Abstract:

The roughly two centuries from the Hongwu reign in the early Ming to the mid-Jiajing reign constituted a critical period in the intellectual transformation of Ming Confucianism from Zhu Xi learning to Yangming learning. As Zhu Xi learning was established as official learning in the Yuan dynasty and spread ever more widely in the Ming, the increasingly evident fragmentation and utilitarian excesses of Zhu Xi learning prompted profound reflection within Neo-Confucianism. This created an opening for the Learning of the Mind, which sought to clarify scholarship and rectify the ethos of scholar-officials while strongly advocating moral cultivation and embodied practice; these efforts powerfully advanced the gradual revival of Xiangshan learning. From the early to the middle Ming, Xiangshan learning passed through three progressively advancing stages: “honoring Zhu while supporting Lu, ” “leaving Zhu to accord with Lu, ” and “rejecting Zhu while praising Lu.” Its intellectual value was thereby reassessed, and Lu Xiangshan himself, from being much maligned, came to be enshrined in the Confucian Temple and numbered among the sages, ultimately enabling Xiangshan learning to break through the dominance of Zhu Xi learning. A systematic intellectual-historical account of this process aims to demonstrate that the revival of Xiangshan learning was not only a new phase in the development of the Zhu-Lu debate but also a movement of intellectual revitalization in mid-Ming Confucianism that consciously returned to its inner life practice. This is of great significance for systematically grasping the complex texture of Ming intellectual transformation and for deeply understanding the intellectual causes underlying the emergence of Yangming learning.

Key words: Xiangshan learning, Zhu Xi learning, Yangming learning, enshrinement in the Confucian Temple