Difficulty of the body and function structure of Wang YangMing's conscience theory

摘要

The theory of "body and function" originated from Wang Bi, which was originally connected with the framework of natural thought metaphysics, and was always difficult to be completely integrated with Confucianism after being adopted. Wang Yangming investigated the typical form of this kind of difficulty in Zhu Xi, and tried to set up a new body-function structure with the theory of conscience to eliminate this kind of difficulty. Yangming raised the "goodness" generative character, which is different from the former understanding of ontology. But Yangming still strongly emphasized the static eternity of substance to ensure the basis of the value of good and evil. The generative meaning of "ontology" was not implemented thoroughly, and the non-time factor was also not completely cleared. His thought in such an incomplete way on this issue not only caused some ambiguity in his thought, but also lead to the split along the different understanding road of subsequent study.