Author ｜
Yang Rur-bin
Abstract ｜
The term “physics” in Chinese is pronounced as wu-li-xue. The concept of wu-li-xue as a branch of science was imported from the West through Japan. As usual, Japanese literati first translated the terms of modern science into classical Chinese characters, and then Chinese translators adopted the same terms in their writings. Wu-li (literally, the principles of things) is a popular concept in Neo-Confucianism. In the late nineteenth century, Japanese translators used the classical Chinese characters, combined with Neo-Confucian values, to convey the counterpart ideas of modern physics to the Oriental world. However, the native meaning of wu-li is still hidden in the modern usage of physics. Compared with the modern usage of physics, wu-li in classical Chinese embodies three kinds of principles: one is of natural meaning, another is of metaphysical meaning, the third is of ethical meaning. In Sung dynasty, wu-li contained the three levels of principles. As the school of Wang Yang-ming rose in the horizon of Ming dynasty, the meaning of wu was almost forgotten. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the significance of metaphysical elements in wu-li was eliminated from the mainstream Confucian academy. When R.O.C. replaced the Qing dynasty, the ethical significance in wu-li was further erased by the westernized Chinese scholars. The marriage between the Neo-Confucian wu-li with the physics of modern science ended in an unhappy couple, as the Chinese idiom says “they dream the different scenes in the same bed.”
keywords ｜
physics, original physics, Neo-Confucianism, a system of knowledge, metaphysics