Abstract

Both Renaissance Europe and Ming China witnessed an epoch-making declaration of the liberation of the mind, a manifesto that laid the groundwork for the emergence of the modern subjective self. In his Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes declares that there is "nothing else to be in me over and above the mind", and "I'm therefore precisely nothing but a thinking thing; that is, a mind, or intellect, or understanding, or reason".1 In defining my self as a thinking thing, Descartes states, "I have taken the being or existence of this thought as the first principle". By thought or cogito, Descartes means "everything that is in us in such a way...