Creating Modern Chinese Metaphysics

Feng Youlan and New Realism

Bibliographic Data

ID6008261
AuthorsXiaoqing Diana Lin (0000-0003-2064-8384, Indiana University Northwest, Gary, IN, USA, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume40
Issue1
Pages40-73
Publication date2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern China (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-7004 • E-ISSN: 1552-6836
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0097700413477528
OpenAlexW2159529961
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited24

Feng Youlan (1895–1990), a preeminent philosopher of twentieth-century China, tried to build a modern Chinese metaphysics that was at once universal and based on a structure of traditional Chinese concepts such as li/principles and qi/vital energy. His intellectual borrowings included New Realism, an early twentieth-century school of philosophy that attempted to provide a scientific basis for metaphysics. New Realism’s affirmation of the objectivity of a priori logical relationships in the universe enabled Feng to construct a metaphysical structure of philosophy in China without becoming bogged down in the debate of the priority of practice over principle in Chinese history. While most published work has treated Feng’s famous “negative method” as the “more Chinese” part of his work in contrast to his writings influenced by New Realism, this article argues that Feng’s logical/metaphysical construct of philosophy in China sought to build a metaphysical discourse of experience by employing both a logical/analytical and a “negative” nonverbal method resembling Chan Buddhist practices

China · Chinese philosophy · Construct (python library · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Objectivity (philosophy · Realism · Scientific realism · Chinese history and philosophy · Computer Science · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices