Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction 1. A Philosophical Dimension of the Ming-Qing Intellectual Transition: Conceptions of Human Nature (Xing) 2. The Life of a Scholar-Official 3. General Theory: Metaphysics and Metapraxis 4. The Ontology of Xing (Nature) and Its Meta-practical Import 5. Reading the Classics: Hermeneutics and Philosophy 6. Vita Activa: Action in the Political and Social Realms Concluding Reflections Notes Glossary of Transliterations Selected Bibliography of Works Cited Index

About the Author

On-cho Ng is Associate Professor of History at The Pennsylvania State University, and coeditor of Imagining Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneutics, also published by SUNY Press.

Reviews

"In this philosophical discourse on the goodness of human nature, Ng finds telling examples of Li Guangdi linking moral cultivation with empirical research and concrete social practices, thereby transforming the Cheng-Zhu metaphysics into a metapraxis-a program of moral self-cultivation informed by a metaphysical notion." - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy "Ng's book provides the best account of Cheng-Zhu Confucianism in the Qing period that I have seen in any language. It is sophisticated and fair-minded, showing perceptively how Li Guangdi diverged from the 'master,' Zhu Xi, while ardently defending him. The book is gracefully written, intellectually rigorous, and theoretically sophisticated. The author has an excellent command of the relevant Chinese and Japanese materials, and his translations are quite fluid." - Richard J. Smith, Rice University