Zhu Xi (1130–1200)

The Chinese neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi was a consummate scholar and classicist as well as a superb critical and synthetic thinker. He fused the ideas of the seminal eleventh-century thinkers Shao Yong, Zhou Tunyi, Zhang Zai, Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi into a grand philosophical synthesis. In addition, by effectively editing and annotating the essential classical Confucian texts – the Analects of Confucius – the Mengzi of Mencius, the Daxue (Great Learning) and the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean) – as the Four Books, Zhu worked out a lasting renewal of the Confucian project.