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ONE Li 理 as a Fundamental Category in Chinese Thought The term Li has a strange history. It came into prominence as the central metaphysical category rather gradually, seemingly through the intervention of Buddhist uses, taking on its decisive role only in the thought of the Cheng Brothers (Cheng Hao 程顥, 1032–1085, and Cheng Yi 程頤, 1033–1107), and further developed by Zhu Xi (朱熹, 1130–1200), read back into the pre‑Buddhist tradition, although its actual appearance in the early texts is sparse and problematic. Thereafter, the term Li becomes the focus of several explicit controversies in the history of Chinese philosophy. These are well known. Cheng‑Zhu Neo‑Confucians (i.e., those following the line developed by Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi) critique Buddhists for understanding Li as only Emptiness. On the other hand, they critique Lu‑Wang Confucians (i.e., those following the approach of Lu Xiangshan 陸象山, 1139–1192, and Wang Yangming 王陽明, 1472–1529) for understanding Li directly as Mind. Cheng‑Zhu Confucians themselves, according to the standard interpretation, understand Li as the “principle” of all things, manifested more or less clearly and completely in each instance according to the balance and purity of the constituent qi of that thing. It is present in its entirety in each thing as that thing’s true nature, accounting for the vitality and integrity of that thing as such. In man, it is the good human nature, the nature of heaven and earth, which is not the mind per se but discoverable as an aspect of mind, its pure unmanifest and balanced underpinning, from which the empirical human mind may deviate. As we shall see presently, it is this Cheng‑Zhu usage, and its various aftermaths, that has been the primary target for modern writers trying to make sense of the term in the context of the encounter with Western philosophy that began in the twentieth century. Finally, the Qing Confucians, such as Dai Zhen 戴震and Duan Yucai 段玉裁, critique both the Cheng‑Zhu and the Lu‑Wang Neo‑Confucians for understanding 21 22 beyond NENESS AND DIFFERENCE Li as an omnipresent universal principle of all things (whether Mind or the Nature), whereas its real, original meaning, they claimed, on the basis of classical etymological studies, was of the differentiating, particular forms of individual things, the “cuts” between them, not the bridges over these gaps. It is less known that a controversy about the unity and multiplicity of Li also emerges within Tiantai Buddhism, with the so‑called Shanjia 山 家 or “Home Mountain” school, represented most vocally by Siming Zhili 四明知禮 (960–1024), asserting that Li is both a unity and as multiplicity (known respectively as 理總 lizong and 理別 libie), and each phenomenon similarly serves both as a unifier and as one of many items unified in any other phenomenon (known as 事總 shizong and 事別 shibie, respectively), while his opponents, the so‑called Shanwai 山外 or “Off‑Mountain” school, take Li purely as unity, with diversity accounted for solely by 事 shi, as in Huayen thought (that is, allowing only 理總 lizong and 事別 shibie, though as we shall see later in this book, what is really lacking here is only 理別 libie; both Huayan and the Off‑Mountain Tiantai writers do actually acknowledge 事總 shizong). The term Li clearly has not only exceptional importance, but also exceptional ambiguity. What has allowed it to play these multiple roles? Before making our own attempt to answer this question, we need to examine a few of the previous attempts at understanding this problem, on some of which we will be building, and the history of the term Li in clas‑ sical Chinese texts prior to the advent of the brand‑name philosophers. In particular, we must make clear what we mean when offering “coherence” as a way of explaining the meaning of Li, and the related problems, or absence thereof, of universals and particulars, form and matter, classes and class mem‑ bership, nominalism and realism, relativism and natural‑kinds, and so on. Fung Yulan 馮友蘭 famously and rather rashly declared that the Cheng‑Zhu Neo‑Confucian notion of “Li” 理 was the traditional Chinese equivalent of the Platonic Forms, based on their putative transcendence to their instantiations, and their essence‑like role as a criterion by which to define the identity of these instances.1 This suggestion quickly aroused refutations, as the many points of disharmony between the two doctrines became apparent. Most obvious among these is the fact that, while the Platonic forms are many, although perhaps somehow grounded in a greater unity, the Neo‑Confucian Li...

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