Wang Fuzhi (Chuanshan)
1619-1692 · Neo-Confucianism · Little-known
Wang Fuzhi wrote in seclusion after the Ming dynasty fell, refusing to serve the Qing that replaced it. Qi, the vital stuff of the world, is the only substance there is, he held, and li, principle, is no separate layer standing above it. Principle is the regularity that qi shows in its own behaviour. His work sat unread until a century and a half later, when it found its readers.
Signature
The position Fuzhi is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence
- Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (71 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (21 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- mildly between Constructed and Inherent (55 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (25 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- mildly between Unity and Multiplicity (57 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (12 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Allegiance
- leans Local (17 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Fuzhi refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Government
- Monarchy / Epistocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Natural Emergence
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience / Pure Reason
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Social Determinism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Sacred Tradition / Wisdom
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Expression
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Natural Law / Customary Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Annihilation
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Evaluative Judgment / Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Innate Good
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Nation
What is your primary bond and loyalty?