Correcting the Unenlightened (Zhengmeng)

Introduction

A collection of seventeen chapters of short philosophical sayings in classical Chinese, which Zhang Zai completed shortly before his death; his disciple Su Bing arranged it. The title refers to the hexagram meng (“youthful ignorance”) in the Book of Changes, on which much of the text draws. Zhang argues that the Great Void is not empty but qi in its dispersed state, so that Buddhist and Daoist talk of emptiness or non-being rests on a mistake. The last chapter contains the “Western Inscription” (Ximing), which was originally written on the west window of his study; the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi treated it as a classic of Neo-Confucian ethics.

Connections

Builds on

• Mengzic. 300 BCE · Mengzi (Mencius)

Taken up in

• Commentary on Zhang Zai’s Correcting the Unenlightened1685 · Wang Fuzhi