Abstract

Chinese metaphysics and Western metaphysics share common resources, which are theoretical understandings on the contradiction between finiteness and eternity embedded in human beings, and the human reflections on the nature of their life. Nevertheless, the two kinds of metaphysics differ from each other concerning their constructing modes in the following two aspects. First, as to the establishing mode, Chinese metaphysics is in the ascending way, which is from the ethical world to the field of metaphysics; while Western metaphysics in the descending way, which starts from ontology, and arrives at ethics. Second, as to the methods of transcending the finiteness of human life, or the methods leading to eternity, the Chinese way is inner, while the Western one transcendent. The unity of these two aspects constitutes the difference between the constructing mode of Chinese metaphysics and that of Western metaphysics.