“心性之学”(the Philosophy of Mind and Soul)一词有广义、次狭义及狭义的理解。广义地说,它应是所有民族(包括东方、西方诸民族)的哲学中的一个重要部门,指的是探讨人的存在的根本原理的学问。从这个意义上说,西方的存在主义哲学、基督教神学以及各种宗教哲学思想中都有丰富的心性之学的内容,假如我们采取一种次狭义的看法,将范围缩小至中国哲学的话,那么,道家与佛学(尤其是禅宗)无疑都以心性为讨论的重点。但从约定俗成的用法来看,“心性之学”似专指儒家哲学而言。本文将对“心性之学”的讨论限制到儒家,这是狭义的说法,只是为了将问题讨论的对象缩小,并不表示否认其他各派哲学都 The word “philosophy of mind and soul” is broad, narrow, narrow, and narrowly understood. Broadly speaking, it should be an important department in the philosophy of all nations, including the East and the West, referring to the study of the fundamental principles of human existence. In this sense, Western existentialist philosophy, Christian theology, as well as various religious philosophy have rich content of the study of the nature of the heart, if we take a narrow sense of view, will be narrowed to the scope of Chinese philosophy, then , Taoism and Buddhism (especially Zen) undoubtedly focus on the heart of the discussion. However, from the conventional usage, “the study of the mind nature” specifically refers to the philosophy of Confucianism. This article limits the discussion of “psychology studies” to Confucianism, which is a narrower one, just to narrow down the subjects of the issues discussed and not to deny that all other philosophies