Xing - Routledge Encyclopedia Of Philosophy

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Thematic Xing

• By
• Hall, David L.
• Ames, Roger T.

DOI 10.4324/9780415249126-G024-1 DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-G024-1 Version: v1,  Published online: 1998 Retrieved January 03, 2026, 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.

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Print 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 © 1998-2026 Routledge.

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