The Charm and Puzzle of Mysterious Speculation——A Reconsideration of Wang Bi’s Metaphysical Learning

Wang Bi's mysterious metaphysical learning plays an indispensable role in the history of Chinese thoughts.When its characteristics and fate in the intellectual history are reconsidered,a serious problem has to be put forward for Chinese philosophy:whether a sort of completely abstract speculation is adaptive to the climate of humanistic concerns in the traditional Chinese thinking or not.In other words,whether an excessive pursuit of universal validity of thinking expressions by words will hurt concrete fulfillments of the thinking content?Wang Bi,indeed,brings about a double perplexity to Confucians who have to reinterpret in a universal sense the Confucianist spirit earnestly advocated and practiced by Confucius on the one hand,and specifically carry out the spirit in reality on the other hand,in their explaining and practicing Confucian ideals.