On Song Yingxing's Philosophy Of Nature

Song Yingxing is a great scientist and thinker in Ming Dynasty. He writes a scientific book which calls T'IEN-KUNG K'AI-WU and two natural philosophy books which call Tanti and Lanai, according to our country'production technology of culture and handicraft in the end of Ming Dynasty when capitalism appears. Now the scientific book is known to most people but other two books are not got enough attention in our country. In this case, I mainly talk about Song Yingxing's natural philosophy thoughts, it not only could add the natural philosophy thoughts to the history of Chinese philosophy but also could express a total scale about the writer himself.According to Song Yingxing's two natural philosophy books, the paper mainly expresses two aspects, the first is his thoughts comes from practical works and science. So it is more scientific, the second is his thoughts is full of criticize and produce. He put his thoughts to a new level in the fight of other thoughts, As to this, the paper explains it in two aspects, one is the theory of form and air, the other is the theory of five elements.In his natural philosophy thoughts, he conforms the origin of the world is one material; all the things in the world come from one substance. He also expresses that there is only air in the universe, it is air or form in the world and also fire and water between the air and the form, and the form result from the air, the air leads to the form. He set many examples to talk about the theory, including the sun, the moon, the stone, the star, the grass, human being and the animals. In these examples, he thinks the human being that is the leader of the universe comes from the air, the human being comes to the world with nothing, he also melt into the air in the end. The form which results from the air could be seen in the beginning and when he died we could not see him in the air. Although this theory first appears in earlier times, but is different from this theory, because it bases on the experiments, it bases on a lot of materials. So the theory is formed on a new history level.After explaining the form and air theory, the paper also discusses the theory of five elements, this theory has a big effect on the history of China, Song Yingxing expresses his theory his theory on the base of these theories. He says everything has its air, there is human air in the humans and there are sun air and moon air in the sun and moon, and so on. The water and the fire have the biggest effect in the five elements; they are also expanded larger than other elements. So he put the air into the water, fire and the form. Song Yingxing also thinks all the forms come from the earth, the wood and the metal, the fire and the water are between the forms and other three elements. As so far, he offers a living picture of the universe. The course of exchange which from air to form is regular, it is form water and fire to wood, metal and earth. This is the theory of five elements of Song Yingxing.The thoughts of dialectics is mainly expressed in the knowledge of the nature, he thinks all the changes in the world is just the exchanges of appear and disappear, if there is no disappear, there is also no appear, if there is no break, there is also no continue. In this sense, he put the two opposites as a unity; it exists all the time everywhere. He explains the solar eclipse and lunar eclipse from a scientific aspect, he criticize the theory of"heaven and man", In addition, the paper also expresses the opinion of developmental regulation. How the universe works? Are they occasional or regular? Song Yingxing says"they are completely regular", all the things in the world are regular. He thinks the world is made of the air, all the things are just the different forms of the air, and they also melt into the air in the end. The course of the exchange is regular; this opinion conforms to the knowledge of materialism. The regulation is the basic connection of the things. Song Yingxing conforms that the change is regular. He does not only succeed to other opinions, his opinion is mainly expressed on the base of scientific facts. He also finds that the regulation depends on the nature of the things and the conditions. Different nature and conditions could lead to different forms. From these opinions, we could find the opinion of"energy conservation law". He thinks all the changes of the world are just the exchanges between the air and the forms. In the course of this exchange the air does not increase or decrease. In the course of this exchange, if the air increases or decreases, the course would break and does not exist. The paper gives a full scale of his dialectics and"energy conservation law".In the Chinese feudal society which prevails spirits, Song Yingxing produce a new set of natural philosophy which based on Chinese traditional science and technology and present many valuable theories, especially the form and air theory, it has a big effect on the later generations, it also inspire the later people to understand and use the regulation of nature. In the end, the paper presents the effects and contributions of Song Yingxing who as a natural philosopher.