Wang Yangming made the unity of knowing and acting, and the moral resources of the mind, central to a powerful late-imperial Confucian program.
Intellectual setting
Wang's teaching developed amid Ming bureaucratic politics, military crises, and disputes over Zhu Xi's authoritative program of learning and investigation.
Key ideas
Innate knowing
The mind has an immediately responsive moral awareness that must be extended through reflective and practical self-cultivation.
Unity of knowledge and action
Genuine moral knowledge is already active; a gap between professed understanding and conduct shows that knowledge is incomplete.
Legacy
His school spread across East Asia and made mind, moral immediacy, and practice enduring fault lines in Neo-Confucian philosophy.