Although I agree with Jeeloo Liu that Wang Yangming is not a subjective idealist, this does not rule other possibilities of idealism. Wang Yangming equates the mind to Dao and equates liangzhi to the Dao of Change. This suggests that the mind is not just a subjective mind. It can denote the all-encompassing universal mind. In his “blossoming tree” dialogue about the theme “nothing is external to the mind,” Wang Yangming alludes to the Book of Change. The underlying idea is (...) that there is an undifferentiated unity before the calculative deliberation divides the subject and object. This idea of oneness also underlies Wang Yangming’s view of qi. I have reservations about using “naturalism” and “realism” to categorize Wang Yangming’s philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is a brief comment on JeeLoo Liu’s interpretation of classical Chinese philosophy, especially Wang Yangming’s (1472–1529) views, in terms of pragmatist metaphysics primarily drawn from William James and Hilary Putnam. Liu’s reading of Wang Yangming both in the context of the Chinese tradition and in relation to pragmatism is most welcome as a novel contribution to comparative and intercultural philosophy. However, in such comparisons, we also have to be careful to avoid anachronistically attributing, e.g., Kantian and/or pragmatist ideas (...) to earlier thinkers coming from a very different cultural context. (shrink)