| dc.description.abstract | It has always been a difficult task to position the philosophy of Wang Chuanshan. While Wang confirms the transcendental nature of xingshang形上(above forms), he also emphasizes that xingshang could only be comprehended by xingxia形下(within forms). Such a philosophical dilemma is perplexing for scholars who tried to understand Wang’s philosophy from the perspective of learning of moral human nature or from that of qi. By borrowing Tang Chun-I’s notion of shili事理and historical philosophy, the present study attempts to explain the seemingly contradictory nature of Wang’s philosophy. In Wang’s philosophical discourse, history is the embodiment of Way of Heaven, Way of Man, and the relation between the unearthly and the mundane. This study indicates that, Wang is not merely interested in understanding the transcendental principle embodied “within form”. Rather, he emphasizes, through an ontological understanding of history-as-a-whole, accomplishing things that comply with the transcendental principle and are supposed to be accomplished. For Wang, moral cultivation is nothing but such a completion of things, and moral goodness is defined by whether a deed matches the principle of that completion. In this sense, this study attempts not so much to investigate Wang’s philosophy regarding history as to position Wang’s philosophical system as philosophy based on history. Taking this as point of departure, this study illustrates how Wang makes efforts to distinguish his philosophical system from that of Song-Ming Confucianism. | en_US |