Wang Bi (born 226 ce, China—died 249, China) was one of the most brilliant and precocious Chinese philosophers of his day. By the time of Wang’s death at the age of 23, he was already the author of outstanding commentaries on the Daoist classic, the Daodejing (or Laozi), and the Confucian mantic classic the Yijing […]
Michael Psellus (born 1018, Constantinople—died c. 1078) was a Byzantine philosopher, theologian, and statesman whose advocacy of Platonic philosophy as ideally integrable with Christian doctrine initiated a renewal of Byzantine classical learning that later influenced the Italian Renaissance. Psellus served in the Byzantine state secretariat under the emperors Michael V (1041–42) and Constantine IX (1042–54).
George Gemistus Plethon (born c. 1355, Constantinople—died 1450/52, Mistra, Morea) was a Byzantine philosopher and humanist scholar whose clarification of the distinction between Platonic and Aristotelian thought proved to be a seminal influence in determining the philosophic orientation of the Italian Renaissance. Plethon studied in Constantinople and at the Ottoman Muslim court in nearby Adrianople.
George Gemistus Plethon Read More »
Yan Yuan (born April 27, 1635, Zhili [now Hubei] province, China—died Sept. 30, 1704, Zhili province) was the Chinese founder of a pragmatic empirical school of Confucianism opposed to the speculative neo-Confucian philosophy that had dominated China since the 11th century. Yan’s father was abducted into the Manchu army when Yan was three. He never
Villy Sørensen (born January 13, 1929, Copenhagen, Denmark—died December 16, 2001, Copenhagen) was an influential writer of modernist short stories and a leading literary critic in Denmark after World War II. Sørensen’s first collection of short stories, Saere historier (Tiger in the Kitchen and Other Strange Stories), appeared in 1953; it was followed in 1955
Wang Chong (born 27 ce, Kueiji, China—died 100?, Kueiji) was one of the most original and independent Chinese thinkers of the Han period (206 bce–220 ce). A rationalistic naturalist during an age of superstition, Wang dared attack the belief in omens and portents that had begun to creep into the Confucian doctrines. He helped pave
Georg Brandes (born Feb. 4, 1842, Copenhagen, Den.—died Feb. 19, 1927, Copenhagen) was a Danish critic and scholar who, from 1870 through the turn of the century, exerted an enormous influence on the Scandinavian literary world. Born into a Jewish family, Brandes graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1864. He was influenced by the
Xu Heng (born 1209, China—died 1281, China) was a Chinese neo-Confucian thinker who became the leading scholar in the court of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan (1215–94). The Mongols reunited China after the fall of the Southern Song dynasty in 1279. After this event the intellectual dynamism of the South profoundly affected intellectual discourse and
Yang Xiong (born c. 53 bc, near Chengdu [now in Sichuan province], China—died ad 18, Chang’an [now Xi’an, Shaanxi province]) was a Chinese poet and philosopher best known for his poetry written in the form known as fu. As a quiet and studious young man, Yang Xiong came to admire and practice the fu form.
John Italus (flourished 11th century) was a Byzantine philosopher, skilled dialectician, and imputed heretic who, at the imperial court, established a school of Platonism that advanced the work of integrating Christian with pagan Greek thought. Italus exerted a lasting influence on the Byzantine mind. Of Calabrian origin, Italus, after a period of court favour under