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.
In the 1980s, Meng Peiyuan proposed the “Chinese theory of heart nature,” which classified Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism in traditional Chinese philosophy as “the theory of heart nature.” This is an original perspective, which not only summarizes the commonalities of the heart nature theories of various schools, but also emphasizes the characteristics of heart nature theories of Confucianism. The “Chinese theory of heart nature” is the product of the “Emotional Reason School” in contemporary philosophy, involving “New Confucianism,” “Emotional Confucianism,” “Life Confucianism,” “Free Confucianism,” “Spirit Confucianism,” and so on. However, for Meng Peiyuan’s Emotional Confucianism, the “Chinese theory of heart nature” is actually just an early transitional concept. The traditional theory of heart nature is not the thought of all Confucian schools, let alone Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius, but rather a philosophical construction of NeoConfucianism in Song and Ming dynasties. Its philosophical essence belongs to the subjective philosophy of traditional ontology, so it is necessary to accept the reflection of the forefront of contemporary philosophical thought, namely, to accept the inquiry of “why subjectivity is possible.” Therefore, the contemporary transformation of the heart nature theory means deconstructing the old theory of heart nature, tracing back to the life situation of presubjectivity, and thus reconstructing subjectivity and its heart nature, especially the individual subjectivity of modernity.
The contemporary Yi-ology has achieved many results in the aspects of classic restoration, philosophical elucidation, the history of Yi-ology, and science-based Yi-ology, which far-surpassed previous Yi-ology in both of depth and breadth. However, with the changes of the times and the development of academic culture, the problems in Yi-ology are becoming increasingly prominent, such as the lack of macroscopic vision, the new breakthrough methodology, the concern to reality, and substantial academic interactions. The future studies of Yi-ology will focus on enriching and summarizing existing research, exploring new fields, starting from the original texts, addressing current realities, and establishing a new Yi-ology system through mutual engagement of Chinese and Western philosophy and culture from a global perspective. This approach aims to facilitate the global dissemination of Yiology and its active participation in international dialogue.
Han Feizi’s understanding of human nature is far more complicated than the doctrine of evil human nature. He acknowledges that there is goodness in human nature, and it could render people to live peacefully in affluence. But in scarcity, the goodness in human nature becomes ineffective, and the pursuit of material profit becomes the main driver of human actions. While the majority can only calculate short-term material interests, the minority can do long-term planning. Besides, vanity, a unique quality of human, is a secondary driving force of human actions. Han Feizi acknowledges that only a handful of people can transcend the pursuit of material profit and vanity, and hold onto virtues instead. However, these people are the disruptors of a political regime, and should not be encouraged. Han Feizi argues that the avoidance of harm is a more powerful driving force, compared with the pursuit of profit, in which he emphasizes punishment rather than reward in regulating people’s behaviors.
The consciousness of human community is based on the search for universality. According to the different paths of the search for universality, the understanding of human community in Chinese philosophy can be divided into different types, such as governance community, natural community, Heaven-man community, and moral community. In terms of governance community, Chinese philosophy pursues a kind of universal governance order, recognizing “human nature and the Way of Heaven” with the same consciousness. In terms of natural community, Chinese philosophy pursues the universality of natural consistency, establishes an overall mode of interpretation of the world on the basis of the way of nature. In terms of Heaven-man community, Chinese philosophy believes that there exists a transcendent universal Way of Heaven, and that adherence to the law of unity of the Way of Heaven enables human life to transcend specific differences and move towards harmony and consistency. In terms of moral community, Chinese philosophy takes the path of constructing a universal moral metaphysical ontology as a means of debating the universality of the moral ontology and its way of functioning, thereby realizing the ideal state of the unity of all things. Creative transformation and innovative development of the pursuit of universality and the consciousness of human community associated with traditional Chinese philosophy can highlight the significance of Chinese philosophy to the world.