New Progress in the Study of the Philosophy of the Mind: Recent Teachings of Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming

The "Philosophy of the Mind" teachings of Lu [Jiuyuan] and Wang [Yangming] represented a major school of thought in the neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties. This school of thought can trace its sources and genealogy back to the notions of "fulfill the mind, know nature, and know Heaven" (jin xin, zhi xing, zhi tian) and "All Things are possessed within myself (wanwu jie bei yu wuo) of Mencius in the pre-Qin period of Chinese philosophy, and was formed from these basic philosophical notions; further, it was a school of subjective idealism unique to Chinese philosophy. It had a significant impact on the enlightenment thought both in the period between the Ming and Qing dynasties and in the modern era. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, and particularly in the last ten years, in the wake of the deepening of the studies on the scholarship of the Song and Ming periods on the part of people in our country, there has also been very great progress in the area of research of the Lu a...