Xue Xuan

…first outstanding Ming Confucian scholar, Xue Xuan (1389–1464), already revealed the turn toward moral subjectivity. Although Xue was a devoted follower of Zhu Xi, Xue’s Records of Reading clearly shows that he considered the cultivation of “mind and nature” to be particularly important. Two other early Ming scholars, Wu Yubi…

…best characterized by the scholar Xue Xuan’s insistence that the Daoist Way had been made so clear by Zhu Xi that nothing remained but to put it into practice. Philosophical problems about human identity and destiny, however, especially in an increasingly autocratic system, rankled in many minds, and new blends…