This article is designed to form a question-focused cross-cultural dialogue, rather than compare Zhu Xi 朱熹 with Meister Eckhart in general terms. It will start with an analysis of the exegetical/hermeneutical rules that Zhu Xi and Eckhart set up for their own scriptural commentaries. The study of Eckhart will then be extended to Augustine, in order to explore how Eckhart resorts to Augustine in his commentary writings. Having explored Eckhart’s affinity with Augustine regarding their consensus about the multiplicity of literal (...) senses, as well as their emphasis on the renewal or the continuous growth of the meaning of scriptural texts, the discussion will come back to the starting point of this comparative model, and attempt to form a comparison between the two traditions, through the exemplars of Zhu Xi, Eckhart, and Augustine, with a focus on the implications of these hermeneutical rules. (shrink)

This article is intended to discuss the issue of argumentation in Mencius in the form of book review, focusing on Haiwen Yang’s newly released monograph The World of Mencius. Unlike many scholars who are inclined to see the argumentations included in the book of Mencius in the light of logical debate, Yang attempts to embed Mencius in his social network, so as to reconstruct a “vivid” and “real” Mencius as lived in his own historical context. Yang’s narrative is characterized by (...) an emphasis on the interaction between the two lines of thought in Mencius, namely “moral idealism” and “cultural conformity.” In line with Yang’s interpretation of Mencius, our reading of Yang and of Mencius focuses on the hermeneutic circumstance in which Mencius’ argumentation came into existence, as a result of that, the political significance as well as humanistic concern in relation to Mencius’ eloquence and his argumentative character will be particularly addressed. (shrink)

Such is the significance of the question concerning intellect and will that it has been discussed in both the Confucian and the Christian traditions and has even triggered two different schools of thought within each tradition. In Confucianism, it speaks of the fundamental divergence between lixue 理學 and xinxue 心學 in the Neo-Confucian movement. In the Christian tradition, it speaks of the difference between the Franciscans and the Dominicans. A comparative study of Zhu Xi, the leading master of lixue in (...) the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in China, and Eckhart, the scholastic Dominican master in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in the Latin world, will give us... (shrink)

This book attempts a comparative study between Zhu Xi (1130-1200), a Neo-Confucian master of the Song dynasty in China, and Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), a scholastic and mystic in the medieval West. With a focus on the theme of human intellect as presented in the works of the two thinkers, this study also explores the massive hermeneutical framework in which that concept is unfolded in Zhu Xi and in Eckhart. Thus, the complexity of each thinker's understanding of the human intellect is (...) demonstrated in its own context, and the common themes between them are discussed in their own terms. Based on a systematic study of the original texts, the comparison between Zhu Xi and Meister Eckhart goes much deeper than a general dialogue between East and West. The comparative model of this book, based strictly on textual study, aims to develop an in-depth communication between a scholastic Confucian mind and his equally sophisticated counterpart in Christendom, in the hope that the intellectual brilliance and spiritual splendour of one thinker will be illuminated by the light of the other. 0Probably only when one encounters a like-minded counterpart brought up in a totally different tradition will such a mutual illumination become meaningful. (shrink)