Abstract
In the spectrum of Chinese intellectual tradition, philosophy has been integrated as a unity among cosmology, epistemology, and value orientation. Such unity, termed as “the integration between heaven and human” (tianren heyi) of Chinese genre, reveals the feature of evolution in its cosmology as opposed to creation in the west, the intuitional feature combining objective knowledge and subjective experience in its epistemology instead of stark objective knowledge of the west, and universal incarnation for each individual as sage in its value orientation other than exclusive holy reincarnated Being in Christian tradition. The methodology in Chinese universal incarnation as individual secular sage is to initiate self-cultivation through “picking up one’s cosmic dynamics” or “cultivating one’s cosmic air” (yang haoranzhiqi) from within each individual self instead of waiting passively for the external holy salvation at doomsday. Therefore, the spirit of Chinese philosophy is concisely expressed in the harmonious relations among man and nature, person and person, and soul and body.
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Notes
- 1.
For Feng’s Short History of Chinese Philosophy, it has been printed by several presses in the west since it was first printed in English by Macmillan Company, in 1948, serving as the most influential introductory work in understanding Chinese philosophy.
- 2.
This motto has been extremely popular among Confucian scholars since it was stated in Volition, Universal Scholarship (tong shu, zhi xue) by Zhou Dunyi, a Confucian master scholar in the Song Dynasty.
- 3.
“The Bow Lost in the Universe” is deduced from a popular story in Common Good, The Spring and Autumn of Duke Lü (lüshi chunqiu, gui gong) which tells: “When a guy from Dukedom Chu refused to retrieve his lost bow, he explained that a bow lost by one Chu guy would eventually be picked up by another Chu guy and such an inevitable situation would make my retrieval senseless. When hearing about this allegory, Confucius commentated that it would be nicer if he forgets his dukedom. And again when Lao Zi hearing about Confucius’s commentary, he simply suggested that he should forget human being. Therefore, Lao Zi’s remark really comes to the essence of supreme good”.
- 4.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico - Philosophicus, tans. C.K. Ogden, (Beijing: China Social Sciences Publishing House, and Cheng Cheng Books Ltd., 1999), p. 189.
- 5.
Feng Youlan, “A Short History of Chinese Philosophy,” in Selected Philosophical Writings of Feng Youlan (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991), p. 567.
- 6.
Ibid, p. 193.
- 7.
Mao Zedong, The Selected Writings of Mao Zedong (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1977), Vol. 5, p. 323.
- 8.
Gao Zi Shang, The Works of Mencius (mengzi, gaozi shang).
- 9.
Jin Xin Shang. The Works of Mencius (mengzi, jinxin shang).
- 10.
Jin Xin Xia. The Works of Mencius (mengzi, jinxin xia).
- 11.
Gongsun Chou Xia, The Works of Mencius (mengzi, gongsunchou xia).
- 12.
The Doctrine of the Mean (zhongyong).
- 13.
Da Ya·Zheng Min. The Book of Poetry (shijing, daya zhengmin).
- 14.
Feng Youlan, Selected Philosophical Writings of Feng Youlan (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991), p. 535.
- 15.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. by Lewis White Beck, (The Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993), p. 30.
- 16.
Liang Hui Wang Shang, The Works of Mencius (mengzi, lianghuiwang shang).
- 17.
The Doctrine of the Mean (zhongyong).
- 18.
Feng Youlan, Selected Philosophical Writings of Feng Youlan (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991), pp. 562–564.
- 19.
Yang Huo, The Analects of Confucius (lunyu, yanghuo).
- 20.
Ji Shi, The Analects of Confucius (lunyu, jishi).
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Chun, S. (2012). The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy. In: Major Aspects of Chinese Religion and Philosophy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29317-7_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29317-7_10
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