Re-Understanding Fan Jun's Philosophy of the Mind and His Status as “Originator of the Wu School”

Deeply convinced by the Simeng School and influenced by his family academic tradition as well as his friends,Fan Jun( 1102-1150) develops a distinct philosophy of the mind in his thinking. Addressing the mindin its ontological sense,Fan advocates the goodness of human nature as well as the necessity of self-cultivation,and holds a moral-based point of view on literature and history. It is on the basis of such a heart-mind theory that he participates in the debates on pragmatism and on reign and justice vs. hegemony and profit,and is admired by Zhu Xi( 1130-1200) for his ideas that differ from those of the Eastern-Zhejiang Pragmatic School represented by Chen Liang( 1143-1194) and Ye Shi( 1150-1223). Fan is regarded posthumously as the originator of the Wu Schoolnot only because of his own academic achievements but,more importantly,because of the rejuvenization of the Wu Studies by Zhang Mao( 1436-1521)and other scholars from Jinhua during the Ming Dynasty( 1368-1644). Later scholars,being ignorant of this,has been misunderstanding the whole thing based on incomplete records about it.