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1. de Bary, Learning for One’s Self.

2. Wong Wan-Chi, “A Genealogy of Self in Chinese,” 1–54. On the different ways of self-realization, see also Lynn, “Alternate Routes to Self-Realization in Ming Theories of Poetry.” Lynn compares the opposing methods of Archaists and anti-Archaists with those of the School of Principles and of Taizhou School. Archaists insisted that self-realization could be learned from without and internalized through the emulation of the great masters of the past; on the contrary, according to the anti-Archaists it could be reached within through the spontaneous exercise of the expressive innate faculties; a parallel is drawn between the opposed paths for self-realization by the orthodox Neo-Confucians and by the radicals of Taizhou School (Lynn, “Alternate Routes to Self-Realization in Ming Theories of Poetry,” 338).

3. Zhu Xi, Zhuzi Yulei, 33: 842, 845, 850851.

4. Lunyu 6, 28 and 15, 23 respectively.

5. Zhu Xi, Zhuzi Yulei, 27: 689695, 33: 842854; see also Graham, Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature, 428–430. Moreover, Zhu Xi recognizes that in expressing certain vital needs, human desires can share the same principles of Heaven (人欲中自有天理, see Zhuzi Yulei, 13: 224). See Tang, Shangren yu Zhongguo, 209–211.

6. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. See also Doomen, “Smith’s Analysis of Human Actions. Ethic,” 111–122; and Macfie, The Individual in Society. On the idea of true freedom linked to the concept of the highest human happiness in Spinoza, see Boros, “Freedom in Nature,” 34; and Kisner, Spinoza on Human Freedom, 72–86.

7. We may mention two different trends, the so-called “Evidential Scholarship” (kaozheng xuepai 考證學派), and especially the counter-culture of the circles who pursued an uncanny and leisure aesthetic life.

8. Gao Xiang (“The Rise of a New Tradition”) demonstrates the emergence of a new cultural trend that advocated for the expansion of human freedom, the development of individuality, material enjoyment and hedonistic life.

9. de Bary, “Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming Thought,” 155–156.

10. Chan Wing-tsit, Instructions for Practical Living, xix.