 Thus, late imperial Chinese philosophy, or Qing philosophy, is a period concept, that is, a substantive designation of an independent historico-intellectual epoch with a distinct physiognomy, an internal coherence, identifiable mental habit, and autonomous scholarly style, distinguished from the preceding Song-Ming philosophical style and content, as represented by Neo-Confucianism. The construction of this period concept is an exercise in intellectual cartography by selecting and representing the significant ideational landmarks of an intellectual landscape, thereby providing a perspective and knowledge of the terrain. The major landmarks are the dominant modes, or ideal-types, of intellectual articulation, and Qing philosophy sported four—vitalism, historicism, utilitarianism, and intellectualism. They functioned as the basic criteria of intelligibility and importance, offering the fundamental points of view according to which learning was described, measured, valuated, and adjudicated. In the process, they dislodged and supplanted the moral metaphysics and inward ethical introspection of Song-Ming thought, which was premised on the idea of realizing the totalizing dao (the Way), li (principle), and tian (heaven) through self-cultivation of the mind-heart (xin). To the extent that humanity’s moral nature (dexing) was endowed by heaven, moral-ethico perfection was the realization of the mandate of heaven (tianming), manifested as the ritual order established by the ancient sages. In Song-Ming thought, apprehending dao/li/tian was not merely an epistemological process, in that knowledge of dao/tian/ti was a metapraxis in which virtue, reason, knowing, and action converged.