CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

Ekken’s Life and Thought

The Text in the Context of East Asian Confucianism

Material Force (Qi)

Zhang Zai’s Development of the Concept of Material Force

The Influence of the Monism of Qi of Luo Qinshun

Affirmation and Dissent: The Significance of the Record of Great Doubts

The Text in the Context of Tokugawa Japan

The Spread of Confucian Ideas and Values

Tradition and the Individual: The Importance of Dissent and the Centrality of Learning

Philosophical Debates Regarding Principle and Material Force

Reappropriating Tradition: Practical Learning and the Philosophy of Qi

Interpretations of Ekken’s Philosophy of Qi

Confucian Cosmology: Organic Holism and Dynamic Vitalism

Confucian Cultivation: Harmonizing with Change and Assisting Transformation

The Significance of Qi as an Ecological Cosmology

Taigiroku: The Record of Great Doubts

PREFACE

PART I

On the Transmission of Confucian Thought (1–11)

On Human Nature (12–14)

On Bias, Discernment, and Selection (15–23)

On Learning from What Is Close at Hand (24–28)

The Indivisibility of the Nature of Heaven and Earth and One’s Physical Nature (29)

Acknowledging Differences with the Song Confucians (30–42)

PART II

Partiality in the Learning of the Song Confucians (43–46)

Reverence Within and Rightness Without (47–50)

Influences from Buddhism and Daoism (51–60)

A Discussion of the Metaphysical and the Physical (61)

The Supreme Ultimate (62–66)

The Way and Concrete Things (67–68)

Returning the World to Humaneness (69)

Reverence and Sincerity (70–71)

Reverence as the Master of the Mind (72–80)

The Inseparability of Principle and Material Force (81)

Glossary

Bibliography

Index