| Wang Yangming's noumenon and endeavor is the lifeline of his philosophy of education, and marks the mature theory of noumenon and endeavor of the idealistic school of the Song and Ming Dynasties. The previous research of Chinese History of Educational Ideology touches upon the theory constantly, but it is not a completed task to reveal the connotation of noumenon and endeavor, to make a thorough inquiries about the relation between the two categories and analyze its position in history from the view of philosophy of education. The thesis will do its bit for this area.The thesis includes three parts. The first part is the theory of category ------the connotation of noumenon and endeavor. According to Wang Yangming, "the noumenon", the original substance of the mind, includes two meanings: one is the arche; the other is the initial state. Viewed from the first meaning, he believes that "Mind is nature" and "Nature is principle" and considers subject's mind asontological existence after analyzing the relation among the mind, the nature andthe principle. Viewed from the second meaning, he believes that "The highest goodness", "Knowledge", "Sincerity", "Joy" and "Calmness" are all the original substance of the mind. In 1521, Wang Yangming put forward "To the conscience" and defined the noumenon with "The conscience", which begins to the basic connotation of the noumenon. In the opinion of Wang, "The conscience" characterized by apriority, intuitiveness and universality, is the mechanism of the subject's inner moral evaluation. And it is not only the foundation of the existence of all living things in the world, but also the noumenon of the creation of them. "The endeavor" is the means to realize and reinstate the noumenon with the help of moral self-cultivation. Speakingconcretely, it includes resolution and self-restraint and self-examination, training in sitting meditation and hi actual affairs, knowledge and practice combined in one and "To the conscience". Among them, resolution reveals the determination's function hi the course of moral practice and is the initial endeavor of moral self-cultivation. Self-restraint and self-examination is to get rid of the selfish and bias on the base of reflection and inspecting one's behaviors. Training in sitting meditation is to regain the lost mind; training in actual affairs is to temper one's mind through affairs. Knowledge and practice combined in one reveals the relationship between the moral consciousness and the moral practice, which means, "the knowledge must adopt to practice" and "the behavior must be directed by knowledge". "To the conscience" includes two meanings: one is to expand the conscience to the utmost and the other is to act according to the conscience.The second part is the theory of relation between "the noumenon" and "the endeavor". Wang Yangming thinks that "the endeavor must conform to the noumenon" and "the noumenon must be emerged in the progress of makingendeavor", which be considered as the basic statement of the relation. Hei explains it from two directions. The first one is to study the endeavor in terms ofthe noumenon. In the first place, Wang admits the existence of the noumenon, which is prior to that of the endeavor and takes the noumenon as the basic standard of evaluating whether the moral practice can be the endeavor. The second direction is to study the noumenon hi terms of the endeavor. The endeavor is the necessary link of grasping and presenting the noumenon, so the moral subject must take part hi practice hi order to present the noumenon. Viewed from the first direction, he takes the noumenon as the predominant part and emphasis its feature of apriority and standardization. Viewed from the second one, he regards the endeavor as the predominant one, and consequentlyviewed it as the premise of realizing the noumenon. This doesn't mean Wang thinks the noumenon exists prior to the endeavor, but indicates that he emphases the feature of inseparability. And just in this sense, Wang Yangming's noumenon and... |
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