Wang Fuzhi

Chinese philosopher and scholar

• Born: October 7, 1619
• Birthplace: Hengyang, Hunan province, China
• Died: February 18, 1692
• Place of death: Hengyang, Hunan province, China

Ontologically, Wang stressed the materiality and objectivity of the universe; epistemologically, he insisted that human knowledge is a representation of the objective world and that practical experimentation is necessary to acquire such knowledge. He placed a high value on human effort and initiative, asserting the philosophical legitimacy of humans’ material and sensual desires.

Early Life

Wang Fuzhi (wahng foo-jih) was born into an intellectual family, his father, uncle, and elder brother all being distinguished scholars. Under their guidance, Wang started, at the age of four, to study Confucian classics, especially the Si shu (1190; Four Books) and Wujing (500-400 b.c.e.; Five Classics), as well as history and poetry composition. At the age of fourteen, he passed the county-level civil service examination and obtained the “budding-talent” degree (xiucai, equivalent of the bachelor’s degree). At the age of twenty, he went to pursue his education at the famous Yuelu Academy in Shangsha.

In 1642, Wang successfully passed the prefectural or provincial-level civil service examination and obtained the “lifted-person” degree (juren, equivalent of the master’s degree). Wang was unable to progress further and take the metropolitan (national-level) examination in Beijing, however, because of the interruption of transportation during Li Zicheng’s Revolt. During these formative years of his life, besides studying, Wang also demonstrated keen interest in social and political activities; he became actively involved in organizing various intellectual societies and in discussing or commenting on social and political issues.

In 1644, the Ming Dynasty was brought down by the Manchus and replaced by a Manchu dynasty, the Qing. Refusing to accept Qing rule and still considering himself a Ming subject, Wang participated in the Ming loyalists’ anti-Qing movement, which aimed at restoring Ming rule. He was frustrated, however, with the ineffectiveness of the resistance movement, which was plagued by endless factionalist bickering within its leadership. In 1650, Wang returned to his hometown, presumably at the news of his mother’s illness. During the next ten years, he lived as a refugee, moving from one locality to another to escape pursuit and capture by the Qing regime.

Life’s Work

Wang eventually settled down in a solitary rural area in Hongyang. He remained there for the rest of his lifetime, from 1660 to 1692. Still a staunch Ming loyalist, Wang refused to cooperate with or to serve the Qing regime, despite the dynasty’s proclamation of a nationwide amnesty, which alleviated his fears of political persecution. Instead of joining the civil service, Wang preoccupied himself with teaching, scholarly research, and writing, and most of his works were written during this Hongyang period.

One of the most prolific writers in Chinese history, Wang is believed to have produced about one hundred works, comprising five million Chinese characters. Seventy of these works are extant. Wang’s writings are extensive in scope, covering a great variety of subjects and issues, including history, poetry, economics, politics, and, above all, philosophy. It was in the field of philosophy that Wang made his most remarkable contributions to Chinese scholarship. Wang’s philosophical works primarily take the form of commentaries or annotations on Confucian classics. Most prominent of these works are Inner Commentary to the Book of Changes , Outer Commentary to the Book of Changes , Minor Commentary to the Book of Changes , Elaboration on the Meaning of the Book of Documents , and Investigation of the Meaning of the Four Books .

Wang’s philosophy emphasizes the material nature of all existence, including human society. Wang believed that the universe is composed of qi, a general and ubiquitous material force or substance or energy. Qi is self-contained and self-sufficient, free from the control of any transcendental force or Creator. (As a matter of fact, Wang did not acknowledge the existence of such a transcendental force.) Qi has two opposite but mutually complementary aspects, yin (negativity, femininity, and so forth) and yang (positivity, masculinity, and so forth); the interaction (both conflict and cooperation) between yin and yang gives birth to the myriad things in the universe. Qi permeates or fills the whole universe, and the various concrete physical things, including humans, are only embodiments or forms of qi. Since the universe is material in Wang’s philosophy, it is fundamentally a “real (or substantial) existence” (shi you) rather than “empty” and “void,” as Daoist and Buddhist philosophy assert.

Wang further enunciated the relations between qi and li (that is, principle, theory, law, or abstraction). He insisted that li, also a real existence, is inherent in qi and that li is the function of qi. In other words, li derives from qi rather than vice versa. There is no li that is independent of qi. Li manifests itself in the process of the change of material things. This understanding of the qi-li relationship represents a rejection of the philosophy of Zhu Xi (1130-1200), the leading Neo-Confucian philosopher in the Song Dynasty, whose view was that li exists prior to qi and qi derives from li. Given Wang’s insistence on the materiality of the universe and on the precedence of the material world of qi over the spiritual world of li, Wang’s philosophy is identified by many modern scholars, especially those in China, as (embryonic or nascent) materialism, in contrast to idealism.

In Wang Fuzhi’s view, the material world, instead of being still, is in flux and subject to ceaseless changes and transformations, the dynamic of which lies in the interaction of the two opposite but unified forces, yin and yang. Applying this approach to human society, Wang asserted that there was a natural evolution of human society from lower stages to higher ones and justified many political changes, such as the replacement of the feudal system by the bureaucratic system, as evolutionary progress.

Epistemologically, Wang held that cognition is a process in which a person’s subjective consciousness or mind reflects the objective material world, and knowledge is based on or comes from the observation or experience of objective things. However, Wang did not believe that the mind is a mere passive reflector. Instead, people can take the initiative to use their minds to “investigate things” in order to “extend knowledge” and to “exhaust principles.” Wang stressed the importance of “doing,” or practice, for “knowing,” or knowledge. Accepting but going beyond the Neo-Confucian doctrine of “integration of knowing with doing,” he put forth the theory that “doing takes precedence over knowing.” According to this theory, the best way to learn is through practice—by participating in daily the activities of human society. This pragmatic or empirical perspective was a straightforward denial of Zhu Xi’s idealistic approach, which asserted that “knowing takes precedence over doing.”

In elucidating both his ontological and epistemological theories, Wang treated human beings with high regard. For him, like the human body, human feelings and desires (be they for sex or for material wealth) are among the most basic concrete realities and are both natural and legitimate. This position, too, was a repudiation of orthodox Neo-Confucian asceticism, which identified human desires as evil. For Wang, purposeful, thoughtful, effortful, and creative humans are capable of understanding and changing the objective world, both natural and social. This view on the value of humankind and its abilities has, for some modern scholars, the flavor of humanism.

Significance

Wang’s philosophy represented a new stage in the development of Chinese philosophy. Wang put forward many new and distinctively modern ideas, including those on the role of practice and experiment in knowledge acquisition, those on change and the evolution of societies, and, above all, those on humanity’s inherent value and ability. Wang broke with more than two thousand years of Eastern philosophy when he asserted that human desire was a foundation to build on, rather than an impediment to overcome. Not surprisingly, then, he has been praised by some Chinese scholars as an Enlightenment thinker.

Wang’s philosophy has had far-reaching influence on both Chinese scholarship and politics. His brand of materialism has been embraced by Chinese Marxists, who have persistently upheld Marx’s dialectical materialism. In the late Qing and early republican era, reformers and revolutionaries, including Tang Sitong, Sun Yatsen, and Yang Changji, used Wang’s theory of social change to justify their reformist and revolutionary activities. Some of these people found inspiration in what they deemed to Wang’s nationalism, embodied in his condemnation of and resistance to the foreign, Manchurian rule of China.

Bibliography

Black, Alison Harley. Man and Nature in the Philosophical Thought of Wang Fu-Chih. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989. A critical study of Wang Fuzhi’s ideas about the role of humans in the universe.

Chen Yusen, and Chen Xianyou. Illumination of “The Commentary to the Book of Changes.” Beijing: Chinese Press, 2000. A detailed annotation on one of Wang Fuzhi’s major philosophical works.

Lu Fuchu. Wang Fuzhi’s Scholarship. Wuhan, China: Hubei People’s Press, 1987. A collection of quotations from various works of Wang Fuzhi, which are categorized according to different philosophical topics. The author offers an inspiring introduction to each section.

Meng, Peiyuan. The Evolution of Neo-Confucianism: From Zhu Xi to Wang Fuzhi and Dai Zhen. Taibei, China: Wenjin Press, 1990. Contains an important chapter on Wang Fuzhi’s philosophy.

Wang, Fuzhi. Surviving Works of Wang Fuzhi. Beijing: Beijing Press, 1999. A collection of most of Wang Fuzhi’s major works.

Zhang Liwen. Orthodoxy Learning and Intellectual Creativity: Wang Fuzhi’s Philosophy. Beijing: People’s Press, 2001. An insightful exploration of how Wang Fuzhi creatively reinterpreted the Confucian classics.