"To the conscience."

These three words are Jiang Xinghuo's answer.

Jiang Xinghuo's "To Conscience" is not exactly the same as Wang Yangming's, he has integrated the things of modern philosophy he has studied, and has avoided the possibility of the theory of mind and nature to go mad Zen as much as possible, which will be explained later.

In the three debates of "ancient and modern kings, hegemony and righteousness", he once used Zhang Yuchu's mouth to say "there is no good and no disgusting body, there are good and malicious movements, knowing good and knowing evil is conscience, and removing evil for good is the four tricks of learning".

But the word "to conscience" only appeared twice in Jiang Xinghuo's mouth before today's Taixue meeting.

One was when he was lecturing at the Shanghai County Government, and the other was when he was debating with Kong Xilu about the theory of proposition and the theory of ambition in the imperial prison.

And in both cases, there is no separate interpretation of "to the conscience".

In fact, if before the Taixue meeting, Jiang Xinghuo mainly used the views of Wang Fuzhi and Huang Zongxi in the late Ming Dynasty, then what can really crack Cheng Zhu's theory of mind is the view of mind.

It is useless to use materialism to fight idealism.

The only thing that can defeat magic is magic.

If you want to prove it, then come to it.

And the reason why "to conscience" is a panacea to crack Cheng Zhu's theory of mind is because in the middle of the Ming Dynasty in Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, the core social issues that Wang Yangming pondered were those just mentioned.

At that time, with the development of the economy in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the overall economic structure of the Ming Dynasty also underwent great changes, and this change was very obvious in the fields of agriculture and handicrafts. The most striking example is the gradual maturation of the employment-based mode of production in the Jiangnan region, which has accelerated the partial disintegration of the traditional natural economy.

The traditional ethics and morality based on the natural economy, that is, the moral norms such as the "Three Principles and Five Constants", can no longer operate normally in the relationship between people, and is replaced by more people's pursuit of interests in economic relations. It has become a research topic that Wang Yangming and others have worked.

At that time, science was in a rather awkward situation as the official school of the Ming Dynasty, and almost all people of insight realized that with the economic and social changes, if they wanted to maintain the moral code and save the social situation at that time, it was not enough to rely on the external coercive force of "Tianli", and it was also necessary to break the barriers of science and find a new way.

Wang Yangming's point of view is that the root cause of the social crisis is the mutual deviation between heavenly principles and people's actual economic and social behaviors, and this kind of situation that is contrary to what is said and what is actually done will only cause the Ming Dynasty to become more torn, so there must be a new moral theory to bridge this, and the path chosen by Wang Yangming is "to conscience." ”

To conscience is to integrate the universal truth with our heart, replace the forced transformation of the external "Heavenly Principle" with inner self-consciousness, and standardize it from the heart.

The root logic of this line of thinking is that "conscience", as the conscience of the fusion of external heavenly principles and our mind, is not only internal in the subject, but also constitutes a universal norm. Therefore, as long as conscience is taken as the norm of behavior, all words and deeds of people in the world will be carried out according to the norms, which will naturally meet the requirements of most traditional morality and ethics, and can avoid the poison of Cheng Zhulixue's extremely rigid and conservative thinking.

Well, there may be two questions that many people here will be puzzled about.

Why are the three words "to conscience" called a good prescription for the social atmosphere in the middle of the Ming Dynasty?

In the final analysis, "to conscience" still requires moral introspection, so what is the difference between it and the moral principles of "benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faith" in science?

The answer to the first question is, don't look at the few words, but it really works, because with the development of the social economy, the conservative and decadent moral concepts of the past have really become an obstacle to the continued progress of society, and the whole society urgently needs the emergence of a new guiding ideology on the moral outlook to reduce the burden on the society and lift the heavy ideological and moral shackles.

The second problem is that there are two differences, one is that in terms of logical relationship, the moral code of science is imposed on human nature by heavenly principles and has a lofty nature, while "to conscience" is people's self-reflection on their hearts, which is not imposed by external forces, which is equivalent to what you want to do willingly rather than being pressed by others; The second is that in the relationship between practice, "to conscience" itself is a methodology, combined with "the unity of knowledge and action", advocating seeking truth and pragmatism, advocating practice to produce true knowledge, there is a complete set of supporting methods, and it is simple and easy to implement in the process of practice, which is much easier to promote and practice than the mysterious mental cultivation methods of science in the past.

This is true of any doctrine or method, the easier it is to understand, the more standard steps there are, the easier it is to be accepted by the general public.

Therefore, as soon as the study of mind was launched in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, it immediately became a manifestation of learning, and a considerable number of cabinet members in the Jialongwan period were believers in the study of mind.

On the other side, Yang Shiqi vaguely felt a little uneasy.

This kind of uneasiness is not that Yang Shiqi realized anything in advance, in fact, it is impossible for anyone to realize this new theory that has never come out in this world, but Yang Shiqi looked at Jiang Xinghuo, who was calm and calm in front of him, and felt the familiar pressure.

Jiang Xinghuo is too confident.

This feeling of winning a game left a deep impression on Yang Shiqi, especially when he looked at Jiang Xinghuo's eyes, he even felt that he could read the other party's thoughts-

'Oh, you're doomed! ’

This kind of extraordinary self-confidence and determination made it difficult for him to adapt, because he himself didn't know why the situation had evolved like this, obviously before the Taixue meeting began, he still asked himself if he had a fifty or sixty percent chance of winning, and he had been preparing for a long time, and he asked himself where he should prepare, and they were all in place, if the cell material was said to be really beyond his expectations, and it was an empirical blow that could not be refuted at all, Yang Shiqi admitted it, then in terms of the theory of mind, Yang Shiqi is now trying to break his head, I can't figure out how Jiang Xinghuo should complete the final blow.

Moreover, Yang Shiqi has met many Confucians who have been famous for many years in the past, but to be honest, no one can be as relaxed and calm as Jiang Xinghuo.

It's as simple as eating and drinking to solve this problem that has plagued the academic community for many years.

You must know that since the Southern Song Dynasty, the debate over the theory of mind has lasted for hundreds of years.

And Jiang Xinghuo also quickly started his round.

"Song Confucianism and morality must be based on 'benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith' as the elaboration of heavenly principles in people's hearts, but people are just material cells, and the nature of heaven and earth is absurd."

"But in my opinion, morality does not exist in the human heart, and morality is conscience."

"Sex is good, and love is true; When a child enters the well, there is compassion; At first sight, I can't bear it; The rate is the way, and everyone is the same. The so-called conscience, which is more or less so, is a moral instinct that everyone has, which is innate, and cannot be learned or known without worry, whether it is rich or poor, whether it is men, women, young or old, everyone is like this. ”

Jiang Xinghuo's point of view, for the extremely conservative group of physicists, is, of course, a heretical doctrine that longs to eat flesh and bed.

But as long as it is not so extreme, in fact, this view is not difficult to agree, and it is highly consistent with Jiang Xinghuo's material monism.

Human beings are made of matter, and there is no transcendental, preset moral code in the world that integrates human nature based on heavenly principles (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, faith, and the Three Principles and Five Constants, etc.), but people have a spontaneous moral mind, that is, conscience.

Therefore, in Jiang Xinghuo's theory, conscience is the moral code of society, or conscience is the former "heavenly principle", which is the moral norm that people need to abide by in economic activities and social life.

The so-called "knowing good and knowing evil is conscience" is this meaning, conscience plays two roles in the moral heart, one is to judge the good and evil of others' words and deeds, make objective moral evaluations, and promote the development of social atmosphere in the right direction; The second is that conscience can self-understand and correctly evaluate one's own speech and behavior, and this ability to judge right and wrong is possessed by everyone, whether it is a saint or a fool, so people can make correct judgments about the good and evil of their actions.

Based on this, since conscience can evaluate people's behavior as good and evil, it also has the ability to prompt people to eliminate evil from good and change evil from good.

Jiang Xinghuo slowly said his point of view, and this kind of saint-like temperament, as if born with an unquestionable majesty, made his every word, every word, every action full of a persuasive power, even the observers, can fall into thought.

In this environment, Yang Shiqi's self-confidence and pride were crushed, and he finally couldn't help it.

"If conscience is so useful, and it does not need many principles such as benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faith, why did the sages not recognize it? If it is based only on one's inner conscience, a person's conscience has the appearance of a person, and I am afraid that it will inevitably end up becoming a mad Zen. ”

"Well, what you said is not unreasonable."

Knowing is not the same thing as correcting.

There are many people in this world who "I know I am wrong, I will not change".

In terms of moral choice, people will face realistic choices, and it is not that having a conscience can cause good results, so it is necessary to let conscience play a role, that is, "to conscience".

Jiang Xinghuo said calmly: "Therefore, we must have the work of conscience." ”

Yangming psychology was practiced in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and became the manifestation of the study at that time, which is not unreasonable, and its core essence is on the three words "to conscience", and Wang Yangming reviewed the failure of science and scholarship in the early and middle Ming Dynasty, and put forward this point of view, which is to cut to the crux of the morale at that time.

In fact, although "conscience" is innate, it can make people know good and evil, can make people make a correct evaluation of their own behavior, guide people's behavior choices, and urge people to abandon evil and follow good, but in the real world, there are many people who cannot know good and evil, cannot make correct evaluations, and cannot change evil and follow good.

"What does it mean to be a toast? First, if the intermediary, the dim person, can observe the heavenly principles of the heart as he goes, so that his natural conscience will be clear even though he is foolish. Second, in practice, between knowing conscience and acting conscience, the difference is only practice, and only practice can make people realize that excessive materialistic desires and self-interest are the main reasons for blinding conscience, and then always introspect and always maintain the conscience of my heart, that is, the nature of being impartial and unmoving. ”

"As for why conscience is necessary, it is because man is made of matter, and although conscience is an innate knowledge, it is not the conscious knowledge of all people, so it is necessary to transform innate knowledge into conscious knowledge through conscience."

In fact, here Jiang Xinghuo has made a partial addition to the meaning of conscience, "innate knowledge" is actually "a priori knowledge", that is, the concept of "practice" in German classical philosophical terms is integrated with it, and at the same time it has found a new way, bypassing the old path of the past physicists.

According to Hegel's words, "conscience" is "a priori knowledge", that is, "the object prescribes itself and does not obtain its own predicate from the outside", and Hegel believes that the theory of "to conscience" of mind, as a "priori knowledge", although there are standard methodologies and practical means, that is, through various qualifications of predicates, people can approach the truth step by step through "to conscience", but they cannot fully understand this "transcendental knowledge".

Jiang Xinghuo continued: "Innate knowledge is truth, and truth is the same understanding of the same objective world in a certain time and space in different subjective worlds across time and space, which appears repeatedly and inevitably when the objective conditions are satisfied, and the practical process of 'conscience' is the process of connecting the subjective world of innate knowledge with the objective world of a certain time and space. ”

In other words, Jiang Xinghuo combined the important concepts of "practice" and "truth" with "to conscience" to complete his theory of mind.

From then on, Jiang Xinghuo had the ontology of "cellular materialism" in his left hand and the theory of mind in his right hand "to conscience (or to practice the truth)", and he had completely constructed his own philosophical edifice of material monism.

On this basis, Jiang Xinghuo used practical learning to build society and used science to cultivate talents needed for the industrial revolution.

In this way, it is equivalent to a complete range from the guiding ideology to the practical method, from the ontology to the theory of mind.

With the guidance of Jiang Xinghuo's complete theory, the problems of world style and study style will naturally be solved.

Jiang Xinghuo continued: "Innate knowledge is different from heavenly principles, although it is the truth, it is subjective in form, because it belongs to the category of cognition, and cannot be equated with the objective reality of matter, but it is objective in content, and the only way to test the effect of 'conscience' is its objective social practice. ”

In fact, in the past, the physicists represented by Song Confucianism always liked to engage in the set of "knowledge lies in the study of things", thinking that in order to achieve the goal of knowledge, it is necessary to start from the study of things, but Jiang Xinghuo believes that this is not the case, he believes that "knowledge lies in the righteous heart", that is, people in the reflection of morality, clear excessive material desires and evil thoughts, so as to restore the blinded "conscience".

"Practice, that's an interesting way to put it."

Cao Duan was very interested in this, and he asked again: "Can the national teacher explain the practical method of conscience more clearly?" ”

"Of course, you can, but it shouldn't be the same as what you've learned in the past."

"Oh? What's the difference? ”

Hu Jichen asked with interest.

He is not an ordinary person, he has read poetry and books since he was a child, learned five cars, and is praised for his virtue, Sima Yi in the later period, and a role similar to Wang Mang in Annan in the early stage.

So in terms of virtue, Hu Jichen still has a bit of a say.

"There are three steps to the practice of conscience."

In fact, since Jiang Xinghuo can put forward this set of theories of mind that are compatible with the monism of the material world, it must have been carefully considered.

"To conscience" is a big killer of psychology, but it also has drawbacks, what Jiang Xinghuo did was to avoid the drawbacks as much as possible.

This is based on sufficient historical experience, because after Wang Yangming's death, the study of mind was mainly dominated by the two factions of Wang Ji and Wang Gen, and these two factions were distorted because they did not have a unified methodology.

One of them entered the Buddhist theory of mind and became a mad Zen school, that is, the Wangji school in the gradual middle of the group, they advocated that "conscience is formed at the moment, and there is no need to use the effort to eliminate desires, there is no need to prevent inspection and exhaustion, and to enter the epiphany, that is, the ontology is more work, and the heavenly machine is always lucky, although there is a desire to be awakened", they regard conscience as Buddha nature, advocate epiphany, and have no practical methodology, and eventually go more and more crooked.

The other faction began to approach the metaphysics of the Wei and Jin dynasties, and became the Qing Tan School, that is, the Taizhou Wang Gen faction, they pointed out the conscience from the daily use, saying that the conscience is natural and spontaneous, eating and dressing, hungry and thirsty, winter clothes and summer Ge, the Taizhou school broke all the barriers of personal morality and social morality, and its morality was lacking and insufficient, and the behavior was grotesque, and there were many dissenting opinions. The inferior person is debauched and unrestrained, and every famous religion is "like this, his behavior and speech are more dissolute and uninhibited, and he only knows how to talk about his heart, not pragmatic.

In Wang Yangming's system of mind, conscience as the original meaning is extremely strong, and the initiation of moral behavior and the formulation of moral principles are all derived from the ontology of conscience, and Wang Yangming believes that all things in the world take the conscience as the spirit, and through the subject's preservation and expansion of a little conscience, it can reach the realm of the unity of all things.

In other words, Wang Yangming's "to conscience" is not quite the same as Jiang Xinghuo's "to conscience", Jiang Xinghuo only regards "to conscience" as the moral code and moral cultivation method of the theory of mind, while Wang Yangming includes "conscience" into the ontological category, which is diametrically opposed to Jiang Xinghuo's material world monism.

Therefore, if we look at it from the perspective of the ontology of the mind, "conscience is the only knowledge", the conscience given to the subject in the contract is only the knowledge of oneself, and if there is no real effort to interpret the ontology of this one-knowing, the ontology will be suffocated in the body, and if there is no practical and reliable methodology to support the extension of this ontology, it will inevitably be reduced to something that talks about the mysteries.

The proposition that "conscience is sole knowledge" has a variety of theoretical interpretations, and it is also one of the root causes of abuse.

Therefore, Jiang Xinghuo first set up that "innate knowledge" is the truth, and the truth should be explored through practice, that is, the methodology of "conscience", thus completing the logical closed loop and avoiding the various drawbacks of Wang Yangming's psychology.

Then, as it is now, Jiang Xinghuo needs to come up with a complete methodology for the general public to use, teaching them how to use standard steps to "reach conscience".

Jiang Xinghuo looked up at the sky and said slowly: "First, it is said to be cautious. ”

The term "cautious independence" comes from many classics of pre-Qin Confucianism, such as "University Sincerity" records that "the so-called sincere people do not deceive themselves, such as the stench, such as lustful, this is called self-humility, so the gentleman must be cautious of his independence", and the "First Chapter of the Mean" records that "do not see the hidden, do not show the subtlety, so the gentleman is cautious and independent".

In the context of pre-Qin Confucianism, the subject must always maintain a prudent attitude of approaching the abyss and walking on thin ice in the practice of social morality.

Zheng Xuan, a famous Confucian in the Han Dynasty, made an interpretation of Shen Du in the "First Chapter of the Mean": "Those who are cautious and independent, be cautious of what they do, villains are hermits, and their actions and words are self-righteous and do not see, and if they do not see and hear, they will do their best, and those who live idle, and they are alone", that is to say, even when the gentleman is alone, he should be cautious. However, in the era of scripture, Confucianism mostly focused on finding chapters and extracting sentences, examining evidence and exegesis, etc., and did not elaborate on the subtle words and meanings of the ancient sages, so it was nothing.

Until the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi made a new interpretation of Shen Du, Zhu Xi thought that the meaning of Shen should be the same as Zheng Xuan's explanation, but Zhu Xi had his own understanding of the single word, he believed that "the only one, what people do not know and what they know is also the place", in Zhu Xi, Du has the meaning of Du Zhi (only knowing).

Jiang Xinghuo's explanation is different from Zhu Xi's.

"Those who are cautious and independent, people perceive the subtleties of inner activities, and even examine and govern."

In other words, Jiang Xinghuo believes that "prudence" is a special form of self-knowledge and the most important method of moral cultivation, and in this process, a person's innate conscience that can know good and evil should give full play to his active role to clear out any excessive selfish desires and evil thoughts that have sprouted, which is a very important cultivation effort in practical sense.

There is also a reason why "prudence and independence" is put in the first place.

Perhaps people will only remember the name of the champion, but in the Ming Dynasty academic circles, this is not the case.

The title of "The Crown of Ming Dynasty Learning" is undoubtedly Cao Duan, and the title of "Ming Dynasty School of Learning" belongs to Huang Zongxi's teacher, Liu Zongzhou.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Zongzhou deeply felt the corruption of the style of study at that time, and how to re-establish the style of study and correct the deviations and shortcomings became his most important theoretical exploration, and "prudence and independence" was the solution proposed by Liu Zongzhou, which can be described as extremely well-intentioned.

In other words, Jiang Xinghuo really invited a bunch of future gods for this Taixue meeting.

Wang Yangming, Liu Zongzhou, Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zongxi in China, Hegel and Kant in foreign countries.

In view of these problems of world style and style of study, in terms of the theory of mind, the methods proposed by Wang Yangming, Liu Zongzhou and others are the most in line with the reality of the Ming society.

Subsequently, Jiang Xinghuo talked about the specific methods of Shen Du, including the famous "meditation method".

"Second, the Lord respects."

"Prudence and independence" is Liu Zongzhou's method, and "main respect" is the method of Wang Yangming's disciple Zou Shouyi, some of which are biased towards the "respect of the people" and "respect for the use of science", but they are not exactly the same thing, and the method is relatively conservative, but compared with the laissez-faire ideas of the radicals such as "ready-made conscience" and "the people's daily use is the way" in the post-Yangming post-school school, it is a truly feasible methodology.

"Respect for the Lord, the heart is in the master, the Lord is in the master, the Lord is able to deny oneself, and self-denial is the master, that is, to maintain the ethereal consciousness of the inner conscience, so as to achieve the correction of people's behavior in 'things' and 'thoughts'."

For this set of methods, Huang Zongxi commented in "The Case of Ming Confucianism" that "those who respect the people, the shrewdness of conscience and not mixed with selfish desires, so go out to make the people, make the times, participate in the front and rely on the balance, and the popularity of invincible fear must not be separated", that is to say, if you can achieve the main respect, you can ensure that the inner soul is not out of touch with the external practical behavior, and fully realize the moral provisions of the inner conscience on people's desires and external behaviors, so that the external behavior is completely out of the innate knowledge of the inner conscience.

After another abolition of his tongue, he explained the "Lord Respect" in depth.

Jiang Xinghuo continued in a flat tone: "Third, be cautious and fearful. ”

At first glance, this may sound a bit awkward, but when you think about it, there is a reason.

"Be cautious and fearful" comes from "The Mean" in "The Mean", "The gentleman is cautious about what he does not see, he is afraid of what he does not hear, he does not see it hidden, and it is not obvious and subtle, so the gentleman is cautious of his solitude".

"The ontology of conscience is self-sufficient, self-conformity, self-selflessness, self-desire, self-choice, self-ignorance, and perseverance, and if caution and fear are unremitting, then they will always be shrewd, routine, and empty."

In other words, only the "fear abiding" of the ontology of conscience is the real fear of caution, and the "constant wisdom, routine and constant order, and constant void and constant spirit" is the effect of "ontological fear abstinence", and it is also the inner expression after the real "conscience".

And the people who participated in the Taixue Society, as Jiang Xinghuo explained it unhurriedly, easily realized how powerful Jiang Xinghuo's "to conscience" doctrine was.

If you don't understand, the analogy of martial arts is that Lin Pingzhi printed 100,000 copies of the movable type of "Sword Book to Warse Off Evil Spirits" and distributed them for free.

The methodology of "To the Conscience" has clear arguments, reliable arguments, simple and easy to implement, and is extremely easy to generalize.

With this kind of thing, the vast majority of people will choose to accept it, rather than continue to pursue the traditional morality of having a heavenly principle in their heads.

The eyes of everyone present looked at Hu Yan in unison.

Before I knew it, the Taixue meeting had lasted for nearly a day, and it was dark early in winter, and the sun was already setting in the west.

Yang Shiqi wanted to say something, but at this time, Hu Yan's body shook and almost fell to the ground, but he still tried his best to support it with his hands and looked at everyone.

Hu Yan struggled to get up, staggered back to his seat, his face was pale, his lips trembled, and his voice was hoarse: "I admit defeat." ”

The audience was silent!

And this time, Hu Yan seemed to have a hard time standing on his feet, sitting in his position, covering his chest, panting rapidly, and fine beads of sweat oozed from his forehead.

(End of chapter)