The Honest Reflection Of "Instant Knowledge"

Instant knowledge as a key concept in Wang Fuzhi Poetics theory has attracted attention from quite many scholars over recent years. Though thorough researches and observations have been made, they either failed to associate the concept with certain aspects of Wang Fuzhi Thought, or tried in vain to interpret the concept through approaches of modern literature studies or philosophies. The author holds that Wang Fuzhi Thought as an integral system is vast different from today's generally accepted world view systems, and concepts are closely intertwined with each other. Each concept can be traced deep into the core system. Hence each concept should be viewed within the general context instead of judged with personal ideas. This is the main idea of the thesis. Specifically, the author tries to trace the theoretical origins of the concept"instant knowledge"and then associate with the core concept"honesty"in Wang Chuanshan Thought, hopefully to reveal the true connotations of the concept within its mentality systems."Instant knowledge"has two connotations in Buddhism. A semantic approach originates from a pure sensational knowledge in India Logicality, which is equivalent to"honesty"in modern knowledge system. In Pragmatic terms, it refers to Buddhist"integrity".Next, the author explores"instant knowledge"seen in Confucianism and Poetics and discovers conflicts in Wang Chuanshan's approach to this term. Wang denounces the use of"instant knowledge"in Buddhism while advocates the use of it in Poetics. In Buddhism, instant knowledge refers to an honest reflection of actualities while Wang used the term in combination with"manifestation", which is associative to Mencius's idea of"honest manifestation"idea. This means that Wang actually used the term to indicate that people's mind is subject to inner beings instead of acutualitites.However, this inner being has an"honesty"connotation, which leads the...