A Study On Cheng Wende’s "True Heart" Thought

Cheng Wende’s philosophy thought had the comprehensive features,which combined the characteristics of the Yongkang School of Thought, the JinhuaSchool of Thought, and the Wang and Zhan’s Heart Study. As a consequence,“Zhen”(Realism) was the aim of his thought form. He thought,“all the thoughts need to aimthe Zhen” and “we should have the ambitions to learn the thoughts from the verybeginning”. Zhen is not only the basic His theory of “Zhen Xin”(true heart) thoughtand the theory of moral practice based on the aim of Zhen. He also concerned aboutrealistic practice and the emphasizing statecraft.At the beginning, the paper cleared up the Cheng Wende’s Chronicles andthe study of Cheng Wende’s relics in Yongkang City, thus knowing his lifestory, and grasping his moral-character. Then it teased out the importantspatial and temporal connection point from Cheng Wende’s life history, tobuild the model of the study of his “Zhen Xin”(true heart) thought.Specifically, on the longitude direction, taking his and his teachers’ originalthoughts as a clue, we can figure out Cheng Wende’s ideological roots, andexplore the whole process of his intellectual development through graspingthe ideological origins, and thus reveal his ideological characteristics. On thelatitude direction, taking friends of source as a clue, we can investigate thedisplay form of his philosophy on the practical level and utilitarianismthrough the letters and seminars with his friends.It is of great significance in depth research the thoughts of Yangming and hisdisciples by studying the thought of Cheng Wende. Most post studies of Yangmingconsiders Wang Ji, Qian Dehong, Nie Bao, Luo Hongxian and Zou Shouyi thesebackbones elements as study objects, while it lacks of attention about such moreedge of Yangming scholars likes Cheng Wende, the outstanding political Yangmingscholars, and such the research result was nearly none. Cheng Wende philosophy combined many characteristics of the school of the Song and Ming Dynasties, thus ithad the epochal significance while with a strong geographical and culturalcharacteristics, it is particularly outstanding in terms of diversity and integration.Cheng Wende considered “Zhen”(Reality) as his principle of being the official and ateacher, which contained “real aspire and the right way of its achievement, real rightway and its real practice”. This also attributes to learn the present ideology educationfor us.