A Comparative Research About Brothers Cheng's Principle And Plato's Idea

The construction of Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi' "Principle" and Plato's "Idea" have a very important influence to the whole Chinese and Western philosophy.It is very important to find the similarities and the differences of the two theories on the comparison of Chinese and western views.When it comes to the definition,the Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi "Principle"and Plato's" Idea" are the fundamental basis of things existence,"Principle" and " Idea " is the necessary need for basic things.The "Principle" means how to be something and emphasizes how to develop its own.The "Idea" means a class of things themselves and is the class attribute of a thing and keeps things alive.The similarities between "Principle " and Plato's "Idea" are the transcendence and reality,and the transcendence means universality,immutability,innateness,apriority,completeness in their nature.Transcendence means that both "Principle" and "Idea" are transcendence of relative objective material world as an absolute existence,This transcendence of the objective material world is embodied in the universality,immutability,innateness,apriority,completeness of "Principle" and "Idea".On the other hand,both "Principle" and "idea"are a kind of critical reflection on the thoughts of predecessors to explore the real face of the world.Universality and immutability are expressed in space and time.Universality means that "Principle" and "Idea" are universal in all things.Immutability means that both "Principle" and "Idea" are neither dying nor being born.Innateness means that both"Principle" and "Idea" are apriority existing in all things,and they exist before all things.It guarantees the rationality of the existence of everything.Apriority is manifested in the fact that "Principle" and "Idea" cannot be directly experienced by us.They are naturally existing in all things without any artificial factors.Completeness means that both"Principle" and "Idea" are self-sufficiency.Reality means that both "Principle" and"Idea" are the real existence,although they are metaphysical beings to a certain extent,their reality cannot be denied.The differences between the "Principle" and "Idea" lie in their conception,property and relationship with all things:In terms of conception,"Principle" refers more to the intrinsic nature or prescription of things;"Idea" refers to a class of things themselves."Principle" emphasizes more on how things form themselves,it emphasizes on the ultimate form on the way.The "Idea" emphasizes the class attribute of a thing.In property,;"Principle" has uniqueness and availability,while idea has relative uniqueness and availability.The uniqueness of "Principle" is refers to the things and people only have one "Principle",but "Idea" has the meaning of "more" and it is relative uniqueness,everything can be divided into multiple classes,so there are multiple "Idea"in the world.On the other hand,a thing can also exist a variety of concepts having different properties.Plato also build a concept of "good Idea" as its highest form on the basis of;"Idea".In terms of availability,"Principle" is available,and we can know it by things.As for the understanding of "Idea",we can only truly know "Idea" after death,as to say when the soul is separated from the body.Therefore,our senses cannot know "Idea",which is relatively available.In terms of the relationship between "Principle" and "Tian Li" and between "Idea"and "Good Idea","Principle" and "Tian Li" are the same based on the unity of heaven and man.There is only one "Principle",and there are relations and levels between "Idea"and "Good Idea".In terms of the relationship with all things,Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi introduce the material "Qi" to provide the material basis for the generation of all things.It also emphasizes that "Principle" and all things are interdependent existence.Plato,on the other hand,believed that things can be guaranteed to exist directly through separation or imitation of the "Idea",emphasizing the binary separation from the objective material world.If we want to obtain real knowledge,we must make our soul enter the "Idea world" without the shadow of the body.To sum up,the "Principle" of Cheng Hao and Cheng Yin and Plato's "Idea" are to establish an absolute metaphysical existence on the basis of the relative objective material world,so as to guarantee the rationality of the objective material existence.However,their differences also show the different approaches in the theoretical construction of Chinese and Western philosophy.Chinese philosophy is more focused on the construction of theoretical system and the integration of nature and human.On the contrary,Western philosophy focuses on the dualistic separation of absolute existence and relative existence,believing that our objective material world is not reliable.Therefore,it leads to the dualistic separation of Plato's "visible world" and "knowable world",separating the noumenon from the phenomenon.On the other hand,Chinese philosophy emphasizes more on seeking the ultimate form in a way and pays more attention to how to do it.while the cultural tradition of western philosophy seeks more for the ultimate basis in philosophy and the true state of the world.The theoretical system they constructed has a very important influence on Chinese and Western philosophy,and directly affects the different trends of Chinese and Western philosophy.