
Portrait: 向史公哲曰 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Medieval · Chinese
Zhu Xi
1130–1200
Born in Youxi, Southern Song (now China)
See others like Zhu Xi
Synthesized Neo-Confucianism, China’s orthodoxy for centuries.
Everything is li (principle) given form by qi (vital energy).
Taught “investigating things” to grasp their underlying principle.
His commentaries became the imperial exam standard from 1313 to 1905.


