Title

The Ideas on the “Time-Space” and “Being” in the Philosophy Hsün-tzu and Chuang-tzu: A metaphysical Aspect of an Ancient Chinese Philosophy

Author

Masami Tateno

Genre

Article  

Pages

131-146

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Language

Chinese

Key words

Hsün-tzu, Chuang-tzu, concepts of time and space, ritual principle, the Way

Abstract

       Time and space are prerequisite of conditions for metaphysical modality. In any philosophical thought, its distinctive features appear in its motion of time and space. In this paper, I will take up time and space in Hsün-tzu’s Li禮 ,Chuang-tzu’ Tao 道, and in the philosophical thought of Chuang-tzu’s  disciples, clarifying them in order to shed light on an interesting metaphysical aspect of ancient Chinese philosophy. For Hsün-tzu, the discernment of time and space are both inevitable forms of the human cognitive process. His philosophical account is evidently based solely on these crucial modalities of human sensory perceptions. However we can at the same time also say that Hsün-tzu’s standpoint is merely based on the daily phenomenal level of human cognation under the shackles of time and space.
       Time in Chuang-tzu is seen as an overwhelming obstacle to the transcendental world of Tao. One can really understand the true Tao only when standing beyond time and space. However, when one wished to describe the Tao though verbal expressions, one must treat the Tao as “sense data ”in our noesis-noematic of knowledge. This, though, is none other than the destruction of the world of the Tao. In the philosophy of Chuang-tzu’s disciples, time and space appear in just same theoretical modalities as in Hsün-tzu’s philosophy. Thus we can see that Hsün-tzu and Chuang-tzu’s disciples share the same resonance of metaphysical intellect.