"A cosmic human being : human nature in Chen Xun's 'Xingxue xingmi'" / Wang Xueying

Published in Parergon Volume 42, Number 1, 2025

Also available through Boston College Libraries

Abstract:

This article examines the 'Xingxue xingmi' 性學醒迷 (Awakening from Superstition in the Study of Human Nature) by Chen Xun 陳薰, a Chinese Catholic intellectual active in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. While this work appears to digress into extended discussions about the cosmos and its supernatural inhabitants—gods and ghosts—this article argues that its focus and organising principle remains the investigation of human nature. By embedding his discussion of human nature in a cosmological framework, Chen articulates a distinctive vision of cosmological anthropology that integrates the Aristotelian theory of three souls and traditional Chinese philosophical concepts, particularly 'tiandi' 天地 ('heaven and earth' or 'cosmos') and 'tianming' 天命 ('Mandate of Heaven').