Abstract

To explain why Wang Tingxiang, one of the most prolific thinkers in mid-Ming China, failed to inspire a widespread intellectual movement, Chang Woei Ong undertakes a close analysis of Wang's views on cosmology and ethics, history and government, and literature and music, and finds that Wang was offering the intellectual world something radically different from what his predecessors-the Song Daoxue masters-had prescribed. Whereas the Song masters had affirmed an ontological foundation for the unity of all things in the world, Wang argued that the world was diverse, that human nature could be both good and bad, and that government efforts were therefore necessary for putting the world in order. Wang's moral relativism and reliance on government to set a standard offended intellectuals. Consequently, he would later remain a marginalized figure.