CHINESE METAPHYSICS AS A FRUIFUL SUBJECT OF STUDY

Chenyang Li and Franklin Perkins(Forthcoming in Journal of East-West Thought )

Abstract: The study of Chinese philosophy in the English-speaking world haslargely focused on ethical and political theories. In comparison, Chinesemetaphysics—here understood primarily as theories regarding the nature,components, and operating principles of reality—has been far lessresearched and recognized. In this essay, we examine various meanings of“metaphysics” as it has been used in denoting a branch of philosophy andmake the case that metaphysics is an important part of Chinese philosophy.We argue for the need to study Chinese metaphysics as a serious field ofscholarship. We also present some most recent studies of Chinesemetaphysics by leading scholars of Chinese philosophy who publish in theEnglish-speaking world. This essay aims to show that not only that Chinesemetaphysics is an appropriate and legitimate subject of scholarly researchbut it can also be a fruitful subfield of in the study in Chinese philosophy.

A rapid growth of interest in Chinese philosophy hasaccompanied the rise of China on the world stage. Thisinterest, though, has generally focused on ethical andpolitical theories, ranging from connections betweenvirtue ethics and Confucianism, to applications of Daoismto environmental ethics, to debates on the implicationsof Confucian political thought for democracy. Incomparison, Chinese metaphysics—here understood primarilyas theories regarding the nature, components, andoperating principles of reality—has been far lessresearched and recognized. In this essay, we examinevarious meanings of “metaphysics” as it has been used indenoting a branch of philosophy and make the case thatmetaphysics is an important part of Chinese philosophy.We argue for the need to study Chinese metaphysics as aserious field of scholarship. In the later part of theessay, we will present some most recent studies ofChinese metaphysics by leading scholars of Chinesephilosophy who publish in the English-speaking world. Thecentral point of this essay is that not only that Chinese

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metaphysics is an appropriate and legitimate subject ofscholarly research but it can also be a fruitful subfieldof in the study in Chinese philosophy.

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Raising the question of studying Chinese metaphysicsimplies that the Chinese have metaphysics. Such a claimitself invites a host of questions. Do the Chinese reallyhave metaphysics? If so, what is it? Is Chinesemetaphysics fundamentally and qualitatively differentfrom Western metaphysics? If there are fundamental andqualitative differences, what are these differences, andwhat are their implications for the study of metaphysics?Questions such as these have been debated for decades,but there is little consensus on the answers. Much ofthese debates, of course, hinge on one notoriouslydifficult question: what is metaphysics? Although it isnot so difficult to recognize whether or not a specificissue is metaphysical, it is nearly impossible to give aprecise definition that corresponds to our actual uses ofthe term. In fact, Peter van Inwagen has suggested thatin the seventeenth century, the category of metaphysicsexpanded to become “a repository of philosophicalproblems that could not be otherwise classified,” so thatthe category itself lacked unity (van Inwagen 2007).Thus a precise and final definition is unlikely to workand we must rather take our orientation from a looselyconnected set of problems or a general domain ofconcerns.

If we look historically, the word “metaphysics” wasoriginally associated with a branch of Aristotle’sphilosophy. It is derived from a collective title givenby his student(s) to the fourteen books by Aristotle thatwe currently think of as making up his Metaphysics (vanInwagen 2007). The word literally means “after thePhysics,” probably indicating the place of the topicscovered in these books in Aristotle’s philosophical

curriculum. It suggests that one should study this partafter having studied the Physics, which deals with nature.Because “meta” also means “beyond,” “metaphysics” mayalso be interpreted as “the science of what is beyond thephysical,” but that itself is open to severalinterpretations. Metaphysics could be the study of whatis beyond the reach of the natural sciences, or beyondthe whole of nature (studying the “supernatural”), orbeyond the whole changing world of appearances andperception. Aristotle himself, however, did not use theterm “metaphysics.” He defines this part of thephilosophy in terms of “first philosophy,” which is thescience that studies “the first causes and the principlesof things” or “being qua being” (Metaphysics 981b28,1003a21; Barnes 1553, 1584). The latter has come to becalled ontology, the science (logos) of being (onto) assuch. In the fourteen books of the Metaphysics, Aristotlecovers a wide range of subjects, including existence ingeneral (“being”), the constitution of reality (“matter,”“form,” “universals”), individual entities (“substance”),identity (“essence,” “definition”), and change(“actuality,” “potentiality,” “material cause,” “formalcause,” “efficient cause,” “final cause”). If we usethese topics from Aristotle to designate a general domainof concern or inquiry, we could call “metaphysics” thestudy of reality in its general form. That would includethe nature of being itself, but would also encompassdiscussions of the kinds of beings that exist, the basicforms of causality, the sources of order and generation,and so on. In practice, the boundaries of metaphysicsare sometimes vague and subject to change, and questionsabout the boundaries themselves can be considered to bewithin the domain of metaphysics.

If we use “metaphysics” in this sense, it is obviousthat metaphysics is present in Chinese thought, traceablemost clearly back to such texts as the Yijing, the Daodejing,and the Huainanzi. Chinese philosophers have since

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antiquity debated about existence and non-existence interms of “you 有” and “wu 有”; they developed a conception ofthe constitution of things in terms of patterns of “qi 有”(material force); and they understood the worldoverwhelmingly as in a perpetual state of change (“yi 有”).Many Chinese thinkers labeled the ultimate reality as the“dao 有 ” (the “way”) and took the fundamental operatingprinciple of the world as the pairing forces of “yin-yang 有有 .” While there was no Chinese term correspondingprecisely to the Western term “metaphysics,” the phrasecommonly used to translate “metaphysics” into Chinese wastaken from the Yijing. The Yijing classifies two forms ofexistence as “what is without (specific) forms 有有有有” and“what is with (specific) forms 有有有有” (Gao Heng 1998, 407),or literally, “what are above (shang) forms” and “what arebelow (xia) forms.” Being “above” something impliestranscending it or not being confined by it. “What isabove forms,” therefore, means what is not confined byany forms. These can also be seen as two realms ofstudies, with the latter roughly corresponding to thetangible physical realm and the former the “realm beyondthe tangible.” Studying what is beyond the tangible orthings confined by specific forms is not a matter ofphysics; it is metaphysical. Moreover, questions aboutthe line between what is above and what is below formsare themselves metaphysical questions.

Ancient Chinese thinkers pondered such things as “ 有dao,” “有 qi,” “有有 taiji” (the Origin) and “有有 liangyi” (the TwoForces) in attempting to explicate phenomena in theworld. Their indigenous metaphysical views were greatlyenriched by the absorption of Buddhist metaphysics, whicheventually led to new forms of Confucian metaphysics asmanifested in what has become known in English as “Neo-Confucianism” during the Song and Ming dynasties. Thoughunquestionably different, notions like “有 qi” and “有 li” inNeo-Confucianism can be seen as counterparts of “matter”and “form” in Aristotelian metaphysics. Similar ideas on

both sides are employed to account for “what is with(specific) forms” in terms of “what is without (specific)forms.”

Given that Chinese philosophers obviously discussedthe nature of reality and the ways of its operation, whywould anyone say that the Chinese do not havemetaphysics? To understand this question, it is helpfulto distinguish a general domain of concern or inquiryfrom the specific questions asked in any given traditionin that domain, which then must also be distinguishedfrom the specific theories meant to answer thosequestions. These layers are difficult to discern withouta cross-cultural view. That is, from a view restricted toone culture, it is easy to think that the questions inthat tradition are the only legitimate questions.Moreover, if certain answers to the questions aredominant enough, one might take them as the only possibleanswers. In this way, the answers that emerge can be seenas definitive of the domain of inquiry itself. Two of themost central questions of metaphysics are, what isultimately real, and, what is the ultimate cause for whatexists? In the Western tradition, the dominant answers toboth questions, at least before the 20th century, havebeen what is eternal and unchanging. From the start ofthe medieval period well into the 17th and 18th centuries,almost every European philosopher took the ultimatemetaphysical foundation to be a God that transcended theworld and existed outside of time and change. It is moredifficult to generalize about the classical world, butthe most extreme proponent of this view was Parmenides,who denied that change is even possible. He held thatthere is only Being and that non-being does not exist.Without non-being, Being itself does not change. Ittherefore follows that becoming is impossible (Graham2010: 215-219). While this denial of change was anexception rather than the norm, the most influentialGreek philosophers did privilege the eternal in their

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metaphysics. This is most obvious in Plato’s philosophy,where the forms that ground reality and our understandingof it are all eternal and unchanging. Even Aristotle, whotook change much more seriously, held the ultimatedriving force of the universe as an “unmoved mover”(Physics 8.6; 260a15019; Barnes 434). All things are putinto motion through emulation of this eternal unchangingbeing, which serves as the ultimate final cause for allthat exists (Metaphysics XII.7 1072a25-26; Barnes 1694).With the Christianization of Western Philosophy, aperfect and eternal God took the place of this ultimatereality, a position which remained dominant into the 19th

century.If we take metaphysics as the study of the ultimate

and take the ultimate as the unchanging, then it followsthat metaphysics is the study of “things that do notchange.” On this definition, there would be no (orlittle) Chinese metaphysics. Ancient Chinese viewed “whatis without (specific) forms” as the dao, but the dao isnot fixed. Its nature—if we can say so—is change, asexpounded in the Yijing, often regarded as the primaryclassic of all Chinese classics. To put it another way,the only thing that does not change is change. The“constant Dao” is the constantly changing Dao. Ifmetaphysics is understood as a study of what isunchanging, then Chinese thought did not havemetaphysics; or, as Roger Ames says in a forthcomingessay, it had an ametaphysic metaphysics (Ames 2015). Inother words, Chinese metaphysics generally rejects thefundamental assumption of an unchanging reality andinstead takes the ultimate itself as changing.

The definition of metaphysics as the study of what isunchanging naturally leads into another commondefinition, that metaphysics studies what is beyond thesensible world of appearances. It is obvious that theworld around us changes; we never experience anythingthat is truly unchanging. If the ultimate reality is

unchanging, then, it must be radically different from theworld that appears around us. This view leads to atranscendental realm, in terms of “forms,” “God,” or the“noumenal” in Western philosophy. This separation isclearest in Kant, who said of the sources of metaphysicalcognition: “it already lies in the concept of metaphysicsthat they cannot be empirical . . . for the cognition issupposed to be not physical but metaphysical, i.e., lyingbeyond experience” (Kant 1997, 15). In this quotation,Kant takes lying beyond experience as definitive of thedomain of metaphysics. Once again, if we take thisdefinition of metaphysics, then there would be no (orlittle) Chinese metaphysics. Just as Chinese thinkers didnot posit an unchanging ultimate reality, they generallydid not take the ultimate as radically transcending theworld. This contrast is pointed out nicely by therenowned 20th century Chinese philosopher Tang Junyi 有有有,who described the mainstream Western mind as follows,

Starting with pursuing substance beyond phenomena, theWestern mind regards all phenomena as attributes ofthings instead of reality itself. Consequently, italways attempts to put aside phenomena in order toexplore the real and unchanging substance underlying thecosmos. In contrast, the cosmos in the Chinese mind isonly a flow, a dynamism; all things in the cosmos canonly be in process, beyond which there is no fixedreality as substratum. (Tang 1988, 9-10)

Chinese thinkers did make a qualitative distinctionbetween the realm of “what is with (specific) forms” andthat of “what is without (specific) forms.” A thing witha form is an instrument (qi 有), which can be perceived andspecifically described. That which is without formscannot be perceived or specifically described. In thislimited sense, there is something like a reality-appearance distinction. But there is no transcendentaldistinction between the two realms. The same pointapplies to the distinction between “li 有 ” (“order,”

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“principle”) and “qi 有 ” (material force). Although theNeo-Confucian Zhu Xi (1130-1200) held a somewhat dualistview of the two, they are not ultimately separable,because li resides with qi, and without qi, li would havenothing to attach with (Li 1986, 3). It is perhaps inthis sense that we should understand Roger Ames when hewrites,

There is little evidence that early Chinese thinkers wereinterested in the search for and the articulation of anontological ground for phenomena—some Being behind thebeings, some One behind the many, some ideal world behindthe world of change. (Ames 2011, 216) For the ancient Chinese, change occurs at both the

levels of “what is with (specific) forms” and “what iswithout (specific) forms.” The key contrast is not interms of “being” versus “becoming” but rather “form” and“formless.” Furthermore, the realm of “what is without(specific) forms” is not like a “God” who isfundamentally distinct from the physical world. Instead,“what is with (specific) forms” is a manifestation of“what is without (specific) forms,” just as the qi 有solidified in tangible entities is the same stuff as theqi dispersed. These two “realms” are better seen as twoconceptions of the same existence, because without “whatis with (specific) forms” there is no “what is without(specific) forms.” Without believing in a transcendentalrealm, Chinese thinkers could not have had a “science” tostudy it. If metaphysics is to be defined as the“science” that studies solely what transcends appearance,then we would have to say that ancient Chinese thinkersdid not have metaphysics.

In both of these cases, though, one mistakenlyidentifies metaphysics with particular answers to themain metaphysical questions. There are a host of problemswith such an identification. Most obviously, it excludesmany Western philosophers who are uncontroversiallyidentified as doing metaphysics. While it is generally true

that most Western philosophers have taken the ultimatereality and the ultimate cause of reality to be eternaland transcendent (e.g., God), it would be false to claimsthat all Western metaphysicians uniformly presuppose anunchanging reality as the object of their study. In theTheatetus, Socrates tells us “a secret” doctrine of theearly Greeks:

There is no single thing or quality, but out ofmotion and change and admixture all things are becomingrelatively to one another, which “becoming” is by usincorrectly called being, but is really becoming, fornothing ever is, but all things are becoming. (Edman1936: 474)

Socrates affirms that this was even not a minority view:

Summon all philosophers-Protagoras, Heraclitus,Empedocles, and the rest of them, one after another, andwith the exception of Parmenides they will agree withyou in this. Summon the great masters of either kind ofpoetry-Epicharmus, the prince of Comedy, and Homer ofTragedy; when the latter sings of “Ocean whence sprangthe gods, and mother Tethys,” does he not mean that allthings are the offspring of flux and motion? (Edman1936: 474-5)

Similarly, in Book IV of Metaphysics, Aristotle speaks ofhow earlier Greek philosophers’ view of an ever changingreality affected their view of what is knowable:

Because they saw that all this world of nature is inmovement and that about that which changes no truestatement can be made, they said that of course,regarding that which everywhere in every respect ischanging, nothing could truly be affirmed. It was thisbelief that blossomed into the most extreme of the viewsabove mentioned, that of the professed Heracliteans.(Metaphysics IV. 5)

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Aristotle here refers to thinkers like Cratylus, whoallegedly did not think he could say anything meaningfulbut only moved his finger, because things were inconstant change. Cratylus criticized Heraclitus forsaying that it is impossible to step twice into the sameriver; he went so far as to hold that one could not stepinto the same river even once. Denial of the existence ofan unchanging reality places one in opposition to thoseaffirming it. But either way, both are engaging in adebate within the domain of metaphysics. Jean-Paul Sartreonce said: “I do not think myself any less ametaphysician in denying the existence of God thanLeibniz was in affirming it” (Sartre 1949, 139).Likewise, thinkers such as Protagoras, Heraclitus, andCratylus are legitimate subjects for books on the historyof metaphysics. It should also be noted that their viewsdid not die out in the West. While the Christianizationof Western philosophy made such views nearly impossibleto express, process-oriented views emerged again in the18th and 19th centuries, as with Hegel and Nietzsche, andit is safe to say that their views and the likes becamedominant among philosophers of the 20th century.

The claim that metaphysics exclusively studies thetranscendental realm also is a generalization with manyexceptions. Even though regarding his “first philosophy”as “the most divine science” that studies the cause ofall things (Metaphysics Book 1, 983a 6-10; Barnes 1555),Aristotle evidently covers this-worldly objects in hismetaphysics. For the most part, the “four causes” are nottranscendental in character. Contra Plato, Aristotleplaces them in the same realm as ordinary objects. Bricksare the material cause of a house; parents are theefficient cause of a child. Moving forward in thetradition, no one would deny that Spinoza was ametaphysician, but his whole philosophy was directedtoward a rejection of transcendence. For Spinoza, God andNature are one and the same. He establishes this by

insisting that God as a substance possesses infiniteattributes and that no two substances can share anattribute. It follows that the existence of that infinitesubstance precludes the existence of any other substance.Therefore, Nature or God is an indivisible, uncaused,substantial whole. All is in it. All is immanent. Thesame can be said for Hegel and for many 20th centuryphilosophers. Hegel’s infinite Geist, or cosmic spirit,realizes itself by unfolding from lower to higherdevelopmental stages in the forms of the finite throughdialectical processes. The Geist is not transcendent tothe finite. It posits itself through the finite. Ifmetaphysics must affirm the transcendent, Hegel would nothave qualified as a metaphysician. Few, if any, woulddeny Hegel as a metaphysician, however.

If Western thinkers with a view of the worldcharacterized as becoming rather than being, or who basetheir views on immanence rather than transcendence, areconsidered to be doing metaphysics, one cannot say thatthe Chinese lack metaphysics just because their worldviewis predominantly one of change and immanence. In sum,under the category of “metaphysics,” Western philosophershave studied both being and becoming, both immanence andtranscendence. What they share in common is not theiranswers to questions under the umbrella of “metaphysics,”but that they all attempt to address issues with regardto the nature, components, and operating principles ofreality. It is in this sense we can claim that Chinesethinkers have engaged in the study of metaphysics andthat “Chinese metaphysics” can be used as a shorthand todesignate a host of theories and ideas developed byChinese philosophers in their attempt to addresspertinent questions.

Some contemporary thinkers do not deny that theChinese have metaphysics. They insist, however, thatChinese metaphysics is fundamentally different fromWestern metaphysics. One common view is that metaphysics

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in the two traditions emerges from profoundly distinctorientations. For example, some have argued that Westernmetaphysics is “metaphysics of nature,” as it pursuestruth in the transcendental realm, whereas Chinesemetaphysics is “metaphysics of ethics,” in the pursuit ofthe good life (e.g., Yu and Xu 2009). This view echoes afamous claim by A. C. Graham, that the while Westernphilosophers have primarily searched for being or truth,the central question of Chinese philosophy has been, whatis the proper way? (Graham 1989, 222) There is a grain oftruth to this contrast. Ancient Greek philosophy beganwith a strong curiosity about the nature of reality, seenin such thinkers as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes,Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles,Anaxagoras, and Pythagoras. The majority of ancientChinese thinkers, in comparison, focused on socio-ethicalissues. They ventured into metaphysics because of theseethical concerns. As Chris Fraser argues in a forthcomingessay, the Mohists were concerned with tian 有 (heaven),but primarily as a guide for action. This orientation setthe direction for later metaphysical debates (Fraser2015). Mencius apparently developed his thought about xing有 (human nature or characteristic tendencies) or tiandao 有有(Heavenly Way) for the sake of his theory of inbornvirtues, which itself was developed through concernsabout self-cultivation. This contrast between Chinese andWestern philosophies, however, should not be exaggerated.This characterization is modeled on the division betweenfact and value. The “fact versus value” divide did notbecome an issue in the West until David Humeproblematized their association. Aristotle, we shouldremember, used the “facts” about the proper humanfunction as the basis for his argument for the ethicalgoal of eudemonia; one of the “four causes” investigatedin the Metaphysics is the final cause, which determines theproper function of humanity and its virtuosity.Furthermore, an important branch of Kant’s philosophy is

“moral metaphysics,” on the basis of the notion of arational will. The rational will for Kant is a free will,which is a key concept of modern metaphysics. Meanwhile,as Jiyuan Yu argues in a forthcoming essay, thedevelopment of Chinese metaphysics makes it hard tobelieve that Chinese philosophers were not also motivatedby a desire to better understand reality (Yu 2015). Thus,it is more accurate to say that the difference betweenChinese and Western metaphysics is a matter of degreesand of emphases rather than a radical, qualitativedistinction in kind. Furthermore, it is important to keepin mind that in the Chinese tradition, the metaphysicaland the moral are always intertwined, as the status ofvalues, the nature of the self, and conceptions of orderall have metaphysical implications, if not foundations.In the Chinese tradition, for example, wuwei 有有, the Daoistguiding principle for the virtuous life, is at the sametime a metaphysical conception of reality. Xing 有 , a keyidea in Mencius’s moral philosophy also defines thenature of human existence. Dao, a core notion in bothConfucianism and Daoism, is at once ethical andmetaphysical. Yin and yang are metaphysical forces as wellas social/moral principles. The same holds true for theconceptions of he 有 (harmony), li 有 (coherence or reasonableorder), and tian 有 (heaven). In view of this connection,studying Chinese ethical theories without examining theirmetaphysical presuppositions risks misrepresenting thesemoral perspectives. With the advancement of the study anddeepening research of Chinese philosophy in our age,confining our study to Chinese political, social andethical theories is no longer acceptable. The aim ofstudying Chinese metaphysics is not to isolatemetaphysical views from other aspects of philosophy, butrather to focus on the metaphysical aspect of thephilosophical continuum while showing how metaphysicalconceptions connect to other areas of concern.

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Even if we allow that metaphysics was pursued in boththe West and in China, one might still claim that theissues they considered and the theories they producedhave no commonality. After all, there are almost no keymetaphysical terms in Chinese that translate easily intoEnglish, and vice versa. In that case, the overlapbetween Chinese metaphysics and Western metaphysics wouldbe merely nominal, not substantial. Admittedly, somedifferences must be acknowledged. Given that the dominantmetaphysical views in China differed significantly fromthose that dominated Europe, the two traditions naturallycame to focus on different problems. For example, therelationship between free will and natural causality wasnever an issue in Chinese philosophy, nor was thedivision between mind and body. Since most Chinesephilosophers rejected teleology and design, one of theircentral concerns was spontaneity (ziran 有有) and how beingsand order can emerge of themselves. Given that Chinesephilosophers usually held a less anthropocentric view ofnature than their European counterparts, they werecentrally concerned with how human values and socialstructures relate to the patterns of nature. These issueshave been less central in Western Philosophy, at leastbefore the 20th century. At the same time, the twotraditions do share many common concerns, such as theorigin and constitution of the world we experience.Placing metaphysical questions in a comparative contexthelps us to broaden the formulation of our questions. Itnot only enables us to find new insights into thestandard questions of Western metaphysics, but also helpsus to see how those questions might be more provincialthan they initially appear to be. For example, whileChinese philosophers did not discuss free will, they wereconcerned with the relationship between human motivationand the forces of nature, conceived primarily as therelationship between human xing (nature, characteristictendencies) and tian (heaven). Chinese philosophers did

not discuss the nature of substance, but they did discussindividuation (see Perkins 2015). While we should notdeny the differences between metaphysical thoughts in theChinese and Western traditions, both traditions havecontributed to the discipline of metaphysics and shouldbe studied as such. For these reasons and others, Chinesemetaphysics deserves careful and in-depth study no lessthan Western metaphysics.

Finally, the above generalizations also should notobscure the diversity within Chinese philosophy or thewide range of metaphysical positions that have appeared.Chinese philosophy developed over time, expressinginternal forces, changes in political and economiccontexts, and interactions with other cultures, most ofall the absorption of Buddhism from India. In any givenperiod, there were opposing schools and heatedmetaphysical disputes. Careful study of Chinesemetaphysics should heed all these nuances.

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If Chinese metaphysics is a worthy subject of seriousscholarship, how should it be studied? What are some goodexamples for such study? In the rest of this essay, wewould like to introduce to readers some recent studies atthe frontier of Chinese metaphysics by leading scholarsin the English-speaking world. These essays in ananthology published by Cambridge University Press coverall major periods of Chinese philosophy, from pre-Qin tothe 20th century, all major schools, from Confucianism,Daoism, and Buddhism, to Neo-Confucianism and NewConfucianism, and many of the key thinkers and texts inChinese philosophy. While they convey the diversity ofChinese philosophy, they are linked by a persistent setof metaphysical concerns: How does the multiplicity anddiversity of the world link to a common source or basis?What is the basic element of the cosmos? What is the

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relationship between emptiness or voidness and ourconcrete experience of the world? How is harmony relatedon the levels of society, nature, and the cosmos? How arevalues grounded in the world? Moreover, while Chinesephilosophy took on radically different forms over time,many terms continued to be used while being reinterpretedto serve in new ways. Thus concepts like dao 有 (path orway), qi 有 (vital energy), he 有 (harmony), and li 有(coherence or reasonable order) provide another linkbetween the essays and different time periods discussed.Taken together, they also address broader questions: Whatmetaphysical questions emerge within a worldview thatemphasizes interconnection, immanence and change? Arethere alternative ways of doing metaphysics in theChinese tradition? How do we make sense of them in thelight of contemporary philosophical discourse? What isthe relationship between metaphysics and other subjectsin philosophy?

This book begins with two essays by Robin R. Wang andJeeLoo Liu, respectively, analyzing two of the mostimportant concepts in Chinese philosophy: yinyang and qi.Wang’s essay concentrates on the importance of yinyang.She makes a distinction between the kind of metaphysicswhich divides reality into two separate realms andmetaphysical thinking. In the Chinese context yinyangthinking is metaphysical thinking. It rests on a visionof reality as a single self-generating, self-differentiating and self-organizing whole. She startswith an analysis of the classical Chinese phrase mostoften used to translate “metaphysics,” xinger shang xue 有有有有(“the study of what is without forms”), which iscontrasted with the phrase xinger xia (有有有) (“what is withforms”). Wang argues, the notion of xing 有 (physicalforms, things) in these phrases mediates between whatmight be called the worlds of physics and metaphysics;the realm of forms (xing) should be considered as a yinyangfield of reality containing both what is within (below)

and without (above) it. She then articulates six specificforms of the yinyang relationship, analyzing themultiplicity of yinyang descriptions. Finally, Wangexplores the metaphor of huanliu 有有 (circular flowing) as away to show how the complexity of yinyang interactionsleads to a ceaseless process of generation and emergence(Wang 2015). Qi, like yinyang, is another core notion inChinese metaphysics that has been developed as aconception of the fundamental component of reality. Inthe next chapter, JeeLoo Liu identifies a naturalisticconception of qi as the consistent theme across a range ofphilosophical texts and argues that Chinese qi metaphysicsis a form of humanistic naturalism distinct fromscientific naturalism. According to her interpretation,in the view of Chinese humanistic naturalism, the worldconsists of nothing but entities of the natural world,with human beings as part of it. Natural entities areaccessible to the cognitive capacities of human beings,and statements about the existence and nature of naturalentities are truth-apt. Liu traces the main issues in qicosmology throughout the history of Chinese philosophy,beginning with texts such as the Yijing, the Daodejing, theZhuangzi, and the Huainanzi, moving into the theories ofNeo-Confucians such as Zhang Zai and Wang Fuzhi, andconcluding in the 20th century, with Xiong Shili’sefforts to reconcile qi with modern science. An importantfeature of Liu’s essay is that it situates the discussionof qi in the contemporary discourse on metaphysics, makingancient ideas relevant to our times. By analyzing relatedissues in naturalistic terms, Liu demystifies the notionof qi and renders Chinese cosmology a plausiblealternative in contemporary philosophical discourse (Liu2015).

Metaphysics studies forms of existence, and one of itskey concerns is with the nature of individual entities.How did Chinese philosophers understand individualentities? How does qi manifest itself as entities in the

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world? Franklin Perkins examines the problem ofindividuation and, along with it, some of the mostfundamental metaphysical issues. Perkins shows that whileChinese philosophers gave ontological priority tointerconnected processes and change, holding a type of“process metaphysics,” they did not deny the existence ofindividual things. His essay examines approaches toindividuation in various philosophies from the WarringStates period, concentrating on the concept of wu 有 ,thing. Perkins investigates various accounts of thestatus and origins of “things” in early Chinesephilosophy and concludes by discussing the ways in whichindividuation is conditioned by the shared view that theultimate origin of things is not itself a thing (Perkins2015). Thus, Perkins’ essay bridges from the concept of qias discussed by JeeLoo Liu in the preceeding chapter topeople’s encounters with the world in daily life.

Mohism was a major school of thought during theclassic period in China, yet there has been little studyof its metaphysical views. In Chapter Four, Chris Fraserexplores the understanding of reality that emerges fromMohist doctrines concerning tian 有 (heaven, nature), thesan fa 有 有 (“Three Models”), and ming 有 (fate). For theMohists, reality follows fixed, recognizable patterns,and is reliably knowable through sense perception,inference, and historical precedent. Ethical norms are ahuman-independent feature of reality. The Mohist dao thuspurports to be the dao of reality itself, grounded inreliable knowledge of the world. The question that guidesthe Mohists’ attitude toward reality is not about itsfundamental structure but its dao—what regular patternsit follows and what course it takes. Fraser alsodiscusses the philosophical significance of thesemetaphysical views, the problems they raise, and how theyset the agenda for philosophical discourse in earlyChina. Fraser’s study shows that the Mohist conception ofreality and the theoretical orientation of Mohist

metaphysics significantly influenced the generaldirection of early Chinese philosophical discourse.Features of Mohist thought that became shared premises ofpre-Buddhist metaphysics include their formal focus ondao, their explanation of reality by appeal to patterns,relations, and regularities rather than abstract forms orstructural constitution, their confidence in the realityof the natural world as known through perception, andtheir view that dao is grounded in nature (Fraser 2015).

Roger T. Ames in Chapter Five addresses directly thequestion of “metaphysics” in a Chinese context byexploring a “metaphysical” reading of the early Confucianclassic the Zhongyong (有有 The Way of Centrality). He begins byexamining some of the general presuppositions of earlyChinese philosophy, concentrating on the senses in whichwe can and cannot speak of classical Chinese“metaphysics.” In particular, Ames explains why Chinesephilosophers had little interest in the nature of beingas such, while they concentrated instead on questionslike “how can human beings collaborate most effectivelywith the heavens and the earth to produce a flourishingworld?” Ames then turns to the Zhongyong as a concreteexample and as a response to Mohist views of heaven. TheZhongyong presents human beings as having a reflexive andintegral relationship within the creative cosmic process.The immanent, inchoate, and thus underdetermined penumbraof the emerging cosmic order provides the opening and theopportunity for cultivated human “becomings” tocollaborate symbiotically with the heavens and the earthto be co-creators in achieving a flourishing world (Ames2015).

The philosophies of Laozi and Heraclitus areparadigmatic examples of dynamic views of reality.Although they are often brought up in the same breath,their similarities and differences are still in need offurther examination. In Chapter Six, Jiyuan Yu presents ameticulous comparison of Laozi and Heraclitus. He

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proposes that Heraclitus and Laozi each discover a newway of perceiving and thinking about reality, and thatthe picture of logos and the picture of dao aresurprisingly similar. For both, the world is one but ischaracterized by a dynamism constituted in tensionsbetween opposites and transformations among them. Basedon his findings through this comparison, Yu challengestwo influential claims about Chinese metaphysics. One isthat Chinese philosophers do not pursue a reality behindthe veil of appearances, and the other is that Chinesephilosophers were not concerned with the truth aboutreality but only with the way to live well. Yu’s studygives evidence that there are Chinese philosophers suchas Laozi who inquire into something like a reality behindappearances, and that Chinese philosophers such as Laoziare concerned with the truth about reality as well aswith the way to live well (Yu 2015).

Michael Puett in Chapter Seven takes readers to arather unlikely place for metaphysics, the Liji (有有 Records ofRites). Li (ritual) is a key concept in Confucianphilosophy. It has been, however, studied almostexclusively as a subject of ethical and political-socialphilosophy. Puett shows that the Liji presents asophisticated and powerful set of theories concerningritual and how it affects reality. The “Liyun” chapter ofthe text makes it clear that ritual was created byhumans, and that the construction of proper order is ahuman project of transforming and organizing the worldthrough ritual. These theories are also, however, rootedwithin a complex set of metaphysical claims. Puettanalyzes these metaphysical arguments to discuss why theyare so important for the theories of ritual found withinthe text, and to explore the philosophical implicationsof attempts to develop a ritual-based vision of reality.Puett argues that the author(s) of the “Liyun” did nottake harmony as a pre-existing characteristic of theworld to which human beings should conform. On the

contrary, harmony must be constructed by human beingsthrough domesticating and managing the basic forces ofthe natural world (Puett 2015).

The introduction of Buddhism from India brought a newset of metaphysical issues and concepts that weregradually adapted into Chinese philosophy, making asignificant contribution to metaphysical theories inChina. In Chapter Eight, Hans-Rudolf Kantor presents uswith various concepts of reality in Chinese Buddhism asthey merge with issues of epistemology. Kantor shows thatChinese Buddhists developed diverse ways to interpretontological indeterminacy, the inseparability of truthand falseness, and the existential relevance offalseness. He introduces and compares the variousconstructivist views of reality developed in thetraditions of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, bringingtogether Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, tathāgatagarbha, Tiantai,and Huayan texts. According to these constructivistmodels, truth and falsehood are mutually constitutive andinter-referential. On the level of epistemology, ourinsight into truth requires and includes the experienceof falsehood. On the level of metaphysics, falsehooditself is a significant feature of reality, constitutinga dimension of our world. The epistemological andmetaphysical senses of the inseparability of truth andfalsehood coincide because the world and the way we existin it are dependent upon our epistemic stance (Kantor2015).

Alfred North Whitehead is one of the Westernphilosophers best known for advocating an ontology ofbecoming rather than being. It is not surprising,therefore, that his philosophy possesses an affinity withsome Chinese counterparts. In Chapter Nine, Vincent Shencompares Whitehead’s ontological principle and theconcept of event with the philosophy of Huayan Buddhism.Shen shows that the ontology of dynamic relationships somuch cherished in Chinese philosophy is in fact quite

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close to Whitehead’s ontology of event. For Whitehead,universal relatedness determines that all events aredirected towards many other events for their meaning.Within Huayan Buddhism’s doctrine of Ten Mysterious Gates(shi xuan men 有有有), Whitehead’s view is similar to the waythe “Gate of Relying on Shi (actualities, events,phenomena)” is used to explain dharma and produceunderstanding, but there is also an important contrast.While Huayan tends to reduce the “many others” and theircomprehensive harmony to the “one mind,” Whitehead arguesthat every actual entity tends towards others through itsown dynamic energy. Every actual entity receivesobjectifications from others and objectifies itself uponothers. Shen goes on to offer some critical reflectionsout of this comparison, in search of a positivedevelopment of the ontology of event and dynamicrelations (Shen 2015).

In an innovative move, Brook Ziporyn in Chapter Tenexamines and interprets Zhang Zai’s metaphysics of polarrelations in terms of “harmony as substance.” Zhang Zai,one of the founding figures of “Neo-Confucianism,” iswell-known for his “Western Inscription,” but his“Eastern Inscription” has not received much attention. Inthis “Eastern Inscription,” Zhang puts forth ametaphysical view which reinterprets the heterodox notionof “Voidness” so as to make it a justification of thecardinal importance of human relationships. As Ziporynshows, Zhang accomplishes this by defining the nature ofmaterial force (qi) as a joining of polar opposites (yinand yang, qian 有 and kun 有, etc.), and hence as a necessaryalternation and “Great Harmony” between condensed anddispersed material force. This polarity is manifested inthe individual condensed forms as their mutualstimulation and response ( 有 gan), i.e., theirrelationships with one another. This metaphysical viewlegitimizes the alternation of life and death and thecardinal importance of human relationships, both of which

were repudiated by Buddhists. The resulting view is akind of “monism,” but a monism which takes “harmony” asits ultimate category. That is, “harmony” is Zhang’sanswer to the question, “what are all things?” Ziporyn’schapter provides a concrete and powerful example of thekind of Chinese qi-based metaphysics (as articulated byJeeLoo Liu) based on polarity (as articulated by Robin R.Wang). Along with the previous two chapters by Kantor andShen, Ziporyn’s discussion also sets the stage as we moveto the next chapter on the metaphysics of Zhu Xi, themost influential Confucian thinker of the last millennium(Ziporyn 2015).

The Song philosopher Zhu Xi’s “learning of the way”(daoxue 有有) became the imperial orthodox ideology and hascontinued to influence Confucian philosophers to thepresent. In his chapter, John Berthrong begins byexamining the broader question of how the term“metaphysics” can be applied in a Chinese context, andthen turns to address structural issues in Zhu’s maturemetaphysics. Berthrong argues that Zhu’s metaphysicsprovides an architectonic vision of a kalogenicaxiological cosmology, that is, a cosmology whichexpresses a fundamental concern for moral and aesthetic(kalogenic) values. This cosmology also embraces anintersubjective sense of ethical self-cultivation andconduct: we are never alone in the world but alwaysembedded in the cosmos and connected ethically with ourfellow human beings. Developing a lexicography of Zhu’smetaphysics, Berthrong provides an outline of many of thekey philosophical terms embedded in Zhu’s philosophy. Inthis chapter, readers find a superb example of how inChinese philosophy metaphysics and axiology areconstructed to support to each other within one coherentphilosophical system (Berthrong 2015).

Xiong Shili was one of the most important Chinesephilosophers of the twentieth century. Xiong integratedconcepts, problems, and themes from traditional Chinese

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philosophy with elements emblematic of Sinitic Buddhistphilosophy to articulate an ambitious philosophicalsyncretism. The analysis in the last chapter of theanthology, by John Makeham, focuses on one of Xiong’smajor philosophical works, New Treatise on the Uniqueness ofConsciousness. The first part of Makeham’s analysisintroduces Xiong’s radical monism and his relatedcritique of Yogācāra philosophy as a kind of ontologicaldualism. Xiong’s critiques are grounded in the Mahayanadoctrine of conditioned origination (yuanqi 有 有 ) and thedoctrine that the phenomenal world is not ontologicallydistinct from undifferentiated absolute reality(dharmakāya). In the second part, Makeham adduces a rangeof evidence drawn from the New Treatise to show that theHuayan Buddhist doctrine of nature origination (xingqi 有有)played a central role in the entirety of Xiong’sconstructive philosophy. Makeham concludes that unlikethe Madhyamaka from which Xiong draws inspiration, Xiongeffectively posits Fundamental Reality/Suchness/inherentnature/the Absolute as an underlying “locus” on whichphenomenal/conventional reality is ontologicallygrounded, just as the sea supports the waves yet is notdifferent from the waves (Makeham 2015).

In sum, these essays cover all major periods andschools of Chinese philosophy, revealing their diversity,common concerns, and lines of development. The authorsnot only present the metaphysical theories of thesevarious thinkers and texts, but also make originalcontributions to the development of Chinese metaphysicsitself. As such, their studies present cutting-edgeresearch in Chinese metaphysics and serve as a powerfultestimony for the existence of Chinese metaphysics andthe legitimacy of studying it. It is our hope that theseexpert contributors have provided a hallmark work in thestudy of Chinese metaphysics that will serve as avaluable reference point for the study of Chinesephilosophy in the years to come. Most of all, we hope

that they will serve as a starting point and inspirationfor a more expansive conception of metaphysics, one thatis able to address and incorporate the wealth ofmetaphysical questions and insights develop by culturesaround the world. Indeed, the existence and thelegitimacy of Chinese metaphysics is no longer aquestion. The real question in front of us is how tobetter study it and how to make such a study morefruitful. Let us move forward.1

References

Ames, Roger T. 2015. “Reading the Zhongyong ‘Metaphysically’,”in Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems, Chenyang Li and FranklinPerkins (Eds.). Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge UniversityPress (forthcoming)._____. 2011. Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Hong Kong/Honolulu: TheChinese University of Hong Kong Press/the University of HawaiiPress.Barnes, Jonathan. 1985/1991. The Complete Works of Aristotle: the RevisedOxford Translation. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Berthrong, John. 2015. “A Lexicography of Zhu Xi's Metaphysics,”in Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems, Chenyang Li and FranklinPerkins (Eds.). Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge UniversityPress (forthcoming).Edman, Irwin. 1936. The Works of Plato. New York: Tudor PublishingCompany. Fraser, Chris. 2015. “The Mohist Conception of Reality,” inChinese Metaphysics and Its Problems, Chenyang Li and Franklin Perkins(Eds.). Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press(forthcoming).Gao Heng 有有. 1998. 有有有有有有《 (A Contemporary Annotation of the Zhouyi).Jinan: Qilu shushe.Graham, Angus. 1989. Disputers of the Tao. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Graham, Daniel. 2010. The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy (Part I).Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press.

1The authors would like to thank Alan Chan for his helpfulcomments on an early version of this essay.

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Kant, Immanuel. 1997. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, with SelectedWritings from the Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Gary Hatfield.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Kantor, Hans-Rudolf. 2015. “Concepts of Reality in ChineseBuddhism,” in Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems, Chenyang Li andFranklin Perkins (Eds.). Cambridge, UK and New York: CambridgeUniversity Press (forthcoming).Li, Chenyang and Franklin Perkins (Eds.). 2015. Chinese Metaphysicsand Its Problems. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge UniversityPress (forthcoming).Li Jingde 有有有 (宋). 1986. 有有有有有《》Zhuzi Yulei. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Liu, JeeLoo. 2015. “In Defense of Chinese Qi-Naturalism,” inChinese Metaphysics and Its Problems, Chenyang Li and Franklin Perkins(Eds.). Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press(forthcoming).Makeham, John. 2015. “Xiong Shili’s Understanding of theRelationship between the Ontological and the Phenomenal,” inChinese Metaphysics and Its Problems, Chenyang Li and Franklin Perkins(Eds.). Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press(forthcoming).Perkins, Franklin. 2015. “What is a Thing (wu 有)? The Problem ofIndividuation in Early Chinese Metaphysics,” in Chinese Metaphysicsand Its Problems, Chenyang Li and Franklin Perkins (Eds.).Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press(forthcoming).Puett, Michael. 2015. “Constructions of Reality: Ritual andMetaphysics in the Liji,” in Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems,Chenyang Li and Franklin Perkins (Eds.). Cambridge, UK and NewYork: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1949: Situations III. Paris: Gallimard.Shen, Vincent. 2015. “Being and Event—Whitehead’s OntologicalPrinciple and Huayan Buddhism’s Concept of Event,” in ChineseMetaphysics and Its Problems, Chenyang Li and Franklin Perkins(Eds.). Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press(forthcoming).Tang Junyi. 1988. 有有有有有有有有有有有《 西 (Collected Essays on Comparative Study of Chinese andWestern Thoughts). Taipei: Xuesheng Shuju.Van Inwagen, Peter. 2007. “Metaphysics,” in Stanford Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy. Accessed on 30 October 2013 athttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/.Wang, Robin R. 2015. “Yinyang Narrative of Reality: ChineseMetaphysical Thinking,” in Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems,

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