11. Ivanhoe, Readings from the Lu-Wang School of Neo-Confucianism, 161.

12. As Ames has explained, zhi is not only informative but also performative and perlocutionary.

13. See Liu Shu-hsien, “The Concept of Human Being in Ming Neo-Confucian Philosophy,” 157–171. Related to this question is the attempt of balancing the polarities “human nature-education” (xingxue 性學) and “basic quality-cultural refinement” (zhiwen 質文), which require a general reflection on human civilization in its evolutionary process.

14. Cf. Yangming quanshu, 4:16b.

15. See also Daxue wen 大學問, Chuanxilu, Yangming quanshu, 26:2a; 1:2a, 1:5b, 1:7a, 1:10b, 1:15b, 1:17b, 1:24a, 3:1b, 1:20b–21a.

16. Yangming quanshu, Chuanxilu, 3:18.

17. See Cua, The Unity of Knowledge and Action, 24.

18. Yangming quanshu, 2:11b. Wang Yangming’s stress on Confucian hierarchy and roles is confirmed by Du Weiming’s reinterpretation of Confucian doctrine (Tu Wei-Ming, Confucian Thought, 14, 43, 57, 118, 113–137, 140). Although the self is not reducible to its social roles (58), as Chad Hansen points out in his book review of Confucian Thought (359–360), the body is not managed by the individual subject but it is bound to the parent-child relationship, and terms such as “self” and “subjectivity” are used to indicate a normative set of human relantionships.

19. 天地生意，花草一般。何曾有善惡之分？子欲觀花，則以花為善，以草為惡。如欲用草時，復以草為善矣。此等善惡，皆由汝心好惡所生。故知是錯」。Wang Yangming, Chuanxilu, 101 (Yangming quanshu, 1:21–22. See Chan Wing-tsit, Instructions for Practical Living, 63).

20. Wang Yangming, Chuanxilu, Yangming quanshu, 2:27. Translated by Chan Wing-tsit, Instructions for Practical Living, 159.

21. Haiyan Lee, Revolution of the Heart, 35. However, Lee stresses that “‘the cult of qing’ does not effect an epistemic break with Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. For all its effort to legitimise the affective and the individual, it is still committed to patrilineal continuity, ritual propriety, and the social order” (38). See also Lee, “All the Feelings That Are Fit to Print,” 291–327.

22. Cf. Wang Yangming, Yangming quanshu, 1:9a–b–10a. See also Chan Wing-tsit’s trans., Instructions for Practical Living, 27–28.

23. The concepts of “relativity” and “universality,” just like that of “individualism” may be adapted with caution to fit traditional China. The concept of Dao indubitably plays a fundamental role at the basis of development