DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-G024-1
Version: v1, Published online: 1998
Retrieved May 15, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/xing/v-1
Version: v1, Published online: 1998
Retrieved May 15, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/xing/v-1
Article Summary
Xing is conventionally translated as ‘nature’ or ‘human nature’. Some read xing as meaning a heavenly endowed tendency, directionality, or potentiality of growth in the individual. On this essentialistic reading, xing is an innate and unchanging ‘given’, a defining condition of all human beings. Others have given a historicist interpretation of xing, reading it as an achievement concept rather than as a given. In this view, xing is derived from, and is a refinement on, sheng, denoting the entire process of birth, growth and ultimate demise that constitutes the life of a living creature.
Citing this article:
Hall, David L. and Roger T. Ames. Xing, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-G024-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/xing/v-1.
Copyright © 1998-2024 Routledge.
Hall, David L. and Roger T. Ames. Xing, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-G024-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/xing/v-1.
Copyright © 1998-2024 Routledge.