The Thought Of Freedom In Wang Yangming’s Idealist Philosophy

Wang Yangming had took ’intuitive knowledge’ as the base of his philosophy of the mind. The intuitive knowledge makes the mind and the heavenly principles united, and as the noumenon of the mind, the intuitive knowledge is inherent and individual, which is the individual moral standard of the subject; but as the heavenly principles, the intuitive knowledge is principles of universality, which may be sufficient reason for the subject’s moral practice. But the intuitive knowledge is not exactly a kind of rational knowledge. In his thougt of "the unity of knowledge and action", the intuitive knowledge, what’s more, is a kind of moral emotion, which eagerly needs to be put in practice. Through the conception of’intuitive knowledge’, Wang Yangming had reconciled the consciousness and the voluntary of the subject when he has cognized the heavenly principles, so the subject can get freedom depending of the intuitive knowledge. Wang Yangming also had advanced of theory of the’extension of innate knowledge’, in which Wang Yangming had extended the intuitive knowledge to extremes and distributed it to everything in the university, and made them fitting to the intuitive knowledge of the subject, who can attain to the absolute freedom. Wang Yangming had the greatest esteem for the people who were forthright and unconstrained, and he thought that those forthright people do not have overmuch desire and trouble in their mind, and they lived like a phoenix flying in the sky, and Wang Yangming also thought that those forthright people could be saints. Wang Yangming’s praise to those forthright and unconstrained men had reflected his thought of individual freedom.Wang Yangming and Kant all put the base of morality in people’s heart. Because morality’s base is in man’s heart, men are free, and in other words, freedom is just autonomy. From this point of view, these two philosophers from different country and culture are similar, and Wang Yangming’s’intuitive knowledge’ can be compared with Kant’s ’free will’. Kant tried to experience out of the moral according, and Wang Yangming’s intuitive knowledge, which is just the bright state of the human heart, also doesn’t contain the same content. The intuitive knowledge makes the mind and the heavenly principles united, and as the noumenon of the mind, the intuitive knowledge is inherent and individual, which is the individual moral standard of the subject; but as the heavenly principles, the intuitive knowledge is principles of universality, which may be sufficient reason for the subject’s moral practice. Wang Yangming had divided human beings into "noumenon" and "body", and Kant also had made the division of "rational" and "experience" of man. The distinction between Wang Yangming and Kant is also obvious, because there is no the concept of "experience" and "reason" in Chinese traditional philosophy, Wang Yangming’s ’intuitive knowledge’ can not be simply equated to Kant’s rational, and Wang Yangming’s ’intuitive knowledge’ is more of a kind of intuition Rather than reason. Kant had completely ruled human emotion out of the person’s free will, and he don’t think that emotions can constitute the foundation of the moral law, but Wang Yangming attaches great importance to the people’s moral emotion, and he had thought that human’s heart like moral, and he had said that the foundation of morality is the love for good, just like that people like bright colors, and hate the bad smell. Kant had completely ruled human emotion out of the moral law, so he couldn’t solve the problem that why free people will voluntarily do good thing. But Wang Yangming had admitted this view that emotion has decisive effect to moral principles, so he solved the problem that why free people will voluntarily do good thing. But emotion is personal, why morality is universal? Wang Yangming had thought that the noumenon of the mind of human being, which is also called the heavenly principles, was universal, so morality, which is based on the noumenon of the mind of human being, was also universal. In this sense, the noumenon of the mind of human being which is proposed by Wang Yangming is also a hypothese.Taizhou School inherited and developed the thought of freedom in Wang Yangming’s philosophy of the mind, and the spirit of thought of the Taizhou School was the emphasis on self, development of personality and praising the spirit of the hero. And Wang Yangming had the greatest esteem for the people who were forthright and unconstrained, and he thought that those forthright people do not have overmuch desire and trouble in their mind. So Taizhou School of thought had promoted the trend of liberation of late Ming dynasty, and their theory has the enlightenment significance, and that is worthy for our study. But the opposite should have occurred, and after the Taizhou School had made a development of Wang Yangming’s freedom thought, there were some drawbacks in Taizhou school’s thought. After the Ming dynasty had perished, some scholars thought that the perishing of Ming dynasty is caused by the Taizhou School of thought, and they had criticized Taizhou School severely. The academic of thoughts of the Taizhou School and discussing how to compensate for their weaknesses will inspire us how to absorb and use the thought of freedom in Wang Yangming’s philosophy of the mind.