英文摘要
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Owing to the nature of philosophical thinking, it is unavoidable to advocate monism when we considered the variety of things. Still, the problem has always been how could we explain the manifoldness of phenomena through the ultimate 'One'? Since Han Dynasty it has become a universal accepted idea that all things are only modifications of Chi. But Chi could not be viewed as the ultimate one of all things, because it possesses the qualities of movement and change, it is heterogeneous. Following the view of 'The Book of Change', the Confucian scholars in Sung dynasty asserted that Chi is a concept belonging to phenomena, while Ten-Toa was the creating substance that creates all things and governs all the movements and changes of Chi. Accordingly, Tian-Tao is the oneness and Chi is the manifold. But this way of viewing the relation between the one and the many would lead to a conclusion that implies a ontological dualism of Li-Chi, and the question of the origination of the many would still remain unexplained. Confucian scholars in Ming Dynasty asserted without exception the affinity of Li and Chi. If one holds that Li and Chi are both the one, that would cause a result of being unable to explain the many. But if one maintains that Chi and Li are both the many, that would lead to a pluralism, which would force one to abandon the preferred ontological monism. The metaphysics of Wang Chuan-Shan builds a way out of this dilemma. First, the creative powers and orders of all things are actually everywhere the same and identical, the creative power and substance of all things are 'The One'. Second, besides the creative substance, power, and order of the universe and of all things, there is manifold functions of Chi, i.e. besides the oneness of Chi, there is the manifoldness of the same. Although there are diversity of Chi, i.e. the infinite complexity of the phenomena, but they are for their parts changeable and not permanent. The universal substance of Chi is, however, permanent and all-present, and the diversity of things are its creatures. Viewed from the universal substance of it, Chi is ”The One”, from functions, it is diversified. Wang Chuan-Shan can therefore, through the concepts of Ti (substance) and Yong (functions), explain how it is possible that Chi is one, on the one hand, and simultaneously many, on the other.
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