The founding patriarch of the Modern New Confucian movement, known alongside Liang Shuming and Feng Youlan as the three great masters of modern Confucianism. He authored the New Consciousness-Only Treatise, synthesizing the Book of Changes' vision of the great unfolding of cosmic transformation with the precise analysis of Buddhist Consciousness-Only philosophy, reinterpreting Confucian metaphysics through the ontology of "Non-Duality of Substance and Function." In the May Fourth era, when traditional Confucianism faced wholesale repudiation, he stood alone, devoting his life to recasting the spiritual backbone of Chinese philosophy.
Xiong Shili, original name Jizhi, courtesy name Zizhen, a native of Huanggang in Hubei. Born into poverty, his parents died early and he lived with his elder brother. From youth he was given to deep reflection; reading Chen Baisha's "On Animals" sparked his philosophical aspiration. As a young man he joined the Xinhai Revolution, participating in the Wuchang Uprising and joining the Tongmenghui. After the Republic was established, witnessing revolutionary fruits seized by warlords and revolutionaries corrupted, he felt the powerlessness of political revolution and withdrew from politics to scholarship. He entered Nanjing's Zhina Inner Institute to study Yogacara under Ouyang Jingwu, delving into the profundities of the Dharma Characteristics school for several years. He then taught at the Philosophy Department of Beijing University, gradually growing dissatisfied with Buddhism's world-renouncing tendency during his teaching, and turned back to Confucianism's Great Changes, writing the New Doctrine of Consciousness-Only (Xin Weishi Lun, classical Chinese edition 1932, vernacular edition 1944), using Buddhism's precise analytical methods to rebuild Confucian metaphysics. His character was proud, fierce, and unyielding, refusing to pander to the world; in war, displacement, and political pressure he always maintained independent thinking. His disciples Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, and Xu Fuguan became the core of the Hong Kong-Taiwan New Confucian school, and his intellectual lineage continues to this day.
Xiong Shili's philosophical core proposition is "substance and function are not two" (ti yong bu er): the absolute substance (Qianyuan, original mind) and the phenomena of cosmic great transformation are not two worlds; substance and function are one, substance manifests in phenomena, phenomena are the disclosure of substance—opposing the division of substance and phenomenon into two. He uses "contraction and expansion generate transformation" (xi pi cheng bian) to explain the dialectical movement of cosmic life-force: contraction (xi) is the materializing tendency of condensation and gathering; expansion (pi) is the upward striving and breakthrough of life-spirit-will. The two are opposite yet complementary, jointly constituting the ceaseless generation of the cosmos. Epistemologically, he distinguishes "nature-wisdom" (xing zhi) from "quantity-wisdom" (liang zhi): nature-wisdom is the intuitive self-evidence of the original mind, the fundamental path to realizing substance; quantity-wisdom is intellectual analytical reasoning, the tool for cognizing the phenomenal world—each has its use and neither should be neglected.
"Substance and function are not two. The cosmic great transformation: contraction and expansion generate transformation; the life-will of Qianyuan manifests heaven and earth. — New Doctrine of Consciousness-Only (Xin Weishi Lun)"
How does Xiong Shili's "contraction and expansion in transformation"—the tug-of-war between matter's constant contracting constraint (xi) and the life-spirit's desperate struggle to break free and bloom (pi)—engage in dialogue with modern cosmological theories of cosmic creation and annihilation?
Xiong Shili's "contraction and expansion generate transformation" and Bergson's "élan vital" both take the cosmos as an endless process of creative generation; both use dynamic life-force to break through static mechanistic worldviews.
Can life-force metaphysics genuinely replace mechanistic worldviews? Do the vitalist philosophies of Xiong Shili and Bergson converge on the same insight about cosmic creativity, or do their fundamentally different commitments make them incommensurable?
Xiong Shili uses substance-function non-duality to question the relationship between substance and phenomenon; Heidegger uses the ontological difference to question the difference between Being and beings. Both try to transcend the dualistic architecture of traditional metaphysics.
Can the critique of traditional metaphysical dualism genuinely open a new way of thinking? Do the ontological inquiries of Xiong Shili and Heidegger converge on the same insight, or do their fundamentally different starting points make them incommensurable?
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