COLLATERALITY IN EARLY CHINESE COSMOLOGY: AN ARGUMENT FOR CONFUCIAN HARMONY (HE 和) AS CREATIO IN SITU. (5th June 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ames, Roger T.
• Is Part Of: Early China. Volume 37(2014)
• Page Start: 445
• Page End: 470
• Publication Date: 2014-06-05
• Subjects: cosmogony, -- collaterality, -- creativity, -- The Ancestral One Gives Birth to the Waters; 宇宙論, -- 協重, -- 創造, -- 太一生水; China -- Periodicals; China -- Antiquities -- Periodicals; China -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 931.005
• DOI: 10.1017/eac.2014.2
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0362-5028

Abstract

Abstract: One important benefit of the Guodian and Shanghai Museum slips is the new insights they are providing in our understanding of the early intellectual evolution of classical Chinese philosophy. But there is a second important opportunity that the newly recovered documents provide. Beyond what is new in them, these same materials can be used to qualify, corroborate, and reiterate perhaps old but still undervalued insights into the interpretive context within which we construct our understanding of early China. Indeed, our best interpreters of classical Chinese philosophy are explicit in rejecting the idea that Chinese cosmology begins from some independent, transcendent principle and entails the metaphysical reality/appearance distinction and the plethora of dualistic categories that arise from such a worldview. In fact, the recently recovered Guodian materials provide us with both the resources and the occasion to revisit three related cosmological issues: What is distinctive about classical Chinese cosmogony and its notion of origins? What is the Chinese alternative to the assumptions about our own familiar creatio ex nihilo source of meaning? And how is "creativity" expressed in the Chinese philosophical vocabulary? 摘要: 郭店與上博(上海博物館簡稱)簡帛文獻主要貢獻之一是為我們理解 儒道兩家早期知識演進皆提供了新洞識 。不僅如此 ，新出土的文獻還 為我們提供了另一重要機會 : 它們還可被用來證實 、重申那些我們藉以認識古代中國的詮釋語境或 許老却仍被輕視的洞識 。確實 ，古典中國哲学最优秀的詮釋者顯然都 反對這樣一種觀念 ，即中國宇宙論產生于某種獨立 、超驗原理 ，且體現 形而上學的實在/表象區分 ，以及该世 界觀的餘緒 : 種種二元對立範疇 。事實上 ，最近出土的郭店文獻 ，同時為我們提供了 重温三個相關宇宙論問題的材料和機會 : 古典中國宇宙發生論及其起源 觀念的獨特性何在?相對于我們自己所熟悉的 "創生于虛無"( creatio ex nihilo ) 觀念 ，中國人有怎樣的宇宙論假定?中國哲學語言如 何表達 "創造"?