Nie Bao and Luo Hongxian: A Critical Biography

Author: Wu Zhen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-07-01
Features: The school of Yangming after Wang Yangming is renowned for its numerous talented scholars, with various doctrines, philosophical thoughts, and conceptual terms intertwined in a complex and intricate manner. It is commonly believed that Nie Bao and Luo Hongxian are the main representatives of the "Return to Stillness" school within the Yangming school. Huang Zongxi, in his Biographies of Ming Confucian Scholars, categorizes them under the "Jiangyou Wangmen School" and holds high regard for Luo Hongxian's thought. The doctrines proposed by Nie and Luo, such as "Return to Stillness," "Attaining Emptiness and Guarding Stillness," and "Concentrating and Preserving," elicited significant responses within the Wangmen school and the broader intellectual circles of the time. However, research on them has not been extensive. The author of this book attempts to place Nie Bao and Luo Hongxian within the broader context of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, as well as the intellectual development of Wang Yangming and his followers, to examine the of their thought and their intellectual exchanges and debates with other scholars of the Wangmen school. The goal is to fully demonstrate their unique intellectual style within the Yangming school after Wang Yangming and to reassess and redefine their position in the history of Wang Yangming's thought. In the appendices and supplementary discussions of this book, the author also provides a more detailed exploration of Wang Shihuai, a later figure of the "Return to Stillness" school, who has historically received less attention. Additionally, the book includes revisions and verifications of the "Chronological Biographies" and "Writings" of the two main subjects, which are also distinctive features of this work.