Abstract
Vilnius UniversityThis article deals with the cosmology and ethics of Zhu Xi (朱熹) and reconstructs the relation between these two fields of inquiry in Zhu Xi’s philosophy. This article opposes the still common view in contemporary scholarship that portrays Zhu Xi as a metaphysical thinker who introduced metaphysical notions into the Confucian discourse. The true originality and innovation of Zhu Xi was his attempt to appropriate the notion of li 理, which was the key term in the metaphysical speculations of Chinese Buddhism and was also adopted by the early Song neo-Confucians in their cosmological investigations, and to show its relevance and conformity to the classical Confucian ethical thought. The article demonstrates how Zhu Xi turns li 理 into a key ethical concept through identifying it with the particular course of the growth (xing 性) of things and ultimately, with the particular course of human growth (renxing 人性).
Highlights
Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) is generally acknowledged as a great synthesizer of Chinese thought
It is claimed that this system, which is concentrated around the notion of li 理, served Zhu Xi as an ontological foundation for the classical Confucian assertion of the goodness of ‘human nature’
Since congruity li 理 for Zhu Xi is the way in which the thing is present through the constant process of that thing coming into relations with its immediate environment, the particular course of that thing’s growth is the reference to the same notion of congruity li 理
Summary
Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) is generally acknowledged as a great synthesizer of Chinese thought. In Zhu Xi’s own words, ‘The congruity of growth is what we call the course of a particular thing’39 (ZZYL, Ch. 5).
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