Chéng Zhì 程智

(1603–1651) was a late-Míng and early-Qīng thinker whose philosophy combined study of the Yìjīng with elements drawn from Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist thought. Of particular importance to the history of Chinese logical thought was his lost Shǒubáilùn, which took Gōngsūn Lóng as its principal authority and developed his doctrines into a scheme of sixteen topics. The work is now known chiefly through Quán Zǔwàng’s summary and quotations. Although too little survives for its arguments to be reconstructed confidently, it is remarkable evidence that Gōngsūn Lóng’s thought could still serve as the basis of an ambitious and apparently systematic philosophical project in the seventeenth century.