胡直一生中追隨過歐陽南野與羅念菴兩位老師，這兩位老師的思想大有不同，前者能肯定良知的明覺、見在之意，後者卻重於收攝保聚之功。本文的目的就在於探究胡直的天則、靈覺、萬物一體、心造天地萬物和博文約禮等義理，以見他的思想較接近哪位老師。通過本文的討論，我們發現胡直的靈覺、心覺等說，幾乎完全看不到歸寂派的收攝、收斂的模式，反倒他是一種當下即是的逆覺型態，這就相當於「悟本體即工夫」。如此說來，他離開了歸寂派的「由工夫以悟本體」之模式，而是能直承於王陽明的良知之教。

Chih Hu, throughout his life, has followed two mentors, Nan-ye Ouyang and Hong-xian Luo, who showed different thoughts. The former recognized awareness and existence of conscience, whereas the latter emphasized the practice of convergence and retention of mind. This paper explores Chih Hu’s argumentation such as heavenly rule, spiritual awareness, all beings as unity, all beings created by mind and knowledge and rituals to recognize the mentor with similar thoughts. This paper suggests that Chih Hu’s spiritual awareness and philosophy of mind rarely reveal convergence model of tranquility school. However, he shows reflective awareness of the present. It is similar to "comprehension of ontology as practice". In other words, he deviated from "comprehension of ontology by practice" of tranquility school and succeeded philosophy of conscience of Yang-ming Wang.