Li Zhi (1527–1602) was a scholar-official during the late Ming period. After passing the civil service examination in 1551, Li Zhi worked as a teacher in Henan. He later served in the Ministry of Rites and Ministry of Justice, before leaving public service in order to devote himself to teaching for the remainder of his life. He was considered unorthodox and heretical by his contemporaries and later faced arrest and imprisonment for his ideas, whereupon he committed suicide in jail in 1602.
As a scholar, Li Zhi was a strong critic of the mainstream Cheng-Zhu School of Neo-Confucianism, which espoused the writings of Cheng Yi, Cheng Hao, and Zhu Xi. He also criticized Daoist and Buddhist thought, though later in life he would study Buddhism and the writings of Wang Yangming. He is generally considered a member of the Taizhou School, a radical school of thought developed by some of Wang Yangming’s followers and known for its individualist and egalitarian ideology.
Li Zhi’s most prominent work, A Book to Burn (Fenshu), consists of a collection of essays, letters, discourses, poems, and other miscellaneous writings. One main theme Li Zhi expresses throughout this text is the power of well-written literature, which he believed allowed for the expression of thoughts and desires one might not normally be permitted to voice. Li Zhi made this belief clear both through straightforward statements about literature’s significance and through the use of clever allusions to literary and scholarly classics.
In what is perhaps his best-known essay from the Fenshu, titled “Explanation of the Childlike Heart-mind,” Li Zhi promotes genuineness and encourages individuals to take ownership of their lives through authenticity. Li Zhi’s understanding of the heart-mind is distinguished from other conceptions within the Confucian tradition by his validation of an individual’s inner desires in opposition to long-established arguments regarding the dangers of excessive and selfish desires. Li Zhi believed that following the traditional method of cultivating one’s heart-mind by studying the classics and freeing oneself from desire would cause one to lose their childlike heart-mind as it would come to be dominated by outside influence, and ultimately the genuine, simplistic thoughts within one’s soul would be expressed superficially. Li Zhi warns against blindly following the ideas expressed by others and within the classics, as being in touch with one’s childlike heart-mind means being in touch with one’s originality, and thus it is necessary for one to draw their own interpretations from classics, rather than prematurely subscribing to prominent beliefs and sentiments. If one maintains a sense of self and originality, their childlike heart-mind will allow for a true, pure expression of their inner thoughts and desires. With his explanation of the childlike heart-mind, Li Zhi emphasizes the importance of determining one’s genuine desires by discerning them from desires and beliefs that have been influenced by others, ultimately confronting existentialist conceptions of freedom involving questions of how to live one’s life with genuineness and authenticity.
Throughout A Book to Keep Hidden (Cangshu), Li Zhi applies this individualistic approach to the genre of historical biography. In the “Introduction to the Table of Contents of the Historical Annals and Biographies” in the Cangshu, Li Zhi sets forth a pluralistic view of the truth in which there is no objective right or wrong. He argues against the mainstream Confucian understanding of objectivity in morality, asserting that all individuals possess an innate knowledge of right and wrong resulting in countless individual truths. For Li Zhi, individual conceptions of right and wrong are all equally legitimate, as such fundamental ideas inevitably differ between people, time periods, and places. Li Zhi propounds a more pluralistic approach to understanding truth and morality, urging individuals to refrain from holding others to arbitrary and subjective standards of right and wrong and to instead use their innate knowledge to develop their own understanding of such concepts.
FURTHER READING
Handler-Spitz, Rivi, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy. The Objectionable Li Zhi: Fiction, Criticism, and Dissent in Late Ming China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021.
Li, Zhi. A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden): Selected Writings. Translated by Rebecca Handler-Spitz, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.
Li, Zhi, and Pauline C. Lee. Li Zhi, Confucianism, and the Virtue of Desire. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012.
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