Abstract:
Wang Xinzhai's view of investigating things in the south of Huai formed a distinctive area of the Conficianist tradition of interpreting issues of investigating things. Historically, scholars disagreed on Wang's view, so do scholars of modern academic world. Wang's view of investigating things was shaped in his late years. The common belief that, since Wang had already established his view of investigating things before he accepted formally Wang Yangming as his master, his doctrine should be independent of the latter's is actually a misunderstanding. In fact, Wang's view of investigating things, through a re-interpretation of “things having the origin and the end”, regarded “the life” as “the origin of things” and “the family state” as “the end of things”. Based on this understanding, Wang developed a systematic theory characteristic of “preserving the life and consolidating the state”. In his theory, the concept of “the life” is more essential than that in “the mind meaning knowing things”.
