國立臺灣大學哲學論評

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With the recent unearthing of such Warring States bamboo manuscripts as “Taiyi sheng shui” of Guodian and “Heng xian” of the Shanghai Museum corpus, the study of Chinese metaphysics has gained a wealth of new materials and concepts for exploration. Yet new materials continue to come forth, such as the recently published Shanghai Museum v. 7 manuscript “Fan wu liu xing” (in two copies), a text rich in metaphysical significance and of tremendous value to the study of pre-Qin intellectual history. In a form similar to the Chuci text “Tian wen,” this text is made up of a series of fundamental questions—all in rhymed stanzas—such as “By what means are all things able to take form?” or “Once things take form, by what means do they survive?” It constitutes an important early example of metaphysical inquiry in the Chinese tradition, with interesting similarities to and differences from major received philosophical texts from the same time period and region. This essay aims to provide a credible reading of the first half of this important new document and make a brief inquiry into its metaphysical significance.