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Grand Family-tending, Wonderland-exploring, and Human Realization: A Comparison and Contrast between Zhang Zai’s “Western Inscription” and Kant’s “Conclusion” of the Critique of Practical Reason

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Abstract

Zhang Zai’s 張載 “Western Inscription (Ximing 西銘)” and Kant’s “Conclusion” of the Critique of Practical Reason are two profound pieces. As of yet, no comparative study has been made of the two. I argue that a comparative and contrasting study provides us a window into the central and powerful ideas within these two pieces. Section 2 of this article contrasts Zhang Zai’s “Heaven-Earth” with Kant’s starry heavens, his external “wonderland.” Section 3 contrasts Zhang Zai’s teaching of morality by personal commitment and exemplars with Kant’s teaching of morality by a theory based on the moral law within, his inner “wonderland.” Section 4 compares and contrasts Zhang Zai’s human self-realization in the one world of Heaven-Earth with Kant’s human (generic) realization in the coming-together of the two “wonderlands.” By stressing some significant differences between Zhang Zai and Kant, I conclude that the view that takes Kant’s coming-together of the two “wonderlands” as a version of the union or interpenetration between the cosmos and the human (tian ren he yi 天人合一, as Zhang Zai used it) will need important qualifications.

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Acknowledgment

I would like to thank two anonymous referees and the editor Huang Yong for their very helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article.

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Correspondence to Puqun Li.

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Li, P. Grand Family-tending, Wonderland-exploring, and Human Realization: A Comparison and Contrast between Zhang Zai’s “Western Inscription” and Kant’s “Conclusion” of the Critique of Practical Reason. Dao 21, 81–105 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-021-09816-6

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