Zhang Zai's Philosophy of Qi A Practical Understanding [Hardcover]

The book offers some fresh interpretative (and translational) perspectives on the Zh?ngmeng and Zhangs thought.Kim Jung-Yeups book (based on the authors Ph.D. thesis) brings a refreshing and innovative understanding of Zhang Zais philosophy of qi as a dynamic pluralism of the human experience. This new interpretation challenges the accepted substance-monistic and materialistic understandings. Kims new voice is a longed-for necessity. . . . Kim brings back to the front the significance of morality, too often neglected with regard to Neo-Confucianism.There is no concept more fundamental to Chinese cosmology generally than qi, and yet there is no term more persistently misunderstood. In Zhang Zai's Philosophy of Qi: A Practical Understanding, Jung-Yeup Kim uses a close revisonist reading of Zhang Zai to challenge the standard monistic interpretations of a putative homogenous ontology with a dynamic organic pluralism that not only accounts for both the continuity and complexity of the content of the human experience, but also for the capacity of human beings to optimize the creative possibilities of this experience to live significant lives.This illuminating and creative work builds upon current scholarships of Zhang Zai's philosophy and the variety study of qi, and arrives with refreshing and innovative ways to construct Zhang Zais vertical and horizontal development of qi, rigorously unfolding a few debatable philosophical issues in a Neo-Confucian period. This book will offer a new impulse for fruitfully navigating Chinese and comparative philosophy and a deeper understanding of polarity, correlativity, and organic unity of qi. It is a timely and valuable contribution to the field.Qi (vital energy) is one of the most important concepts in Chinese philosophy and culture, and neo-Confucian Zhang Zai plays a pivotal role in developing the notion. This book provides a thorough and proper understanding of his thoughts.Qi # (vital energy) is one of the most imporlói