The Meta-Question, Components, and Basic Structure of Chinese Philosophy

Abstract

Philosophy is the research of nature, individuals, society, and their noumena. The fundamental question of Chinese philosophy revolves around the relationship between Heaven and humans, while the meta-question is about how humans should live in the world. To address these questions, Chinese philosophy has established a framework with six components: the theory of benyuan, the theory of human nature, the theory of human mind, the theory of life, ethics, and politics. Among them, the transcendental theory of benyuan and the theory of human nature constitute metaphysics, the theory of life, ethics, and politics, which take real life as the research object, constitute physics, and the theory of human mind, fall under a philosophical discipline positioned conceptually between metaphysics and physics could be named as metaphysical physics (shang er xia xue). The presence of philosophy within Chinese traditional thoughts is underscored by the use of metaphysics as a criterion for judging the existence of philosophical elements in a system of thought.

Key words： Chinese philosophy; meta-question, components; basic structure; legitimacy