Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy

摘要

(He is far more modest in his claims.) "Neo-Confucianism" refers to the movement begun toward the end of the Tang Dynasty by such thinkers as Han Yu (768-824) and Li Ao (fl. 798) to revitalize, as they thought, ancient Chinese philosophy (Confucius and his followers, especially Mencius and Xunzi) after centuries of intellectual dominance by Buddhism, a foreign philosophy. By the time of Zhuxi, Ii had become (i) the fundamental metaphysical category for Neo-Confucians, (ii) that by virtue of which the constantly shifting process of the universe (qi, often translated "material force") is determinate, (iii) the ideal by which the things of the universe should be ordered, and (iv) that within the heart/mind which can be developed to grasp Ii in the world.