1, the body without good or evil mind: The first sentence of Wang Yangming's Things Know is the body without good or evil mind. We all know that Wang Yangming is a master of psychology, which is his understanding of his own heart. He believes that if there is no so-called good and evil in a person's heart, then his heart is a subject.
2. There are good and evil: the second sentence of Wang Yangming's Things to Know is that there are good and evil. This is the second realm of Wang Yangming's understanding of mind and nature. He believes that all people's good and evil behavior is because of desire. If a person has desires, then his good and evil can be reflected from here.
3. Knowing good and evil is conscience: Wang Yangming's third sentence is knowing good and knowing evil is conscience. It is intended to tell us that people should know good and evil. Only when one knows good and evil can one have a basic conscience.
4. Eliminating evil is an example: Wang Yangming's fourth sentence is that eliminating evil is an example. He tried to tell us to be kind. A man shows his goodness and seals up his evil.
Wang Yangming's thought
Wang Yangming's thought is a response to the problems of the times. The reason why Wang Yangming formed the thought of "the unity of knowledge and action" is that "the prophet acts later" advocated by Zhu Cheng's Neo-Confucianism will lead to the dichotomy of knowledge and action, so that he can't do it or doesn't know it, so he "treats his illness".
Since "knowing" and "doing" should be "integrated", it can be seen that they are two different things. However, Wang Yangming opposes the Zhu School's view that knowledge and action depend on each other, and thinks that the relationship between knowledge and action is not simple. He insisted that "knowledge and action cannot be divided into two parts", not to say that the two elements of "knowledge" and "action" should be mechanically integrated, but that they should be interdependent and form a complete and repeatedly improved cognitive structure.