| Abstract |
The “Qian Yuan” thought of Tang Ning-An from the Wang School of Nan-Zhong in the Ming Ru Xue An (Case Biographies of Ming Confucians) is often categorized under “Qi Xue” due to his concept of “The Universe Full of Qi (Force)”. However, this classification has led to the oversimplification of his ideas by associating them with specific ideological labels, thus overshadowing the richness of his thought. In light of this, this article aims to reposition Ning-An’s ideas within the broader context of Yangmingism (the philosophy of Wang Yangming) and focuses on the debates surrounding the “Weifa-Yifa” within Wang Yangming’s followers. By analyzing Ning-An’s views on the “Weifa-Yifa”, the article seeks to expand the understanding of Qi-based cogitation in the key topics of Yangmingism. The article argues that Ning-An conducts his interpretation based on the Yi-Zhuan (Commentaries on the Yi-jing) in terms of Onto-cosmological, where “Zhi zhong” (achieving Weifa) is the self-cultivation regarding the “Shendu” (vigilance in solitude) method at the root of cosmic generation and movement. The relationship between “Weifa-Yifa” is thus an unceasing operation of the cosmos. Thus, Ning-An advocates the “theory of Weifa”, and Qian Yuan, as the “the monism of Qi”, manifests in such the way of “Ti yong yi yuan” (substance and function come from the same source).This allows him to reconcile the seemingly opposing views of Nieh Shuang-Jiang’s “Self-cultivation in the Weifa (Zhi zhong) ” with the Wang disciples’argument that “Weifa and Yifa come from the same source”. Ning-An summarizes these perspectives into the idea that “li-Ben and Ying-Gan come from the same source”. |
