Xinlixue

Xinlixue, meaning "New Rational Philosophy," is a philosophical system developed by the 20th-century Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan in 1939. This work aimed to convert certain 12th-century neo-Confucian ideas about the world into formal logical concepts, presenting them in a systematic manner that was novel to traditional Chinese philosophy, which often relied on assertion and metaphor. Feng Youlan later repudiated Xinlixue as idealistic and abstract after the communist revolution in China, though he faced criticism for continuing to advocate for idealistic philosophy. The term Xuanxue, or "Dark Learning," also refers to a philosophical movement in early medieval China focused on metaphysical problems and the search for a permanent substratum behind the world of change.12