MENGZI. The name Mengzi, meaning literally "Master Meng," is the honorific epithet of Meng Ke (391–308 BCE), known in the West as "Mencius." Mengzi defended and developed Kongzi's (Confucius's) teachings in response to various challenges in the highly diverse and contentious intellectual world of fourth-century BCE China. In the process, he expounded innovative views about heaven, human nature, the mind, and self-cultivation that proved to be of profound and enduring importance in the later Confucian tradition.

Mengzi was a native of Zou, a small state located at the base of the Shandong peninsula. Traditional accounts claim that he studied under Zisi, Confucius's grandson, but it is more likely that he was a student of one of Zisi's disciples. Mengzi's teachings bear some similarities to parts of the Li ji (Book of rites), which tradition ascribes to Zisi. One also finds common themes and ideas in recently excavated texts, which...