The Zhang Lvxiang The Philosophy Study

Zhang Lu-xiang was a famous Neo-Confucian and a very important scholar in the Ming-Qing Period, though he was not famous in his whole life. After the Qing Dynasty became the central government, he refused to take the official place. He insisted to live in the countryside and he was famous for combining farming with reading and writing. Zhang's research was influenced by the Lu-Wang School, and when he was thirty-four he followed Liu Zong-zhou, a famous scholar in the Wang School. Zhang was an important scholar in the Jishan School. Later, he hated the disadvantages of the late Wang School because he believed that it was Wang School that induced the perdition of the Ming Dynasty. Then he gave up the Wang School and turned towards Chen-Zhu School, and became a famous Chen-Zhu Neo-Confucian scholar in the early Qing Dynasty. He critiqued the disadvantages of Wang School and he had played an very important role in the renaissance of Chen-Zhu School in the early Qing Dynasty. Due to that social convulsions his own poor living status, he had paid more attention to living and emphasize the importance of living. He rationalized living of scholars in theory and stressed the importance of living to scholars' independence personality. It was a breakthrough to traditional idealism of Neo-Confucianism.