Problem of "Nature and Heavenly Tao" and the Distinction of Schools of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties

Problem of and Heavenly Tao is abandoned by Confucians from Han to Tang Dynasties though it is a basic source of thought to Chinese philosophy of ontology. The philosophers of Wei and Jin Dynasties broke through the dull arguments between heaven and man according to their new views. The Confucian revival after Tang Dynasty was essentially the restoration of nature, from which the NeoConfucians created the distinct theoretical systems of NeoConfucianism and the categories of noumena on the basis of their conscious cognition of and Heavenly Tao. Hu Hong interpreted the full development of as the completion of in term of his sumup of the different viewpoints of nature and schools in the North Song Dynasty. He founded the School of Nature which distinguished from schools of material force, heavenly principle or mind. Thus, NeoConfucianism as a whole was formally founded.