1. Neo-Confucianism as Philosophical System and Spiritual Practice
Stephen C. Angle, Wesleyan University

2. Overview Part One: Context Part Two: Content
Historical and Socio-Cultural Context
Northern Song: Emergence of Daoxue
Southern Song and Zhu Xi
Neo-Confucianism After the Song
Formal Features
Part Two: Content
Metaphysics: Li and Qi
Mind and Two Natures
Learning
Knowledge and Action
Sagehood

3. Historical and Socio-Cultural Context
Tang great families; Song ( ) literati
Civil service examinations
Buddhism: embraced and blamed
Wang Anshi ( ) and the New Policies

4. Northern Song: Emergence of Daoxue
Shift of emphasis from outer to inner
“General meaning” of the Classics
Optimism and sense of mission: sagehood
Interest in cosmology—and a unified understanding of everything
Cheng brothers (cf. Two Chinese Philosophers)
Guo Xi, “Early Spring”

5. Southern Song and Zhu Xi (1130-1200)
Victory of Jurchen (Jin Dynasty) in 1127; Southern Song lasts until Mongol conquest in 1279
Growth and controversy of Daoxue
Daoxue “middle level” institutions
Zhu Xi’s life: national scholar/teacher, local official

6. Neo-Confucianism After the Song
Yuan ( )
Ming ( )
Wang Yangming ( ); Instructions for Practical Living
Korea (Choson; )
“Neo-Confucian revolution”
Four-Seven debate
Japan (Tokugawa; )
Qing ( )

7. Formal Features
Genre: Commentaries and Yulei, Classified Conversations
Zhuzi Yulei: Gardner has translated chs. 7-13, “On Learning”
System (textual and conceptual)
Practices
Practical goal of learning
Hadot and “spiritual exercizes”
Five Classics vs. Four Books

8. Metaphysics: Li and Qi “Qi” as “psycho-physical stuff
This “li” not central to classical Confucianism. There:
Veins in jade
Order
Here, Principle, Pattern, Coherence (G, pp. 90-2)
One and Many; Nested Levels
Descriptive and Normative
“Qi” as “psycho-physical stuff
“Below form,” changeable

9. Heartmind and Two Natures
The “xin (heartmind) governs and unifies that nature and the feelings”
Which “nature (xing)”?
Metaphysical nature (= li)
Qi-nature (can be obscured)
How do we know what our true, metaphysical nature is?
Our deepest, unchanging and automatic reactions (“Four beginnings”)
“Nature is the state before activity begins, the feelings are the state when activity has started, and the mind includes both these states. For nature is the mind before activity has begun, while feelings are the mind after activity has started.… Desire emanates from feelings. The mind is comparable to water, nature is comparable to the tranquility of still water, feeling is comparable to the flow of the water, and desire is comparable to its waves. Just as there are good and bad waves, so there are good desires, such as when “I desire humaneness,” and bad desires which rush out like wild and violent waves.”

10. Learning Lesser Learning and Greater Learning (§§1.5 - 1.7)
Rote instruction, “direct understanding,” then…
Understanding Coherence of given situation.
Reverence (Jing, Inner Mental Attentiveness) unites LL & GL
4-Step “Reading Method”:
Recitation
Reflection
Embodying
Going beyond texts
Sculpture by Wang Shugang

11. Knowledge and Action
Knowledge and action are analytically distinct, but closely related
Deep vs. superficial knowledge
Personal experience
Natural, spontaneous motivation (§§2.17, 2.72)
Commitment (zhi 志) and Reverence bring deep knowledge
Not “will”: see (§2.21)

12. Sagehood Sudden or gradual? Neo- Confucian “enlightenment experiences”
Once a sage, always a sage?
The continuity problem
Contemporary relevance