number of marginal social and ethnic groups in southern China, and putting in place measures in the aftermath to maintain order.;Previous interpretations of the relationship between Wang Yangming's Neo-Confucian philosophy---his learning of the mind-heart---and his political career (practice) have generally been framed in the larger context of a reading of Neo-Confucianism as a whole. Condemnatory interpretations of Neo-Confucian philosophy yield an agent of feudal ethics and autocratic despotism engaging in acts of repression; celebratory interpretations yield a man of passionate humanity responding to his conscience. This study eschews a simplistic reading of Wang Yangming's actions and policies as an official by showing the promises and limitations of his political philosophy and ethics as he went about the process of defining the situations of conflict he confronted, determining the identities and motivations of those caught up in them, and deciding on what he believed to be a just course of action. Indeed, the assumptions he brought to the table about human nature and the ends of political life at times opened up the possibility for dialogue and a peaceful resolution of conflict, while at others leading to employment of the military instrument. By placing Wang Yangming's ethical philosophy in the context of his official career, it becomes evident that his most fundamental notions were inseparable from the paternalistic civilizing practices of Ming empire, with all the consequences this entailed.