신유학의 형이상학 전환 — 이체기용(理體氣用)에서 이승기기(理乘氣機)에로 —

Abstract

This study discusses that metaphysics underlying Neo-Confucianism was the first to emerge in the metaphysical history of East Asia. This new metaphysics established by Chu Hsi is based on the 16 Chinese characters of “The Great Ultimate is the originally-so; motion and tranquility is the chi that is being ridden on (太極者, 本然之妙也; 動靜者, 所乘之機也).” The substantive content of this statement is to define the relationship between the concepts of Principle and Material Force. From the viewpoint of Chu Hsi who established Neo-Confucianism, the existing Li-Philosophy regarded the Principle to be the substance and the Material Force to be its active function for the relationship between the Principle as the prior form and the Material Force as the posterior form. What Chu Hsi mentioned repeatedly about the problem in Li t’i ch’i yong’s(理體氣用) formula (or The Great Ultimate is the substance and the motions are its active function) was that ‘it is necessary to discern the prior form and the posterior form.’ Obviously, Li ch’eng ch’i chi(理乘氣機) proposed newly by Chu Hsi as an alternative is fundamentally different from the existing Li t’i ch’i yong formula in metaphysical terms. By comparing and examining the original mind such as in the Mind of Compassion(惻隱之心) using examples, this study explores what kind of problems Chu Hsi posed and encountered. First, like the Confucians of the Hu-Xiang school or Lu Chiu-Yuan, explaining the real world, which is a process of constant movement and change of Yin and Yang and the Five Agents, only as a direct movement and change of the Principle, which is the prior form, does not fit the moral metaphysics of the Book of I Ching whose core is the proposition ‘Change constitutes the Great Ultimate.’ Morality, or goodness, is the product of the process of movement and change. According to Chu Hsi’s moral metaphysics, goodness is created by the Great Ultimate as well as by the combination of the Great Ultimate and the Material Force. Second, Chu Hsi argues that, in terms of Li-Philosophy in the metaphysics of Li t’i ch’i yong, self-cultivation is to wait for the original mind, as an innate good mind, to be manifested, and so it does not have to be done before that time. The systems of Li-Philosophy based on the metaphysics of Li t’i ch’i yong are focused on self-cultivation of holding and expanding the manifested original mind. Therefore, there is no self-cultivation to carry out before the original mind is manifested. Chu Hsi argues that self-cultivation which is carried out in everyday life needs to be focused rather than the expansion of the afore-mentioned innate good mind. This study comes to the conclusion that this essential difference between the lines stems from the difference between the metaphysics on which Neo-Confucianism is based and the metaphysics on which existing Li-Philosophies are based. However, there is no difference between the two morals of metaphysics in that the Great Ultimate presides over the creation of goodness. In the metaphysics of Li t’i ch’i yong, the prior form achieves self-development by the Principle’s direct action. By contrast, in the metaphysics of Li ch’eng ch’i chi, the prior form presides over the creation of goodness while riding on the Chi of the Material Force and getting involved in the operation of the Material Force. As a result, these two schools of metaphysics also make a difference in the nature of Li (or the Principle). As it has been done so far, no knowledge or acknowledgement of these differences between the two branches of metaphysics has caused any philosophical misunderstanding.