Zhu Xi

Zhu Xi was a Chinese philosopher of the Song dynasty, living from 1130 to 1200, who became the single most influential figure in Neo-Confucianism, the philosophical movement that reinterpreted and systematized classical Confucian thought for later Chinese intellectual life. He compiled and wrote extensive commentaries on what became known as the Four Books, a core curriculum of Confucian texts, and his interpretations of them were adopted by the imperial government as the official basis for the civil service examination system, a status they retained for roughly six centuries until the system's abolition in the early twentieth century. Philosophically, Zhu Xi developed an elaborate metaphysical framework centered on the concepts of li, or underlying principle, and qi, or vital material force, and he emphasized the importance of careful, disciplined study and the investigation of things as a path toward moral self-cultivation and understanding of the cosmic order. Through his enormous influence over the examination curriculum, Zhu Xi's particular reading of Confucianism shaped the intellectual formation of the Chinese scholarly and official class for centuries, and his ideas also spread widely to Korea and Japan, where Neo-Confucianism in his lineage became a dominant school of thought.