Wang Fuzhi was a Chinese philosopher in the late neo-Confucian School. After his initial attempt to resist the Manchu invasion of China had failed, he devoted the rest of his life to the reinterpretation of Chinese philosophical classics and the development of his own philosophical view. The last seventeen years of his life were spent as a hermit at the foot of a barren mountain which he named "the boat mountain" (chuanshan); hence his well-known alias: Wang Chuanshan. His copious works were first published posthumously by his son. Most notable among his works are: Du Sishu Daquan Shuo (Discourse on reading the great collection of commentaries on the four books), Zhouyi Waizhuan (External commentary on the book of changes), Zhouyi Neizhuan (Internal commentary on the book of changes), Du Tongjian Lun (A treatise on reading Tongjian), and Zhuangzi Zhengmeng Zhu (Commentary on Zhang Zai's...