To recover the value and original meaning of life today, we must return to one of the highest achievements of Chinese philosophy of life: Wang Yangming’s philosophy of mind.
— Wang Defeng
Across more than 1,400 minutes, Professor Wang Defeng presents a philosophy course rooted in contemporary experience. Where Western philosophy begins with the love of wisdom and often centers knowledge, Chinese philosophy begins with the humane heart and turns inward toward the problem of life.
Why revisit the philosophy of mind?
How do we respond to real confusion, affirm the value of our lives, resist objectification and alienation, and find steadiness amid impermanence? From Confucius and Mencius through Chan Buddhism and Song-dynasty Neo-Confucianism, Chinese philosophy has persistently asked what it means to be human.
Wang Yangming’s synthesis of Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist traditions does not offer theory alone. Through cultivation and practice, it focuses on emotions shared by every life and opens a way to recover meaning.
Course structure
- The origins of the philosophy of mind in Confucius, Mencius, Chan, and Neo-Confucian debate
- Human existence in an age of capital and technology
- An entrance into Wang Yangming through Questions on the Great Learning and the Four-Sentence Teaching
- Practical cultivation through the Instructions for Practical Living
The course presents the full shape of Wang Yangming’s thought and a practical sequence for cultivating the mind: acting in the world, examining oneself, removing selfish desire, extending innate knowing, and uniting knowledge with life.
