Fang Xianfu

Fang Xianfu (1485 – 26 June 1544) was a Chinese scholar-official and philosopher of the Ming dynasty who held various senior offices during the early Jiajing era. In the early 1520s, he supported the Jiajing Emperor during the Great Rites Controversy, after which he rose from member of the Hanlin Academy to senior grand secretary between 1524 and 1532. Fang's scholarship encompassed studies of the I Ching, ritual studies, and theories of mind-nature (xinxing). His major works include Guwen Zhouyi zhuanyi yueshuo with Xiqiao yigao.

Early life Fang Xianfu was from Nanhai County in central Guangdong Province. Born in 1485 during China's Ming dynasty, he was a posthumous child; his father, Fang Sui , died 28 days before his birth. He studied Confucian teachings and entered the civil service examinations. He passed the provincial examination in 1504 and the metropolitan and palace examinations in 1505, receiving the jinshi degree.

After passing the examinations, Fang was appointed to the Hanlin Academy but soon requested leave from office to care for his mother, Lady Huang . She died shortly thereafter, and Fang remained at home in mourning. He later served in the Ministry of Rites and then in the Ministry of Personnel, where he became a vice director of a bureau. During his time in Beijing, he became acquainted with the teachings of Wang Yangming and became one of his many disciples. Due to illness, he resigned from office in 1511 and returned to his native region.

For about a decade afterward, Fang lived mainly on Mount Xiqiao. He frequently met with his fellow native and friend, Huo Tao, and scholar Zhan Ruoshui to discuss scholarly and philosophical questions. With Wang and Zhan, Fang discussed the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, the investigation of things , and questions concerning the mind and human nature . During this time, he also wrote works such as Origins of the Great Learning .

Great Rites Controversy After the accession of the Jiajing Emperor in 1521, Fang was recalled to government service. On his way to Beijing, he learned of the Great Rites Controversy, which concerned the status of the Emperor's parents. He drafted a memorial in support of the Emperor. After returning to his former post at the ministry and becoming acquainted with the situation, he kept his views to himself, as almost all officials had taken a position against the Emperor.

Fang's memorial reached the Nanjing Ministry of Justice official Gui E through unofficial channels. In early 1524, Gui submitted a memorial of his own supporting the Emperor's position in the controversy. To demonstrate that the Emperor had broader support, he appended the earlier memorials by officials Fang Xianfu and Xi Shu to his submission. At the time, only a few relatively minor officials had openly supported the Emperor, including Fang, Xi, Gui, Zhang Cong, Huo Tao, and Xiong Jia .

The Emperor began appointing his newfound supporters to senior positions, with Xi becoming minister of rites and Fang becoming a member of the Hanlin Academy in July 1524 at the same time Gui and Zhang were appointed its chancellors. Dozens of Beijing officials protested the appointments, arguing that the promotion of apparent careerists would demoralize upright officials throughout the empire. Fang had no interest in confronting his opponents and responded to the accusations of careerism by withdrawing from the political struggle. In August 1524, he requested permission to resign from government service, stating that he had no desire for office and had supported the Emperor on moral grounds. The Emperor rejected his resignation. The dispute culminated in August 1524 with a public demonstration by hundreds of officials outside the Zuoshun Gate in the imperial palace. The Jiajing Emperor responded by severely punishing the protesters.

Minister In 1527, Fang assembled a selection of memorials defending the Emperor's position in the Great Rites. He believed that the issues at stake had not been adequately explained or understood, and the Jiajing Emperor authorized the Ministry of Rites to print and circulate the memorials of Zhang Cong and other supporters, together with Fang's compilation. Zhang and several colleagues later produced a fuller work which the Emperor titled Minglun dadian (Great Canon for Clarifying Human Relations). The Emperor instructed Zhang to revise Xi Shu's arguments and add relevant examples from the Han and Song dynasties. The work was completed and published in June 1528. In August 1527, Fang was appointed acting chief minister of the Court of Judicial Review, while Zhang Cong became acting left censor-in-chief and Gui E acting minister of justice. The three were tasked with handling the Li Fuda case, a complicated affair involving Zheng Yin , a Beijing alchemist and drug maker variously accused of being the revolt leader Li Fuda and the sorcerer Li Wu . The Emperor's confidant, Marquis Guo Xun , was also implicated in the case. Fang, Zhang, and Gui concluded that Zheng Yin was innocent. Several dozen officials who had called for his execution, including the former minister of justice Yan Yishou , were subsequently dismissed from office and assigned to military service on the frontier; some died as a result of beatings. After the case was settled, Gui and Fang were promoted continuously throughout late 1527, Gui as minister of rites and Fang as right vice minister of rites then left vice minister of personnel. Before the end of the year, the Emperor appointed Gui as minister of personnel and Fang as the new minister of rites.

In March 1529, Gui was appointed grand secretary, while continuing to serve as minister of personnel, but the Emperor removed him from both positions in September that year. Fang became the new minister of personnel. He later served as chief editor of the Da Ming Huidian. In 1530, Fang was accused of favoritism in personnel appointments and poor judgment in selecting officials. He repeatedly requested leave on the grounds of ill health, and the Emperor allowed him to return home to recuperate, with Vice Minister Dong Pi temporarily overseeing the Ministry of Personnel. The Emperor recalled Fang to serve again as minister of personnel in December 1531. Fang declined and recommended Liang Cai , Wang Hong , and Wang Tingxiang as replacements, but the Emperor continued to urge him to return. While still on his journey, Fang again requested permission to return home. The Emperor ordered him to recuperate along the way and continue to Beijing once his health had improved.

Later life After arriving in Beijing in July 1532, Fang Xianfu was appointed grand secretary. He initially declined the appointment and did not attend the Grand Secretariat for several days because he had not yet personally thanked the Emperor for his favor. The Emperor then sent a palace eunuch to Fang's residence to urge him to take up his post, after which Fang entered the Grand Secretariat and began serving. Minister of Personnel Wang Qiong died in August, and Fang temporarily took charge of the Ministry of Personnel. In September 1532, Senior Grand Secretary Zhang Cong resigned after a comet was interpreted as an omen from Heaven and Fang Xianfu succeeded him as the senior grand secretary. Feng En of the Nanjing Censorate considered Zhang Cong's resignation an inadequate response to the appearance of the comet and formally called for the execution of both Zhang Cong and Fang Xianfu. The Emperor responded by imprisoning Feng En, but Zhang Cong persuaded him to show leniency in this and several other cases and spare the accused.

In 1533, Fang proposed restoring the system under which officials in the censorial and remonstrance offices scrutinized one another. In April, Zhang Cong returned to the position of senior grand secretary, while Fang remained a grand secretary until 1534. Fang was granted the honorary title of junior guardian in February 1534. He subsequently requested retirement several times because of declining health, and the Emperor granted his request in May.

After retiring, Fang lived in Xiqiao, where he continued revising his writings and maintained contact with scholars such as Zhan Ruoshui. He died on 26 June 1544. The court honored him with the title of grand guardian and bestowed on him the posthumous name Wenxiang.

Intellectual thought Lixue, study of rites Fang Xianfu's views on ritual appear mainly in his memorials during the Great Rites Controversy and in the Afterword to the Minglun dadian. He held that ritual should reflect kinship relationships and ordinary human feelings. Referring to the principle that "the sages established ritual in accordance with human feelings", he argued that ritual could not be divorced from human sentiment. In the Afterword to the Minglun dadian, he wrote that "the great source of the Way comes from Heaven and arises in the heart." He further stated that teaching follows human nature, ritual follows human feelings, and filial piety follows the heart, thus placing all three in the realm of the human heart.

In his early memorials on the Great Rites, Fang Xianfu distinguished between imperial succession and family lineage. The Jiajing Emperor had succeeded the Zhengde Emperor in the imperial line, while his relationship with his biological father, the Prince of Xing, was a matter of family lineage. Fang therefore argued that the emperor could succeed the Zhengde Emperor while continuing to regard the Prince of Xing as his father. As the prince had never been emperor, he should be worshipped in a separate temple rather than placed in the Imperial Ancestral Temple or given an temple name.

Yixue, study of the I Ching Fang Xianfu's studies of the I Ching (Yijing) are mainly found in Guwen Zhouyi zhuanyi yueshuo and Xiqiao yigao . In the former, he followed Zhu Xi's arrangement of the ancient text, separating the upper and lower parts of the I Ching from the Ten Wings. He drew on Cheng Yi's Yizhuan and Zhu Xi's Zhouyi benyi , while also incorporating the interpretations of Shao Yong and other scholars of the Song and Yuan dynasties. He regarded xiangshu (, image-number symbolism) as fundamental to understanding the hexagram and line statements and their underlying meaning.

Regarding the formation of the Zhou yi, Fang Xianfu held that Fuxi drew the eight trigrams, King Wen of Zhou developed them into the sixty-four hexagrams and composed their names, judgments, and line statements, while Confucius wrote the Yizhuan. He thus attributed the eight trigrams, sixty-four hexagrams, ancient text, and Yizhuan respectively to Fuxi, King Wen, and Confucius, differing from Zhu Xi's view that Fuxi created the sixty-four hexagrams and the Duke of Zhou composed the line statements.

The Guwen Zhouyi zhuanyi yueshuo opens with seven diagrams, including the Wenwang bagua yingtian tu , the Wenwang bagua yingdi tu , the Wenwang ze Hetu tu , and the Ze Luoshu tu . Fang Xianfu interpreted both the "Earlier Heaven" and "Later Heaven" arrangements of the eight trigrams, which Zhu Xi had treated separately, as having been established by King Wen. He also used the position of the number "five" in the Hetu and Luoshu to explain the basis of the Dayan number , the Four Images , and the divination method.

Fang Xianfu also applied the Zhou yi to political affairs and the cultivation of the ruler's virtue. Drawing on the Xie hexagram's image of "pardoning errors and remitting offenses", he once urged the Jiajing Emperor to pardon officials who had been punished for their views in the Great Rites Controversy. He also cited the Sun hexagram's injunction to "restrain anger and curb desires" in urging the emperor to control his emotions and place greater trust in his officials. He regarded "centrality and harmony" as a key principle of the learning of the sages.

Xinxing (Theory of mind and human nature) and differences with the Wang School Fang Xianfu held that the principles underlying the world originated in the human heart . He regarded Heaven , spirit , centrality , the ultimate , change , benevolence , sincerity , human nature , the Way , and virtue , despite their different names, as referring in substance to the same principle underlying Heaven, Earth, and all things. He used yijian to describe the cultivation of the Way of the sages, arguing that learning should be rooted in the heart rather than confined to elaborate textual interpretation. In Origins of the Great Learning, Origins of the Doctrine of the Mean , and Preface to the Engraving of the Two Originals , he likewise presented the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean as teachings on self-cultivation and governance that begin with the heart and extend from the inner self to the world.

On human nature, Fang Xianfu held that the Way of Heaven is inherently good, but that once human beings and other things acquire physical form and a psycho-physical disposition , their natures may contain both good and evil because of differences in the senses, the clarity or turbidity of vital energy, and other factors. He rejected the interpretation of "the nature of Heaven and Earth" and "the nature of psycho-physical disposition" as two separate natures. In interpreting the phrase "following one's nature is called the Way" from the Doctrine of the Mean, he glossed shuai (, "to follow") as shuai (, "to lead" or "to command"). He therefore understood the Way as governing and directing human nature, rather than merely following one's innate nature.

Although Fang Xianfu studied under Wang Yangming, he did not fully accept Wang's interpretations of the classics. On questions such as the investigation of things, broad learning , and the textual structure of the Great Learning, Fang maintained that the classics should be interpreted by comparing their passages with one another, rather than by developing doctrines detached from their original wording. Wang criticized him for becoming "entangled and stalled by textual meanings" , while Zhan Ruoshui likewise saw in his teaching the "defect of affirming the inner while negating the outer" . Around 1516, when Fang visited Zhan, he conveyed Wang's view that "in the end, it is all empty" represented the ultimate point of learning and invited Zhan to debate the matter with Wang. The three subsequently exchanged letters on the nature of the mind, Heavenly Principle , and the distinction between Confucianism and Buddhism.