"Heart-mind, ghosts-spirits, and God : Tasan Chŏng Yagyong's reinterpretation of immaterial entities in Confucianism" / Huang Zhipeng

Published in Parergon Volume 42, Number 1, 2025

Also available through Boston College Libraries

Abstract:

The scholastic-Aristotelian concepts of the soul ('anima') and God were introduced into East Asia by Jesuit missionaries in the late sixteenth century. Tasan Chŏng Yagyong 茶山 丁若鏞 (1762–1836) creatively embraced the Aristotelian concept of soul, which he related to the neo-Confucian concept of heart-mind (xin 心). Tasan established a logical chain to prove that heart-mind, ghosts-spirits (guishen 鬼神), and Shangdi 上帝 are immaterial and spiritual entities. For Tasan, Shangdi, as the sovereign of heaven, is not a quiet, hidden being which merely endows human beings with a noble nature, but constantly warns people not to act inappropriately during their daily life by commanding the guishen.