Origins of Great Ideas

道

Taoism — Tao

老子

"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao"

仁

Confucianism — Ren

孔子

"Do not impose on others what you do not desire yourself"

愛

Mohism — Universal Love

墨子

"Love all people equally"

法

Legalism — Law

韓非子

"The law does not distinguish noble from common"

無

Wuwei — Effortless Action

莊子

"Do by not doing"

中

Doctrine of the Mean — Zhongyong

子思

"The unbent is the strongest stance"

禪

Zen — Chan

慧能

"Mind transmits to mind beyond words"

理

Neo-Confucianism — Principle

朱熹

"Approach things, and principle emerges"

心

Yangming Studies — Mind

王陽明

"Knowing and doing are originally one"

東

Donghak — Eastern Learning

崔濟愚

"Human is Heaven"

實

Silhak — Practical Learning

丁若鏞

"If it does not serve the people, it is not learning"

華

Huayan — Flower Garland

義湘

"One is all, all is one"

孝

Filial Piety — Xiao

曾子

"Whoever remembers the root, their leaves stay green"

忍

Stoicism — Endurance

Zeno of Citium

"The calm to accept what cannot be changed"

樂

Epicureanism — Pleasure

Epicurus

"Reduce desires you can do without"

形

Platonism — Form

Plato

"Beyond every visible thing lies an invisible Form"

善

Aristotelianism — The Good

Aristotle

"Habit is character"

思

Cartesianism — Thought

René Descartes

"I doubt, therefore I am"

義

Kantian Imperative — Duty

Immanuel Kant

"Act only on a rule you would want all to follow"

變

Hegelian Dialectic — Becoming

G.W.F. Hegel

"Contradiction is the engine of progress"

益

Utilitarianism — Greatest Good

Jeremy Bentham

"The greatest good for the greatest number"

存

Existentialism — Being

Søren Kierkegaard

"Existence precedes essence"

用

Pragmatism — Practice

William James

"Truth is verified by what works"

觀

Phenomenology — Observation

Edmund Husserl

"Suspend judgment, return to things themselves"

人

Renaissance Humanism — Human

Petrarch

"Man is the measure of all things"

啓

Enlightenment — Illumination

Voltaire

"Dare to know — Sapere aude"

情

Romanticism — Feeling

J.W. Goethe

"Where reason fails, poetry begins"

新

Modernism — New

Virginia Woolf

"Break the past, start anew"

簡

Minimalism — Simplicity

Donald Judd

"What is absent is present"

共

Ecocentrism — Co-existence

Rachel Carson

"Humans are guests of nature, not its masters"