Wang Yangming

The four dimensions in the 16-axis model where this thinker scores highest. People in this archetype tend to lean the same way.

• POPractical Orientation

  9 / 10
• TETrust in Experience

  8 / 10
• CECommunal Embeddedness

  8 / 10
• VAVital Affirmation

  7 / 10

The six thinkers whose 16-dimensional positions sit closest to this one. Useful as next-reading suggestions.

• Cornel WestFORGE

  Prophetic pragmatism. Justice is what love looks like in public. Black self-love and political courage.

• Hasdai CrescasCARTOGRAPHER

  Critique of Aristotle — divine love as primary, the will as free.

• Charles TaylorCARTOGRAPHER

  Sources of the self. Malaises of modernity. Authenticity, recognition, the buffered self.

• William JamesPILGRIM

  Truth is what works. The varieties of religious experience. The will to believe.

• Hans-Georg GadamerCARTOGRAPHER

  Understanding happens in the fusion of horizons. Tradition is the live process of meaning.

• Iris MurdochKEEL

  Sovereignty of Good — moral attention to the singular other.

Concepts where Wang Yangming sits in the conversation. Each links to a primer.

• Confucianism
  The self is constituted by its relationships. Ritual + role + cultivation, not freedom from these.

Side-by-side with other philosophers, dimension by dimension.

• Wang Yangming VS Zhu Xi

Short exercises in the same tradition as Wang Yangming's thought. Each takes 5–25 minutes.

• The Examen →

  Five-step Ignatian end-of-day review — what was given, what was missed, what to take into tomorrow.

• Switch sides →

  Argue both sides of a debate, alternating, until you no longer know which side you started on.

• Anticipating objections →

  For every position, list the three strongest objections — then answer them.