Abstract

Until recently epistemology in the Western sense was never a central issue in Chinese philosophy. Contemporary Chinese neo?Confucian philosophers, however, realize that in order to reconstruct some of the important traditional philosophical insights and make them meaningful in the present time, certain methodological and epistemological considerations are indispensable. The present paper undertakes to examine some of these efforts. Since most neo?Confucian philosophers today have been influenced by Hsiung Shih?li, in one way or another, his epistemological theory is presented first. Then the further development of a neo?Confucian epistemological system in Mou Tsung?san's thought is discussed. Hsiung Shih?li has made an important distinction between what he calls the hsing?ehih and the liang?chih. The former may be translated as the original wisdom and is what we rely upon to grasp ontological reality; the latter may be translated as the measuring wisdom and includes both our commonsensical and scientific ways of understanding which postulate a real, external world. A dialectical relation holds between the two. Mou Tsung?san further develops a comprehensive epistemological system which confirms the basic insights of Hsiung Shih?li. He has attempted a synthesis of the philosophical insights which he learns from Kant in the West and the Confucian tradition in China