Month: August 2026

“When the reality of the non-ultimate [non existent] and the essence of yin, yang, and the Five Agents come into mysterious union, integration ensues. Ch’ien (heaven) constitutes the male element and K’un (earth) constitutes the female element. The interaction of these two material forces engenders and transforms the myriad things. The myriad things produce and reproduce, resulting in unending transformation.” –  Zhou Dunyi¹

Having reviewed the historical context of Chinese philosophy that led to the blending of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism into the enduring tradition of Neo-Confucianism, our next steps are to examine specific thinkers who contributed to its metaphysical foundations starting with Zhou Dunyi (Chou Tun-i), the “father” of Song dynasty Neo-Confuciansim. He was born at Yangdao in Daozhou (modern state of Huan) in 1017 and lived until 1073. He was both a magistrate and a professor, known for his love of all life. His major works were Taijtu or An Explanation of the Diagram of the Great Ultimate and Tongstu or Penetrating the Book of Changes.²

Zhou starts by discarding one feature of earlier Taoist thought, the negative side of Tao as non-being, perhaps as it approximates too closely Buddhist thought which the Neo-Confucianists hoped to replace. Instead he speaks of the T’ai-chi or the Great Ultimate as the source of all things starting with the forces of yin and yang. The primeval Great Ultimate is active hence the source of yang, but as it exhausts itself becomes tranquil generating yin. The interaction of these two in turn leads to the Five Elements (also called the Five Phases) – water, fire, wood, metal, and earth – which are not things as such, but the principles of things. Their interactions proceed to create the rest of reality.³ We have perhaps our first complete Chinese cosmology which explains how the many are ultimately One and the means by which the One is differentiated in the many.⁴

Zhou introduces us to the Diagram of the Great Ultimate, a symbolic representation of these propositions hauntingly similar to the Kabbalah of Jewish mysticism.

At the top is the mystic phrase: “The Ultimateless and yet the Great Ultimate” above an empty circle. Just below is the black and white banded circle, representing both the Great Ultimate and its progeny yang or movement and yin or quiescence. Beneath this is the web of interconnectivity of the Five Elements which are above another circle with the qian (ch’ien) or the male principle on the left and the kun (k’un) or yin or the female principle on the right. The lowest circle symbolizes the production and transformation of the myriad things engendered by the circle above.⁵

(continued next post)

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¹Koller, John M., Oriental Philosophies. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1970. ISBN 684-13668-6, page 255.

²McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 06-270085-5, page 104.

³Koller, John M., Oriental Philosophies. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1970. ISBN 684-13668-6, page 254.

⁴Edwards, Paul (editor), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. & The Free Press, 1972. Volume 2, page 92.

⁵McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 06-270085-5, page 105.

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Having trouble leaving a question or comment?  E-mail me at gregoryciliberti@gmail.com

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” –  Niels Bohr

We pick up now with our overview of the Chinese tradition of Neo-Confucianism. After the fall of the Han dynasty in the 3^rd century C.E., Taoism and Buddhism became dominant while Confucianism waned. This dominance lasted until the end of the Tang dynasty which declined after the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763) and finally fell in 907 leaving a fragmented and chaotic China. Meanwhile Han Yu (768-824), a government official, had written an influential text, Essentials of the Moral Way (or An Inquiry on the Tao) in 805, in which he promoted a return to Confucianism, although he was exiled thereafter.¹

When the Song dynasty appeared in 960, a period of peace and prosperity followed climaxing in a remarkable period of philosophical flourishing in the 11^th and 12^th centuries. Scholars at this time concentrated on adding to the prevailing Confucian ethics a metaphysical foundation derived from Taoist and Buddhist teachings. This phase of Neo-Confucianism, known as Hsing-li hsüeh or ‘the school of Nature and Principle’ was initially dominated by the ‘rationalists’ starting with Zhou Dunyi who proposed the evolution of the universe from the Great Ultimate through the two material forces yin and yang.

Later rationalists referred to the Great Ultimate in dualistic terms: Principle or li and Material Force or qi (ch’i). In this theory, Principle is the law according by which a thing exists while Material Force actualizes things. Other thinkers suggested Principle endows man’s nature which is thus originally good since the Principle of Nature is universal truth with its imperative to do good. Others defined a Neo-Confucian cosmology where Material Force is itself dual as substance and activity.²

The second rail in this tradition encompasses the ‘idealists’ or ‘the school of the Mind.’ In the 12^th century Lu Hsiang-shan proposed Mind and Principle are really the same, and include all things, hence, one can apprehend all things by investigation of the mind. This branch peaked in the 16^th century in the thought of Wang Yang-ming who emphasized the direction of the mind or ‘will’. Still later idealists sought to bring the concrete further into the domain of human mental experience.³

To be sure, Neo-Confucian metaphysics is complex, even abstruse, but in the next few posts I hope to dissect our some of their more original thinking as we try to round out our understanding of ultimate reality as presented in Chinese philosophy.

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¹Hardy, Grant, Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition. The Great Courses, Chantilly, Virginia, 2011. Pages 71-72.

²Edwards, Paul (editor), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. & The Free Press, 1972. Volume 2, pages 92-93.

³Ibid., pages 93-94.

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Having trouble leaving a question or comment?  E-mail me at gregoryciliberti@gmail.com

“Nature is nothing else than Law.” –  Chu Hsi¹

Those of us from the West with our traditions of three major religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – and our manifold philosophies – stoicism, epicureanism, and skepticism for the ancients and empiricism, idealism, positivism, and existentialism for the moderns – should not be surprised that multiple movements developed simultaneously in China. The three main traditions  – Confucianism, Taoism, and imported Buddhism – although originally distinct, began cross-fertilizing, and at last became intertwined. Neo-Confucianism, the term applied to the evolving composite of these three systems, was first formulated in the 10^th century and endured into  the 20^th century.

The followers of Confucius brought into the amalgam much of their social mores and political philosophy whereas Taoism and Buddhism added metaphysical, mystical and spiritual elements, and key ethical principles. It is not possible to extract from the blend strictly Taoist concepts, in fact any ascription is ultimately arbitrary , but I will attempt in this next series of blogs to tease out that portion of the metaphysics, ethics, and later thinking that most appears to build upon the earlier Taoist edifice.

Unfortunately the propagation of Taoism within Neo-Confucianism is far too complicated to be presented in one or two posts, so I offer the following outline of this subsection::

1. Introduction
2. Historical overview.
3. Zhou Dunyi (Chou Tun-i)
4. Zhang Zai (Chang Tsai).
5. The Cheng Brothers.
6. Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi).
7. Wang Yangming.
8. Other thinkers
9. Summary and synthesis.

We will start with a review of the history of the origination and progression of  Neo-Confucian thought. We then take up critical metaphysical thinkers in rough chronological order, starting with Zhou Dunyi and Zhang Zai and their concepts of the Great Ultimate and Neo-Confucian cosmology followed by the Cheng brothers with their emphasis on human nature as proxy of the principle of the world. Thereafter we will meet Zhu Xi who professes a dualist metaphysics of principle and material force followed by Wang Yangming who focuses on goodness and moral action. Last we will look briefly at the contributions of a few less consequential, but still notable thinkers and end with a summary and synthesis.

Prepare for an epic ride!

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¹Durant, Will, Our Oriental Heritage. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1963. ISBN0-671-54800-X, page 732.

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Having trouble leaving a question or comment?  E-mail me at gregoryciliberti@gmail.com