Abstract

Treatise on Reality and Function represents the mature expression of Xiong Shili’s 熊十力 (1885–1968) signature metaphysical doctrine of the “non-duality of ti and yong” (體用不二), articulated within the broader context of advancing a systematic critique of both Madhyamaka and Yogācāra Buddhist thought, the culmination of nearly four decades of critical engagement. Xiong presents Treatise on Reality and Function as the third and final iteration of his earlier New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness (1932, 1944). Ti and yong are abbreviations for “the Reality of the cosmos” and “the functioning of Reality,” respectively, where the latter refers to Reality’s transforming into material phenomena and mental phenomena. Reality (ti 體) or intrinsic Reality (benti 本體)—the intrinsic Reality of the myriad things that constitute the phenomenal world, the cosmos—is the source of the phenomenal (function; yong 用) yet is not different from the phenomenal. Although intrinsic Reality is characterized in terms of origin, point of emergence, and beginning, the relationship between intrinsic Reality and its phenomenal manifestation is not like that of mother and offspring or creator and created. Rather, Xiong not only insists on the ontological parity between ti and yong, but also on their ontological identity. He draws syncretically on a diverse range of resources in the Chinese philosophical tradition to construct his own overarching metaphysical vision and is particularly inspired by the view found in Book of Change that the cosmos is perpetually and vigorously transforming.