| Wang Yang-ming's Epistemology exerts strong influence on the history of Epistemology development in ancient China, reflects human's basic attitude towards the outside, that is, highlighting the Subjectiveness of humankind, and corresponds with the tendency of Epistemology development in Occident Philosophy. To settle the inherent contradiction of Zhu xi's theory, he pushes the Extension of knowledge and Investigation of things(ge-wu zhi-zhi) to the Extension of the Innate knowledge(zhi liang-zhi), changes Objectiveness-oriented theory into Subjectiveness-oriented one, and reverses the cognitive direction from Object-Subject to Subject-Object, which, being called the Orient Copernicus's Revolution, has the great significance in the cognitive domain, coinciding with Kant's opinion. He improves Mentalism from Objective to Subjective, and extends ultimate noumenon (Mind) over the world alive with humankind, which is, actually, shaking the basement of Mentalism. He highlights the Objectiveness of humankind, but traps in the Ethnics limits of the cognitive subject. He attaches great importance to learning from sage, yet has to regards all people as sages. His remedy is also the germ of his own conflicts. The reason why the visual angle of the dissertation could be epistemology is that, there is no philosophy not developing based on it. Epistemology is also the foundation and the arcanum of Wang's theory as a whole. At the same time, epistemology, ontology and ethnics in his theory are one which should never be separated at all. Wang yang-ming's philosophy in the visual angle of epistemology, therefore, contains not only epistemology, but also the relation among them three. There are four parts here: forming, contents, essence and intention of Wang's epistemology. Part one: Forming. There are three stages in the process: happening(learning form sages), developing(investigating the bamboo) and ripening(understanding the doctrine in Long-chang). Correspondingly, from visual angle of cognitive subject, his faculty of reasoning is also divided into three stages: liberating, reconsidering and progressing. Part two: Contents (zhi liang-zhi). There are four aspects: the cognitive origin and criterion, the relation between the subject and the object, the cognitive course, and the connection between cognition and practice. Furthermore, there is a brief introduction about the format of Wang's theory, in which the author considers that the mind is just the principle(xin ji li)as the premise of deducting of Wang. Part three: Essence. Wang's ontology regards Mind(xin)as its highest noumenon, which is both the ultimate entity, explanation and value, and the unity of the world, knowledge and meaning. Ontology is the premise of the entire Wang's theory. However, Wang makes the meanings of Mind diversified, and extends it over the world alive with the humankind. Part four: Intention. The limitation of Wang's epistemology is ethnics(make moral principle clear only). Its functions are different between theoretic principle and moral practice. Learning from sages, investigating and extending and the innate knowledge could be unified, which guaranteeing the reality of Wang's cognitive idea(every one could be Emperor Yao or Emperor Shun). Finally, from the visual of angle of connection between philosophy and social reality, the author expatiates the significance of the dissertation. |
