What is metaphysics

What I have observed is that, in Chinese contexts, there are roughly three common ways of understanding the term “形而上学.”

The first is a literal reading. On this view, it is taken to mean “the study of what lies above the physical world.” In other words, there is first a real, tangible world, and then human beings abstract further from that basis, producing a higher level of knowledge.

The second is to understand it through traditional Chinese semantics, especially by using the phrase “what is above form is called Dao, what is below form is called vessel” to explain it. Many people think this translation is extremely clever, almost inspired. But I think the opposite. This way of understanding it too easily imports the original Dao-vessel framework of Chinese philosophy directly into the discussion, and as a result shifts the problem-consciousness of Western metaphysics. The word meta here cannot simply be understood as the “above” in “above form,” and it certainly cannot be directly identified with the “Dao” in the Dao-vessel relation of Chinese philosophy.

The third understanding, in my view, is more reliable. It is to treat “形而上学” as an already fixed translated term. It is neither a strict transliteration nor a fully accurate semantic translation. By itself, it is not an explanation. Its actual meaning still has to be understood within the historical context of metaphysics in Western philosophy, rather than being reconstructed from the surface meaning of these Chinese characters alone. Of course, even within Western philosophy, metaphysics is not a completely fixed and unchanging concept. But at the very least, it cannot be defined directly from the Chinese phrase “形而上.” Seen this way, the term can of course continue to be used, but it is better not to let its Chinese wording lead us by the nose.

Related literal misunderstandings also appear in the term “metaverse” as translated into Chinese. Many people start from the character “元,” then try to find some equivalent in traditional Chinese thought, and may even go further and claim that the idea already existed in ancient China. As a loose cultural analogy, that may be acceptable. But as an explanation of the origin and meaning of the concept itself, it is not very solid. “Metaverse,” like “metaphysics,” is easily pulled off course by the Chinese wording of its translation. Once it is detached from its original historical and conceptual context, the understanding can easily drift. There are also cases where terms that were originally transliterations get forcibly interpreted through the literal meanings of the Chinese characters.

Many people, when they hear the word philosophy, immediately think it is something obscure and inaccessible, as if only a small number of people can enter it. They open a philosophy book, and after a few pages they cannot go on. But in many cases, the issue is not philosophy itself. The method is wrong, and the material is wrong. Philosophical questions are usually not mysterious in themselves. They often come from the most ordinary experiences of life. What is real, what is good, why one should be reasonable, why human beings suffer, what the self is, what freedom is, what right and wrong are — these are not questions that appear only in the study or the library. They are questions everyone encounters, and even small children naturally ask them. Even in the most classical scenes of ancient Greek philosophy, philosophy was not originally a matter of a few people in a closed room discussing advanced terminology. It was a matter of talking about these questions directly with real people in public life.

In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates is constantly speaking with politicians, poets, craftsmen, and young people — ordinary people in the real world. Through repeated questioning, he turns what seems self-evident back into a problem. In some dialogues, the people he is talking with are not specialists at all, but very ordinary people. This at least shows that philosophy did not originally establish itself through mystery. It could be plain, direct, and closely connected to everyday life. What makes philosophy seem difficult is often not the questions themselves, but the later layers of conceptualization, modes of argument, and textual expression that wrap these originally direct questions in excessive complexity.