Overview
Zhu Xi (1130–1200) was the Southern Song synthesizer of Neo-Confucianism whose commentaries on the Four Books became imperial orthodoxy for centuries. He organized cosmology of li (principle) and qi (vital stuff) and built academy pedagogy. Political frustrations and censorial attacks marked his career. Handbook dates: 1130–1200. East Asian civil-service learning bore his stamp into modernity.
Main ideas
Li is the coherent pattern in all things; qi individuates and can obscure nature. Human nature is originally good as principle; cultivation clears turbid qi through investigation of things (gewu) and reverence. The Four Books curriculum—Great Learning, Analects, Mencius, Mean—structures moral education. Principle is one, manifestations many. Quiet sitting and reading jointly discipline the mind. Orthodoxy defines itself against Buddhist emptiness and Daoist quietism as he construed them.
Major works
- Commentaries on the Four Books
- Reflections on Things at Hand
- Conversations of Master Zhu
- Explanations of the Book of Changes
Legacy
Zhu Xi defined late imperial Confucian orthodoxy across China, Korea, and Japan. Modern New Confucians and critics still argue with his dualism of li/qi. He is Song philosophy’s institutional giant.
Themes in this archive
Learning (1) · Knowledge (1) · Meaning (1)