The Metaphysics of Chu-His

Neo-Confucianism has now been well-known by the western society, for its influence on Chinese culture is immense. Among its proponents, Master Chu-Hsi is the most influential among them, the reason of which can be attributed to his fully speculative viewpoints and his comprehensive senses of philosophy problems. In Chu-Hsi’s theory, metaphysics is his most creative contribution to Confucianism. However, it is susceptible to being miss-understood by his contemporaries and today’s scholars, for his basic concerns about the metaphysics are so much different from the other Confucians. While the theory of the reality and the value are concerned by all the Confucian philosophers and they had provided many different yet profoundly metaphysical systems, Master Chu-Hsi notices the problems of the definitions of all the concepts concerning the reality and the ultimate value and develops a new metaphysical system discussing the problems of the reality of the whole Being in the universal, the moral potential difference between people and the animal. In this article the author is going to introduce Master Chu-Hsi’s metaphysical constructions and creations. The discussion will be proceeded as follows: (1) the reflection of the modern interpretational systems, (2) the definition of the concept of metaphysics in Chinese philosophy, (3) the original questions of Chu-Hsi’s metaphysical thinking, (4) the theory of the whole Being of the Universal, (5) the theory of human nature and the explanation of why the moral ability is different in the human beings, (6) the existential difference between human creatures and the animals, and (7) the meaning of the contribution of Chu-Hsi’s metaphysics in the history of the development of Confucianism.