Abstract:
Without functioning as a key term, “things” has been frequently used in Guo Xiang’s philosophy. As for its connotation, “things” in Guo Xiang highlights the variety and individuality of things due to their essential differences. Concerning its extension,“things” in Guo Xiang extends from natural beings to being in general, including human beings and their affairs such as “position and salary”. It also refers to social and political practice and life meaning as well. It philosophically implicates, on the one hand, that it remains an ontological fact for a human being that he is independent by nature despite of the everpresent delusion of external things; and on the other, a human being shall satisfy himself in the frame of his “role and part” in spite of his being free by nature. Here we can see the submission to conventionality in the disguise of romanticism: to promote selfsufficiency, independence and freedom in the frame of his “role and part” can easily transform itself into the submission to destiny, that is, to have a sweet dream in a comfortable house of metaphysically justified “role and part” after completely and undoubtedly accepting the rationality of the existing outside order.
