Abstract

The famous scholar Ji Xianlin (1911–2009) once recalled that, during his ten years of study in Germany, what impressed him most about the ways of the German people in comparison with the Chinese people’s style of conducting themselves in the world was that the Germans tried to pursue some kind of “thorough” solutions to even the tiniest problems in daily life, that is, they must clarify the source of the problem under discussion or the difficult situation to be tackled. If we follow his way to analyze the ethical ideas and behaviors of Chinese people, we must first ask: What is the theoretical root or practical foundation of the current ethical ideas of Chinese people? After clarifying this “foundation”, we can use it as the basis for analyzing the formation of its structure, and then propose a more reliable cognitive framework for how a certain “existence” is “unfolded” and realized in time and space.