The. Tingxiang Xujing De Philosophy Compared

Wang Tingxiang, a famous philosopher, who lived in the middle term of Ming dynasty, Xu Jingde was a famous Korean philosopher who lived in Korean Li dynasty. They lived in the same time. And their philosophies both succeeded Zhang Zai"s "Qi" theory. So their philosophical thoughts shared quite a lot of similarities. In this paperⅠwant to begin with their respective lives, historical backgrounds atmosphere and theoretical origins to analyze the elements which affected there thoughts. I aim to compare and contrast there thoughts in ontology, epistemology and humanity theory to find out the principals of philosophical development.In Wang's and Xu's philosophical systems, their noumenas, one was "Yuan Qi" and the other "Tai Xu", both meant "Qi" essencially .Qi was the source of the whole world. In terms of time, it had no beginning or end; in terms of space, it filled in the whole universe. Though it had no trace, it existed surely, it had the ability of assembling and seattening, but it condensation die or stop..Duo to Qi's inconsistency, Qi did the rarefaction and condensation all the time so that the matters in the world were producing and dying. Being different from Xu Jingde, Wang Tingxiang originally created the theory of "seed", when he tried to interpret the differences between the matters.As for the epistemology, as the knowledge's origin, Wang produced the theory of internal and the external pant and he attempted to prove that all the knowledge derived from the subject's reflection on the object. he considered that there were "perception" and "deliberation" two stages during the process of obtaining knowledge and interpreted the differences and the relations between them. as the relation between knowledge and practice, he considered that knowledge was equal to practice, and stressed ultimately the importance of practice while Xu Jingde emphasized that knowledge derived from practice and deliberation inward. As for the humanity thoery, Wang considered that nature derived from Qi and the sources of nature's vice and virtue were Qi and acquirement. While Xu thought nature was Qi, and nature's vice and virtue due to the feelings' blending in. though their interpretation were different, they aimed to make people obey the feudal moral principals and to sustain the feudalism's ruling.Because the two philosophers lived in the same age and shared the same theoretical origin, their thoughts had a lot of similarities. As their respective countries, experiences, modes of thinking and scholar backgrounds were different, their thoughts were a bit different from each other as well. this made their philosophies have different characteristics,...