 Qing philosophy refers to the topography of the intellectual terrain of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China, which sported coherent patterns and modes of intellection and argumentation among the texts and writings of the scholars in the period. In accordance with the current historiographical convention, the time-span fell within the so-called “late imperial” era that encompassed the transition from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) to the Qing (1644–1911), as well as the first half of the Qing imperium. That Qing philosophy is distinguished as an independent subject and entity, with its presumed boundaries and prominent features, is not merely a function of chronology. Rather, it points to a substantial departure from the preceding intellectual traditions, which in their aggregate form, amounted to Neo-Confucianism of the Song (960–1279) and Ming times. While Neo-Confucianism was not a monolith to be sure, to the extent that it argued robustly on behalf of individual moral introspection via one’s nature (xing) and mind-heart (xin) as the realization of ultimate metaphysical truths—variously construed as heaven (tian), principle (li), the great ultimate (taiji), and the Way (dao)—it represented the foremost unfolding and predictive reality-principle that was Song-Ming thought in its totality. Qing philosophy, being in many ways a negative reaction to it, was a rupture to begin with, even though in terms of intellectual history, multifarious aspects of continuity, apart from discontinuity, must be taken into account. 