An Interpretation of Xing and Qing

Xing (“性”) and Qing (“情”) are two important categories in Confucianism. In Dao, Jin Yuelin used the concepts of universals and particulars in Western philosophy to interpret Xing and Qing respectively, and constructed his own theoretical system through answering the question of Xing and Qing. This system includes metaphysics level and epistemology level. With this interpretation, we can also find these two levels in the classic texts of Confucianism: the first level is the Xin (“心”) and Wu (“物”), and the second level is the Xing and Qing. This interpretation also gives us another approach and possibility to answer the question of Xing and Qing in Confucianism. For this reason, we begin to investigate G.E. Moore’s theory of universals. There are universals in Universal, and the question can be answered by denying any particular things. This provides an unique interpretation for the question of Xing and Qing.