Wang Fuzhi

Wang Fuzhi a Chinese philosopher, historian and political thinker of the late Ming and early Qing period (1619-1692) whose writings, largely unpublished in his lifetime, developed a materialist and dynamic interpretation of Confucianism and became a major resource for later Chinese thought. He is remembered for his doctrine that qi, or material force, is the fundamental reality and for his patriotic resistance to the Manchu conquest.

Early Life and Loyalty to the Ming

Wang Fuzhi was born on 7 October 1619 in Hengyang, in the southern province of Hunan, into a scholarly family of modest means. He received a classical education and passed the provincial examination, but his career in the Ming bureaucracy was cut short by the political turmoil of the final decades of the dynasty. He was associated with reform-minded scholars who criticised the corruption and factionalism of the late Ming court.

When the Manchu armies overthrew the Ming in 1644, Wang refused to serve the new Qing state. He joined local resistance efforts in Hunan and even travelled south to the remnant Ming court, where he briefly held office. These patriotic activities brought him into danger, and for a time he had to flee and hide from the advancing Qing forces.

After the failure of the resistance he returned to Hengyang and spent the rest of his life in seclusion, refusing repeated invitations to take office under the Qing. He supported himself by teaching and farming, living in poverty and deliberate withdrawal from public life. This stance of loyalist retirement gave him the freedom to write the works on which his reputation rests.

Philosophical System

Wang Fuzhi constructed a comprehensive philosophy grounded in the concept of qi, the material force or vital energy that he held to be the ultimate reality of the universe. Against the idealist tendency to treat principle, or li, as prior to and independent of matter, he argued that principle is simply the orderly pattern inherent in the movement of qi and cannot exist apart from it. This monistic materialism was one of the most systematic to emerge from the Confucian tradition.

He also developed a strongly dynamic and evolutionary view of the cosmos and of history. Rejecting the notion of a golden age in the remote past, he held that human institutions improve gradually through the accumulation of experience, and that each age has its own appropriate forms of government and morality. This historical relativism set him apart from the conservative classicism of many of his contemporaries.

On human nature he taught that the moral capacities of people are not fixed at birth but are formed and refined through daily practice and the interaction of the body with the world. The emotions and desires, rather than being obstacles to virtue, are natural and can be guided toward good. His account of knowledge stressed the active engagement of the mind with things, combining observation with rational reflection.

Historical and Political Thought

Wang Fuzhi was among the most original historians of imperial China. In his commentaries on the Zizhi Tongjian, the great chronological history, he analysed the rise and fall of dynasties in terms of broad historical forces rather than the virtue or vice of individual rulers. He emphasised the importance of institutional arrangements, economic conditions and the sentiments of the population in determining the fate of states.

Politically he argued that the legitimate ruler is one who governs for the benefit of the people and maintains order, and that a dynasty which loses the confidence of the realm forfeits its right to rule. He defended a strong central authority capable of protecting the population from disorder, while warning against the selfish despotism of rulers who treat the state as their private property.

His views on the relationship between the Chinese and neighbouring peoples were complex and often ethnocentric, reflecting the circumstances of foreign conquest under which he lived. He insisted on cultural continuity and the value of the Chinese classical heritage, and his reaffirmation of Chinese identity in the face of conquest gave his work a lasting appeal to later patriots and reformers.

Literary and Wider Works

Wang Fuzhi wrote on an extraordinary range of subjects, including the classics, history, poetry, cosmology and ethics. His commentaries on the Book of Changes and on the classical texts are notable for their philosophical depth, and his critical writings on poetry, especially his discussion of aesthetic appreciation and the evocation of feeling, influenced later Chinese literary theory.

He also composed poetry and essays in a dense and allusive style, and his reflections on the natural world and on human affairs display both wide learning and a strong moral seriousness. Much of his output was preserved by his family and by later admirers, and it eventually ran to a very large collected edition.

Because most of his writings circulated only in manuscript or in limited printings, his influence grew slowly. It was not until the nineteenth century that scholars began to appreciate the full scope of his achievement, and the recovery and publication of his works became an important project for modern Chinese intellectuals seeking resources for reform.

Influence and Legacy

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Wang Fuzhi was rediscovered and celebrated as a precursor of Chinese nationalism and of materialist philosophy. Reformers and revolutionaries cited his insistence on the worth of Chinese civilisation and his hostility to foreign domination, while later thinkers found in his system a native Chinese basis for scientific and secular attitudes.

Modern scholars study him as one of the great systematic philosophers of the Confucian tradition, comparable in ambition to Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming but radically different in method and conclusion. His materialism, his historical consciousness and his defence of the value of practical experience have made him a recurring reference point in debates about Chinese philosophy and its relation to modern science.

He died on 18 February 1692 in Hengyang, still refusing to serve the Qing. Though little known abroad, he is regarded in China as a thinker of the first rank, and his collected works are studied for their metaphysical depth and their insight into the political and moral problems of a changing world.

See also

• Qi and li
• Ming loyalism
• Zhu Xi
• Chinese materialism