Learning to be human is a highly important concern in Confucian philosophy.This paper is intended to provide a special perspective on this theme through an attempt to reinterpret Mengzi's views on the heart-mind (xin 心) as "learning to be human" and to reconstruct these views into a multi-staged process of moral development.Through an intentional interpretation of various arguments advanced by Mengzi,we seek to justify that his views on the heart-mind and moral virtues can be seen as a learning process and that he subjects the inborn beginnings of goodness to a delicate development before they can actually qualify a person as fully human.Having examined the three dimensions of Mengzi's learning,the intellectual,the practical and the spiritual,we will come to the conclusion that whether innate or a posteriori,initial good senses and knowledge require a moral and spiritual process of learning to develop which is,to Mengzi,crucial for one to become a genuine human being.
展开▼