Lijun Chen

Philosophical anthropology has long defined the essence of human being through tool use, social cooperation, and linguistic symbols. However, these supposed defining traits either have embryonic counterparts in the animal kingdom or are derivative outcomes themselves, each presupposing a more primordial cognitive structure whose own conditions of possibility have seldom been examined. This paper proposes and argues that this repeatedly presupposed yet unnamed structure, namely quxiang bilei (image abstraction and analogical correlation) in classical Chinese philosophy, can be regarded as the meta-epistemological structure of cognitive activities. Its fourfold procedure—image abstraction, analogical correlation, verification, and feedback—constitutes a logically indispensable necessary condition for typical cognitive acts (this paper proves only its necessity, not sufficiency), offering a transcendental logical framework for understanding the possibility of higher-order cognition. The argument unfolds in six steps: distinguishing the empirical-temporal from the logical-transcendental dimensions of the inquiry into human origins; proving the logical necessity of the fourfold procedure through a transcendental reductio ad absurdum ; taking the Zhou Yi (I Ching) as a paradigm of conscious formalization of this meta-cognitive structure; engaging in dialogue with Kant, Hume, and Heidegger; and finally clarifying the Dao as the logical remainder of image abstraction from a phenomenological perspective. This is the first in a series of research papers aimed at laying a logical foundation for meta-epistemology. By “universal necessity” this paper means the status of being a logical presupposition of cognitive activity, not a proof of sufficient conditions for cognition.

Philosophy is said to be "the love of wisdom," yet throughout the long tradition of Western philosophy, "wisdom" has lacked a rigorous, non-circular definition. This paper argues that the history of Western philosophy's definitions of wisdom follows a discernible recursive trajectory—from classical ontology through modern epistemology to contemporary linguistic analysis—where each attempt at definition fails to escape circularity but thereby reveals the structure of that circularity more clearly. This is not due to any lack of effort on the part of philosophers, but to the inherent structural limitation of the grammar of the "What is…" question itself. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s philosophical turn, this paper introduces the framework of quxiang bilei (image-taking and analogical matching) from classical Chinese philosophy, reconstructing it as a meta-cognitive loop of image-taking, analogy and verification, and provides a genetic grounding that demonstrates its logical priority over all symbolic systems. On this basis, the paper proposes that wisdom is not an object awaiting conceptual definition, but the sum total of effective "images" sedimented through the quxiang bilei loop across the historical process of human existence; philosophy is the reflection on the modes of image-taking and the reverence for the "unimageable field." This genetic description brings an end to circular definition and realizes a grammatical shift from the inquiry of "What is…" to the exploration of "How does it come to be?" In the age of artificial intelligence, this framework helps delineate the ontological boundary of current weak AI characterized by "knowledge without wisdom," and reveals the methodological potential of Chinese philosophy as a meta-analytical tool. At a deeper level, quxiang bilei inherently embodies epistemic awakening, self-awareness of the limits of reason, and ultimate reverence for ignorance and the background of existence. It confronts deep-seated pathologies of modern civilization such as rational inflation and the uprootedness of knowledge, while emphasizing cognitive humility and the maintenance of ontological boundaries.

Philosophical anthropology has long defined the essence of human being through tool use, social cooperation, and linguistic symbols. However, these supposed defining traits either have embryonic counterparts in the animal kingdom or are derivative outcomes themselves, each presupposing a more primordial cognitive structure whose own conditions of possibility have seldom been examined. This paper attempts to demonstrate that this repeatedly presupposed yet unnamed primordial structure is precisely what classical Chinese philosophy calls quxiang bilei (image abstraction and analogical correlation). It is not merely one mode of cognition among others, but the meta-epistemological structure that renders all cognition possible. Its fourfold procedure—image abstraction, analogical correlation, verification, and feedback—constitutes the logically indispensable condition for any cognitive act whatsoever. The argument unfolds in six steps. First, it distinguishes two levels of inquiry into human origins: the empirical-temporal and the logical-transcendental, clarifying both the theoretical contribution and the implicit presuppositions of Engels’s proposition that “labor created man itself.” Second, employing a strict transcendental reductio ad absurdum without recourse to empirical examples, it demonstrates the universal necessity of the fourfold procedure. Third, taking the Zhou Yi (I Ching) as a paradigm, it shows that classical Chinese thought represents the earliest and most exemplary conscious formalization of this meta-cognitive structure, and sketches its evolutionary progression from lower to higher cognitive levels against the evidence of Paleolithic archaeological relics. Fourth, it engages in an in-depth dialogue with Kant, Hume, and Heidegger, attempting to address several long-debated core problems in Western epistemology. Finally, it phenomenologically clarifies the Dao as the logical remainder of image abstraction, and strictly distinguishes between the operational dimension and the existential dimension of quxiang bilei. This article is the first in a series of research projects aimed at laying a solid logical foundation for the whole theoretical system. Subsequent papers will launch a systematic dialogue between Chinese and Western epistemological traditions and explore the theoretical implications of this model in the philosophy of artificial intelligence.

This paper demonstrates, from an epistemological standpoint, the structural isomorphism between Quxiang Bilei—the classical Chinese cognitive method of image abstraction and analogical reasoning, literally "taking phenomena to form analogies and categorical associations"—and Bayesian inference. By systematically mapping the three components of Bayes's theorem—prior probability, likelihood function, and posterior probability—onto the three constitutive stages of Quxiang Bilei: image-taking, analogy-making, and verification, this paper reveals that Bayesian inference is not merely a specialized technical toolset, but rather the mathematical formalization of the metacognitive structure inherent in Quxiang Bilei. Building upon this isomorphic framework, the paper advances five core philosophical propositions: (1) objectivity is the statistical convergence outcome of collective Bayesian updating across epistemic communities; (2) causal laws represent the limiting case in which posterior probability infinitely approaches unity; (3) the interpretability of probabilistic calculations resides not within mathematics itself, but in its correspondence with underlying metacognitive structures; (4) the absolute boundary of artificial intelligence lies not in insufficient computational power, but in its lack of embodied physical anchoring and authentic survival feedback; and (5) there exists a fundamental, non-accidental isomorphism between Quxiang Bilei and Bayesian inference. These five propositions are not mere mutual projections between two disparate conceptual frameworks, but genuinely novel insights emerging from their productive dialogue and critical engagement. This work provides a robust epistemological foundation for Bayesianism, offers rigorous mathematical support for the modern transformation of classical Chinese epistemology, and establishes a unified analytical framework for understanding the cognitive essence and fundamental limitations of artificial intelligence.