What is it about?
Jean Grondin’s endeavor to revive metaphysics in a “post-metaphysical” age resonates with the ramifications of Cheng’s onto-generative hermeneutics for Western philosophy. However, Cheng also pinpoints a shortcoming in Grondin that undermines his aims, an underdeveloped understanding of the cosmological source of creativity. To ameliorate this dilemma, Grondin’s claim that Gadamer rejects the source of metaphysical light in Plato is reassessed based on (1) Heidegger’s rethinking of existence as the Daoist Fourfold and (2) a re-interpretation of “the Good beyond Being.” Rather than a boundary to understanding, for Cheng, “beyond Being” signals an existential encounter with the Daoist void. In this way, the light in Grondin’s metaphysical hermeneutics resurfaces from the ground up in Cheng’s cosmo-ontology.
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Why is it important?
I reinterpret "the light of the Good" to include a Daoist negation of the Idea of the Good and thereby reposition the light in the coming to be of phenomenon, i.e., from metaphysics to phenomenological-ontology.
Perspectives
Jean Grondin's publication on Metaphysical Hermeneutics inspired me to revisit my own thinking about metaphysics in hermeneutics (Gadamer) yet with due regard to the difference as difference. I have since developed "non-Being" in the figure of Socrates and the Allegory of the Cave. Engaging Grondin's Metaphysical Hermeneutics from the perspective of Gadamer's Platonic metaphysics and onto-generative hermeneutics (first installment of the project in 2019 "Gadamer's Linguistic Turn")
Dr Andrew Fuyarchuk
Yorkville University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Cosmological Source of Creativity in the Light of Metaphysical Hermeneutics, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, January 2026, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/15406253-12340164.
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