Mou Zongsan, an eminent scholar in contemporary China, introduced a distinctive view to interpret Zhang Zai’s Proposition “The Great Void refers to air”, saying that “the Great Void is the existence of god”. With this position, Mou believes that “the Great Void” is not air but the supersubject which is internalized as air. Based on Mou’s view, cosmism cannot be defined as natural philosophy as was defined by the Qi theorist but as cosmism as the subject in terms of “moral metaphysics”. Mou’s interpretation not only proposes the necessity of reinvestigate the character of Zhang Zai’s philosophy but also seek some different possibility to interpret traditional intelligence.

Mou Zongsan; Zhang Zai; “The Great Void refers to air”; theory of Qi; cosmism as the subject