Rather, li are always conceived as structuring, balancing, modulating, guiding phenomena, processes, reflection and human discernment and response.
The cultural, moral dimension of Needham’s account has been developed by Cheng-ying Cheng and John Berthrong while the scientific dimension has been examined by Yung Sik Kim. In the 1980s, A.C. Graham offered the most insightful and apt account of Zhu’s terminology and pattern of thought in, “What Was New in the Ch’eng-Chu Theory of Human Nature?” and other writings. Graham showed decisively that the term li refers to an embedded contextual “pattern”, rather than to any sort of abstract form or principle. He reminded us that the term li never figures in propositions or logical sequences, as would be natural for “principle”. Rather, li are always conceived as structuring, balancing, modulating, guiding phenomena, processes, reflection and human discernment and response. For example, one never finds moral syllogisms in Zhu Xi’s writings. Many of Zhu’s discussions thus concern moral emotional intelligence: attunement, sensitivity, discernment, and response. Joseph Adler views li as indicative of an “ordering” tendency that may be manifested as “pattern” or as “principle” in differing contexts. (We might say that people devise principles in the light of observed patterns.) Adler also examines the key roles played by the Book of Change and Zhou Dunyi in the formation of Zhu’s thought, and joins Thomas Wilson and Hoyt Tillman in showing the extent to which Zhu Xi re-visioned, revised, and recast the Confucian Way.
