On the morning of December 29th, the fifteenth lecture of Chunqiu Forum 2017 (75th among all) was held at roundtable meeting room of Confucius Research Institute. Nishan scholar of Confucius Research Institute Professor Wang Junlin gave the lecture of “Training the Heart-and-Mind” and “Exiling the Heart-and-Mind”——the Preliminary Analysis of Mencius’ Heart-and-mind Philosophy. The deputy dean of Confucius Research Institute Liu Xubing, teachers and students from Qufu Normal University, and the professionals of our institute listened to the lecture. Deputy Director of academic exchange department of Confucius Research Institute, Nishan Scholar and associate researcher Lu Zequan presided over the forum.
Wang Junlin elucidated the five aspects of the “heart-and-mind” as the cognitive subject and moral subject, “exiling the heart-and-mind” as the unforgivable mistake, the subject of liability of “exiling the heart-and-mind”, the benign interaction between the “great part” and the “little part” in “restoring the exiled heart-and-mind”. He put up that as on one hand, Mencius regarded the “heart-and-mind” as the “great part”, holding that the “heart-and-mind” occupies the leading position in people’s body, on the other hand, the “heart-and-mind” is the moral subject and cognitive subject, the “heart-and-mind” constitutes the core of Mencius’ philosophy.
Professor Wang Junlin’s splendid lecture on “Training the Heart-and-Mind” and “Exiling the Heart-and-Mind” benefited the audience greatly by its profound connotation and explaining profound theories in simple languages.
Lu Zequan summarized that “heart-and-mind” and “nature” (xing) are the core concepts in Mencius’ philosophy. Mr. Wang’s detailed elucidation on Mencius’s “heart-and-mind” philosophy, especially on “training the heart-and-mind” and “exiling the heart-and-mind” opened our vision and provided the thinking for us in grasping Mencius’ philosophy. The study on Chinese philosophy should both refer to the Western philosophy and be based on the “oneness between the subject and the object” characterisitic of Chinese philosophy, so should the construction of Mencius’ “heart-and-mind” philosophy. For example, “restoring the exiled heart” is a process with the subject as the chief part and under the interaction between the subject and the object.
This lecture is one of the activities of Confucius Research Institute in 2017, “the academic improvement year” to “review the four Confucian classics and lay a solid foundation”.
Chunqiu Forum is a non-profit academic cultural lecture sponsored by Confucius Research Institute, the Secretariat of World Confucian Conference, and New Confucian School, and organized by history and culture department of Qufu Normal University, Confucianism and Regional Culture Research Spread Center of Jining College, “Nishan sacred scenery” and so on. By now, 75 lectures have been given. Dozens of experts and scholars from Chinese mainland, Taiwan, America, Japan, Germany, Austria and so on have given lectures to over 10,000 audiences, which has produced long-lasting and good social reaction.
