"Chiao Hung (1540?-1620) was an important late Ming intellectual associated with trends that were both a radical culmination of Ming Neo-Confucianism and a seedbed of new perspectives leading to the later rejection of Ming thought. This provocative book extends beyond Chiao Hung as an individual and explores the attempt in early modern Chinese history to restructure Neo-Confucianism as an intellectual event. Edward T. Ch'ien articulates the development of central problems in Ming thought, relates them convincingly to the earlier tradition, asserts their originality in Chiao Hung's formulations, and places them in a logical context with later developments. Ch'ien's study focuses on three issues in Chinese intellectual history: Neo-Confucian syncretism, the controversy between Ch'eng-Chu and Lu-Wang schools of Neo-Confucianism, and the emergence of 'evidential research' both as a type of scholarship and as a mode of though. It also clarifies some of the major issues in Chinese intellectual history." -- from book jacket.