Abstract
This article discusses Wang Yang-ming's (1472-1529) efforts to bridge the gap between the main idea of his thought and the authority of the Confucian Classics. It then argues that Wang's attitude towards the Classics is in accordance with the Neo-Confucian agenda as a whole, which is to ground human values in the natural world instead of the Classic texts created by the sages. This article includes four sections. The first section reviews the current scholarship and lays out the main issues. The second section addresses Wang's proposals to soften the tension between his philosophical idea and the Classics. As Wang believed that, ”Nothing exists outside the mind; and no principle exists outside the mind,” he asked people to seek moral guidance from within their own minds instead of in the Classics written by the sages. However, the Classics, owing to their great status within the tradition, occupied a very influential position among the literati that was hard to shake. Thus a literatus who wanted to follow Wang's doctrine had to reconstruct the relationship between his own learning and the Classics. Wang then tried to ease the tension by arguing that: 1) the purpose of the Classics is to manifest the mind; 2) the history of the Classics shows the existence of the Classics is not necessary; 3) learning the Classics might lead one astray. By arguing that the positive side of learning the Classics is in accordance with the learning of the mind and the negative side of learning the Classics can be cured by it, Wang found a way to protect his doctrine from the damage of opposing the authority of the Classics. The third section examines the famous Neo-Confucian scholars' attitudes toward the Classics. Even though the Neo-Confucian scholars constructed their philosophical systems through reinterpreting some glossaries in the Classics, the contents of their philosophies installed the authority of moral guidance in the natural world, whether it is the ontological Principle (li 理) or the human mind (xin 心). Thus, Wang's attitude toward the Classics in terms of the intellectual practice is different from that of the most influential Neo-Confucian before him, Chu His (1130-1200). On the other hand, Wang is in agreement with Chu that the ultimate standard of human actions does not reside in the Classics. The fourth section concludes this article by arguing against Yu Ying-shih's proposal to consider that the development of the Ch'ing scholarship of evidential learning is a continuum of the internal struggle between the Zhu learning and the Wang learning. It also argues against Lao Ssu-kuang's proposal to use Confucius' and Mencius' doctrines as standards to evaluate different Neo-Confucian schools.