Guilt And Mindset

Discussion on "conscience" has been long-standing; although different angles and different levels of exposition have been taken, no matter whether in the East or the West, matters concerning conscience have their reasons and the backgrounds.Wang Yangming and Heidegger are prominent figures of their times, and they have greatly influenced the thinking of the future generations. These figures from different times, different geographic locations and with different cultural backgrounds, however, they are invariably proposed to the concept of "conscience", of which, the similarities and differences, are worthy of our studying in depth. This thesis is designed to examine this issue from this cross-cultural perspective. I focus our attention not on the interpretation of the concept, but on whether two views share some commonality.This paper is divided into three parts. First, I elaborated the connotations of"conscience", starting from the background of Heidegger's conscience theory. Second I explored comprehensively the connotations of Wang Yangming's conscience, its functions and what lead to conscience, through examining its historical background, the influences Neo-Confucianism brought to it and as well as the impact of the inherent requirements of unity of knowing and doing.Finally, I generalized commonality between the two theory of conscience—they both are highly concerned with humanity and both represent the human desire for perfectionism; and to a certain extent, they enlightened human to know about human nature. At the same time they are different if we examine the cultural context and the context of historical ideas.Heidegger's conscience theory and that of Wang Yangming's are proposed out of different backgrounds and from different perspectives; they two have different ideological content and theoretical significance. However, to some extent they both show their care on human's living conditions, which on their own could play an important role in guiding our human being in their life and personal development.