Chen, Lai 陳來, The Ontology of Ren 仁學本體論
摘要
Soon after this book was published last summer, some scholars acknowledged that it clearly shows an ambition to rebuild a magnificent mansion of Confucian philosophy in a traditional style.Humanity (ren 仁) is the most essential notion which has predominated the history of Confucianism from the pre-Qin 秦 period to today.The book is broad in conception and meticulous in detail, not only to demonstrate and elucidate the idea of humanity in the history of philosophy, but to develop a new form of ontology, even metaphysics.In light of the book's content, it is not easy to find an appropriate English translation for its title.CHEN Lai 陳來 suggests that we have to be very careful when using such terms as "ontology" or "metaphysics" in the context of Chinese philosophy.The root of the term "ontology" can be traced back to ον in ancient Greek philosophy, which means "being."There was no such an equivalent in ancient Chinese philosophy and, therefore, there was no ontology in China's tradition.Nevertheless, Chinese philosophers have been deeply concerned with and discussed the most fundamental, real, and ultimate existence from the perspective of benti 本體, which etymologically means "root" (ben 本) and "body" (ti 體), respectively.Therefore, there are ontology and metaphysics in ancient China, which could be defined in the way German philosopher Christian Wolff defined it.This argument for the necessity of ontology and metaphysics under the context of Chinese philosophy makes sense and will evoke further disputation.The main concern of this book is to demonstrate the continuing relevance of traditional Confucian philosophy in modern China and the rest of the world.Unexpectedly, Chen begins the volume with the Kantian question "what is a human?"The fact that Chen values this question more than other Kantian questions implies what the book really focuses on.