Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture

Principle for the Application of Rules and Norms

This is a principle for the application of rules and norms, first cited in The Great Learning, a section ofThe Book of Rites. The Book advocates the use of xieju by administrators in governance when dealing with people. Xie (絜) originally meant a string used for measuring the circumference of an object, while ju (矩) was a square used for drawing s…

Discerning Things Through Classification

This term means to ascertain the similarities and differences between things by classifying them. This phrase originated in The Book of Changes, which regarded everything in the world as belonging to different categories, and those with similar features being in the same group. Thus, one can tell the similarities and differences of things by groupin…

Revere the Fundamental and Dismiss the Specific

This term deals with the relationship between the fundamental and the specific. In interpreting Laozi, Wang Bi (226-249) put forth the idea of “revering the fundamental and dismissing the specific,” as opposed to the idea of “revering the fundamental and keeping the specific unchanged.” The fundamental here means Dao which is shapeless and namel…

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: The purposes of the Project are to select the concepts in Chinese culture and thought that reflect the characteristics of the country's traditional culture and the Chinese people's way of thinking, and that embody the core values of China.
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