The State of the Field Report XIV: Contemporary Chinese Studies of the Xing Zi Ming Chu (Nature Derives from Decree)

The Xing Zi Ming Chu 性自命出 (Nature Derives from Decree) is one of the eighteen pieces that were recorded in Guodian 郭店 bamboo slips, which were excavated in 1993 and thought to be buried around 300 BCE. We can observe from this text detailed discussions surrounding terms such as xing 性 (nature), qing 情 (emotion), xin 心 (heart-mind), and yue 樂 (music), which played crucial roles in producing early Chinese philosophical discourses, particularly in the area of moral psychology. Since its publication in 1998, this text has gained huge interest from Chinese scholars. This article illustrates how Chinese scholars, through their concrete studies, reveal the complicated textual nature of the Xing Zi Ming Chu and its intricate relations to different philosophical streams which followed. This article also points out a problematic assumption that lies in the majority of Chinese scholarship and proposes a more sensible approach to examine this text.