Humanity may Triumph over Heaven. Wang Tingxiang’s Natural Philosophy in its Historical Context
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11206148 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kanghun Ahn (0009-0005-9984-9251, Harvard University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 2022 |
| Issue | 85-86 |
| Pages | 30-61 |
| Publication date | 2022-07-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Ming Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0147-037X • E-ISSN: 1759-7595 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0147037x.2021.1991721 |
| OpenAlex | W4213153480 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 36 |
This paper examines Wang Tingxiang’s natural philosophy within its historical context. Wang left numerous accounts on natural phenomena in which he sought to discover the causes or hidden mechanisms of the processes he uncovered. To this end, he first had to radically deconstruct the so-called correlative thinking that perceives a fundamental connection between humanity and the natural world. Wang deemed this worldview a critical blockage of his scholarly aim and instead articulated his empirical stance as an alternative pathway. In this sense, he emphasized the sensory data gathered from direct observations as the only legitimate source of natural knowledge. With such data, aided by the human faculty of thinking, one could eventually uncover the principles that underpin natural phenomena.Further, it is crucial to understand why and in what context Wang proposed this empirical stance. To answer this question, I highlight the environmental crisis associated with the Little Ice Age that resulted in numerous natural disasters during Wang’s time. In order then to overcome such disasters, Wang emphasized the accurate understanding of natural phenomena so that people could predict future outbreaks of such disasters, thereby preventing the (re)occurrence of potential harms. Although Wang’s worldview enjoyed little to no popularity in his time, a similar empirical strand re-emerged and garnered greater attention as the environmental crisis grew more severe during the seventeenth century
Context (archaeology · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Geography · Heaven · Humanity · Natural (archaeology · Natural disaster · Natural order · Political science · Popularity · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research
The development and decline of Chinese cosmology
Questioning Science in East Asian Contexts
Li Mengyang, the North-South Divide, and Literati Learning in Ming China
After the Flood
The Little Ice Age
Becoming Human
Global Crisis
The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza
Who Was the Author of the Nongzheng Quanshu?
The “Why not” Question of Chinese Science
The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130-1200)
Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 2. History of Scientific Thought
Self and Society in Ming Thought
Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt
Bandits, Eunuchs, and the Son of Heaven
The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism
On Their Own Terms
The Essential Tension
China and the Seventeenth-Century Crisis
The Community Covenant in Sixteenth Century Ji'an Prefecture, Jiangxi
Famine, migration and war
Cosmogony as Political Philosophy
Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking
Doing Good and Ridding Evil in Ming China
Escape from Predicament. Neo-Confucianism and China's Evolving Political Culture
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |