Chinese Philosophy and a Future World Philosophy Fung Yu-Lan The Philosophical Review, Vol. 57, No. 6. (Nov., 1948), pp. 539-549. Stable URL hitp:/flinks.jstor-org/siisici=003 1-8108% 281948 11%2957% 3 A6%3C539%3 ACPAAFW%3E2.0,.CO%3B2-B The Philosophical Review is currently published by Comell University Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupulwww.jstor.org/journals/sageschool. html, ch copy of any part of'a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @ jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ ‘Thu Mar 30 08:25:12 2006A Symposium on Oriental Philosophy CHINESE PHILOSOPHY AND A FUTURE WORLD PHILOSOPHY’ N SPITE of the apparent chaos in Chinese social and political affairs, there has been great progress, since the beginning of this century, in the intellectual life of the Chinese, especially in their philosophical thinking. This was to be expected. The chaos in China is one aspect of the transformation of Chinese society from a medieval to a modern character. In the transformation, a vacuum is created between the traditional ways of living, which already have become archaic, and the new ones, which are still to be adopted, Such a vacuum is quite inconvenient for practical daily life but is very good for philosophy, which has always flourished in times when no dogmas ‘or conventions restrained the free movement of the human spirit. In a period of transformation, all ideas or ideals of the past are equally to be reviewed and revalued, and none of them can claim to have more authority than the others. The man who does the reviewing and revaluing is the philosopher, who thereby reaches a higher point of view than those who confine themselves to a single way of thinking. In the present transformation going on in China, the Chinese philosophers are especially fortunate, because, since the beginning of this century, they have had as the object of their review and revala- ation the ideas or ideals not only of their own past but also of the past and present of the West. Systems proposed by the great minds of both * Acknowledgment is due to my colleague, Professor V. M. Ames, and Mrs. ‘Ames, who read the manuscript and made stggestions. 539THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW Europe and Asia are seen and understood from new angles and in a new light. Old interests in philosophy are revived as new ones are arising. Under such circumstances it would be very surprising if there ‘were not great changes in contemporary Chinese thought. ‘Changes have taken place rather rapidly. Many views have been expressed, only to be superseded by later ones resulting from more study and understanding of Western philosophy. Although my own view may also be superseded, I shall express it as an indication of how ‘Chinese and Western philosophies can be complementary and how, in this give-and-take, Chinese thought may contribute to a future world philosophy. I shall make two points: one on the method to be used by philosophy, and the other on the ideal life to be achieved by i. There must be some fundamental similarity between Chinese and ‘Western philosophies, or there would be no reason wiy they should be referred to by the same word, In the analysis of their similarity, T shall confine myself mostly to their metaphysical theories, or to epis- ‘temological ones that have metaphysical implications, because it is here that Chinese and Western philosophies can most easily be com- pared. I shall take up for discussion two main traditions in Western philosophy, the Platonic and the Kantian, and compare them with two main traditions in Chinese philosophy, the Confucianist and the Taoist. The Platonic and Confucianist traditions represent what may be called the ontological approach of metaphysics, while the Kantian ‘and Taoist traditions, so far as their metaphysics or the metaphysical implications of their philosophies are concerned, represent what may be called the epistemological approach. What is fascinating to me is that, whereas the aim of metaphysics is a rational analysis of experi- cence, each of these approaches arrives in its own way at a “something” which logically is not the object of reason and therefore refuses to be analyzed by it. This is not because reason is weak, but because the js such that a rational analysis of it involves a logical “something” contradiction. The ontological approach begins by distinguishing between the character and the existence of things. As a contemporary expounder of Platonism, George Santayana, has said: “It is axiomatic that a thing can have no existence if it has no character; only things with sone character can exist. Yet existence involves change or the danger of change; things may be transformed, or in other words, they may so