In both content and historical position, the "Xing Zi Ming Chu" is of obvious significance for understanding the development of classical Chinese philosophy, particularly Confucian moral psychology. This article aims to clarify one aspect of the text, namely, its account of human motivation. This account can be divided into two parts. The first describes human motivation primarily in passive terms of response to external forces, as emotions arise from our nature when stimulated by things in the world. The second comes from the role of the heart, which takes a more active role in shaping our responses to the world. This article focuses on the role of the heart. At stake is the status of human agency, in particular, the degree to which the heart, through the formation of a stable intention, allows us to go beyond being simply pulled along by external forces.
There is now a general consensus that Xunzi's criticism of Zisi and Mengzi for advocating wu Xing 五行 is explained by the excavated text known as Five Conducts (Wu xing), but the five conducts play no significant role in the Mengzi. This article aims to determine more precisely what the Mengzi and Wu xing have in common, while also making sense of the ways in which they diverge. The first part of the article analyzes the distinction between goodness and de 德. The second part examines how the various forms of correct behavior are linked to the internal, pointing out the similarities and differences from Mengzi's approach.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.