| Chapter 6: | New and Old Elements on the Centrality of Self |
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of the personality and self-perfection. Both the idea of “adult” or “accomplished” (chengren) and that of “sincere, true person” (zhenren) are connected with the quest for that part of the universal—conceived within the framework of the social or cosmic structure—that at the same time is common to all and inherent to man. (See Hessney, “Beyond Beauty and Talent,” 214–250; and Hegel, The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China, 1981, 3–30). On the value hierarchies elaborated by Confucian and Daoist schools, see Ames, “The Common Ground of Self-Cultivation,” 65–97.
24. Wang Yangming, translated by Wing-tsit Chan, Instructions for Practical Living, 203. On-cho Ng (“The Ethics of Being and Non-being”) offers an exhaustive explanation of the priority of selfhood in terms of human nature in the School of Mind.
25. Chan Wing-tsit, Instructions for Practical Living, xix.
26. Epstein, Competing Discourses, 61–62; Wu Pei-yi, The Confucian’s Progress, 116, 143, 163; Plaks, The Four Masterworks, 17–52; de Bary, “Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming Thought,” 11–22, and “Neo-Confucian Cultivation and the Seventeenth-Century,”150–214.
27. Mizoguchi, “The Ming-Qing Transition as Turning Point,” 545–547. For a different perspective, see Elman, “The Failures of Contemporary Chinese Intellectual History,” 371–391.
28. “格如格式之格，即後絜矩之謂。吾身是個矩，天下國家是個方，絜矩，則知方之不正，由矩之不正也。 是以只去正矩，卻不在方上求，矩正則方正矣。方正則成格矣,” Wang Xinzhai Quanji 王心齋全集, Wang Xinzhai yu 王心齋語, 111 (Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=589942). Bodde, A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. II. 628, with small changes. On the basic value of authenticity in Confucianism, see Chen Xunwu, “The Value of Authenticity,” 172–187.
29. Wang Xinzhai Quanji, Chidu 尺牘 (correspondence) 42, http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=882061#p43.
30. Ge and Song, Shenti Zhengzhi, 16–17.
31. Before them, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), the poet Yang Weizhen 楊維楨 (1296–1370) had not only spoken about qing and opened up a debate on “sexual passion” (seqing 色情) but also promoted new forms of poetic individualism based on the assumption that “each human being has [an individual] personality, [and] each person has [their own individual] poetry” 人各有情性，則人各有詩也. Yang Weizhen, Dongweizi Ji 東維子集, 7, in Siku Quanshu, https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=770900&searchu=%E4%BA%BA%E5%90%84%E6%9C%89%E6%83%85%E6%80%A7.