Wake Forest University

ZZYLDQ 1:2bf/11

GB:

或问：必有是理然后有是气，如何？曰：此本无先后之可言 。然必 欲 推其所从来。则须说先有是理。然理又非别为一物 。即存乎是气 之中。无是气，则是理亦无挂搭处。气则为金 木水火。理则为仁义 礼智。ren/ jie/

big5:

┪拜ゲΤ琌瞶礛 Τ琌りセ礚ぇē 礛ゲ 饼 崩ㄤ┮眖ㄓ玥斗弧Τ琌瞶礛瞶獶 琌 ぇい礚琌玥琌瞶ョ礚珽穎矪玥 れ瞶玥く竡 搂醇

城

Someone asked: "How about [the position that] there must be a certain li and only after that can there be a corresponding lifebreath?" [Zhu Xi] replied: "Basically, there is no prior and anterior that can be predicated [of li or lifebreath]. However, if one is bound and determined to push things back to the point of origin, then one must say that first there is a certain li, and yet li is not a separate entity (i.e., it is not found as something independent from lifebreath). It is found maintained in existence in the midst of that lifebreath. If there were not this lifebreath, then that li would have no place in which to inhere. Lifebreath is then metal, wood, water, and fire (four of the five "elements"), and li is benevolence, sense of right and wrong, sense of propriety, and wisdom (the corresponding four virtues)."

Commentary:

Zhu Xi appears to be maintaining two related but seemingly antithetical views, one that li and lifebreath are always found together, and the other, that there is a kind of ontological priority of li over lifebreath. The first point simply means that never in this universe do we have awareness of a palpable li (or a palpable form, to use our language) that is not an aspect of some material entity.

It is easier to understand this point if we examine our own experience of matter and form. It is never the case, as far as I know, that a supply of cement, sand, and water is put in storage in a warehouse and forms itself into a statue of a centaur or any other being. In other words, a supply of raw materials does not itself contain the plan and impulse to turn it into an artifact. Similarly, an infertile chicken egg appears to contain all of the same material constituents as any other egg, but the infertile can be incubated as long as you like and yet a chick will not form.

On the other hand, if a seed is planted in an appropriate growing medium, or a human being has a plan for a certain kind of statue, then the genetic nature of the growing embryo in the seed, or the plan in the mind of the human being, will cause action to be taken to reach out into the environment and secure and organize the materials required for actualizing the plan.

The example I have just given actually assumes the presence in the same region of space and time of both the plan or formal element for an entity, and the material requirements for the formation of the entity. But Zhu Xi asserts that li is ontologically prior, which suggests that li somehow calls the lifebreath needed for its instantiation into being. Perhaps Zhu Xi merely means that if someone has mentally planned a certain kind of table then that person may secure wood from anywhere just as long as its general characteristics are suitable to table building. When the table is finished we can actually see the form of the table as transformed from an insubstantial idea in the mind of a human being to a substantial arrangement of wooden parts and items of hardware.

Does Zhu Xi mean the following? If there is form then there is matter.

We can denote that conditional statement by: F --> M and we can examine the truth table for that statement:

F M F -->M
T T T
T F F
F T T
F F T

Reproducing the truth table for "if then" statements serves to remind us that the maker of the statement is only proven wrong should there be a case in the real world wherein there is form but there is no matter. That suggests that if Zhu Xi is correct then every li must be instantiated. But Zhu Xi himself points to cases where something new comes into the world at a late time in human history. So this statement cannot be what he really wants to say.

How about the following? If there is matter then there must be form.

M F M --> F
T T T
T F F
F T T
F F T

In this case, Zhu Xi would be proven wrong only should there be a case in the real world wherein there is matter but there is no form. In other words, Zhu Xi would be held correct unless there were a case where there were matter that was totally formless. Even a half ton of sand carelessly emptied out of a dump truck has some form, and it would be difficult to say what we could mean by "formless matter" since to be aware of such matter there would have to be some characteristic (or form) by which our senses could differentiate it from the rest of the universe.

As long as we are considering the ordinary objects of the universe, bricks, sand, interstellar gas, etc., the above formulation seems to make sense. First there is the big bang, then an intense plasma with only the barest of characteristics, and millions or billions of years later intelligent life comes into being.

If we attempt to trace the development of the universe in reverse, then we must ask, what are the possibilities at the crack of dawn of creation for the relationship between matter and form? If we suppose that there were matter without form, matter without any characteristics whatsoever, then there would be no way to connect it with what came later. It could presumably not function as a cause for what came later, else it would have characteristics that gave it its causal nature. If there were characteristics, and characteristics that did not include those of materiality, those characteristics might include ones that would account for the creation of a material universe. If we suppose that matter and form appeared on the stage simultaneously, which is what current extrapolations and speculations by physicists seem to favor, then we would be left with the nagging question: Why this kind of a universe and not some other?

In one further respect Zhu Xi's philosophy seems to be compatible with modern physics. The simple and uniform conditions at the beginning of the universe seem to entail the complex and highly diverse forms of being that evolve from the beginning conditions. That is not to say that the Andromeda galaxy or sequoia trees were preordained in the very beginning, but that very many kinds of collections of interstellar matter are possible and many different kinds of life are also possible. They all have to obey some basic kinds of "laws," i.e., they can't include complexities that are incompatible with the basic simplicities, and there apparently has to be a clear path from the simplest to the most complex that passes through intermediate stages of complexity. At least in the limited experiences of human beings, it does not seem that fully formed complex forms of life do not suddenly appear in the middle of some street or public auditorium -- or anyplace else for that matter. At least the probability of such sudden mutations seems to be an extremely small fractional value.

I hasten to add two things: (1) Zhu Xi was not an adherent of modern western physics or anything very much like it even though he came to conclusions that were similar to those of physics -- probably because he was observing the same universe and trying to make coherent statements about it. (2) Zhu Xi appears to me to have an explanation for the universe's dual aspects of form and matter, or, in his terms, li and lifebreath. Zhu Xi's explanation has nothing to do with matter, energy, quantum states, quarks, or relativity because none of these concepts are consistent with his own system of concepts. Zhu Xi's system derives from the Yi Jing (Book of Changes), or, more specifically, the stratum of that book that consists of metaphysical speculations based on the earlier strata of prognostication texts.

-- PEM