Wang Yangming: The Only Perfect Human Being in History

In the 16th century, during the same era that Martin Luther launched the Reformation in Europe, a legendary figure started the Chinese Renaissance on the other side of the earth. 2022 marked the 550th anniversary of the birth of Wang Yangming, the philosopher, military strategist, and educator of the Ming Dynasty, who embodied all the characteristics considered to express the highest standards of human achievement in ancient Chinese culture.

Wang was held in the highest esteem as “the only perfect human being in history” and “a man with three eternities” by a wide range of intellectual and political figures, including Liang Qichao, China’s leading scholar and reformist of the transitional period spanning the latter part of the Qing Dynasty to the early republican era.