Zhu Xi

Zhu Xi was a Southern Song dynasty philosopher and the leading systematizer of Neo-Confucianism, the revival of Confucian thought that reframed ethics through the concepts of li (principle/pattern) and qi (material force). Passing the imperial examination young, he held minor prefectural posts but favored sinecure temple guardianships that freed him for scholarship and teaching. He revived the White Deer Grotto Academy and grouped four classical texts as the "Four Books," writing commentaries that anchored China's civil-service curriculum for roughly six centuries. Briefly a court lecturer, his teaching was later censured as heterodox, then posthumously honored. He died in 1200 near Jianyang, Fujian.