Wang Bi and Chinese Culture

Author: Han Qiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-10-01
Features: This book is a monograph on the relationship between Wang Bi's Xuanxue system and Chinese culture. The author meticulously summarizes the achievements of scholars in studying Wang Bi's thought since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Employing hermeneutic methods, the book examines the evolution from Han Dynasty Confucian classics to Wei-Jin Xuanxue, elucidating the hermeneutic principles of Wang Bi's annotations on the Book of Changes and the Tao Te Ching—promoting the spiritual essence of cultural classics, and integrating Confucian rituals and music culture with Daoist nature-based human culture. It analyzes Wang Bi's metaphysics of the "Emptiness" as the foundation, his methodology of "words cannot fully express meaning," his social view that "ritual propriety originates from nature," and the life realm of the sage embodying "Emptiness." The book explores the influence of Wang Bi's thought on various cultural fields of the Wei-Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties periods, such as literature, music, and painting, as well as its impact on Buddhism, Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, and modern New Confucian cultural perspectives.