On the Reasons. The Origin and the Taiyi

Author: [Italian] Bruno, translated by Tang Xiasheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-02-01
Features: On the Cause, Principle, and Unity is Bruno's main philosophical representative work. From the early 19th century to the mid-20th century, it was translated into multiple languages, including German, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Hungarian. The book confirms that the universe is the One (Tao), which is infinite, eternal, and unified, with countless habitable worlds moving within it, with the solar system being just one of them. Thus, it powerfully refutes the geocentric theory and develops Copernicus's heliocentric theory. It posits that the world soul is the primordial form, the true efficient cause of all things, but the form "exists within matter" and is "determined and limited by matter." Without matter, the form has no existence. Bruno also argues for the principle of the unity of opposites. He states, "Everything we see—its beginning, middle, and end, its birth, growth, and completion—is not only from opposition, through opposition, in opposition, and toward opposition." Examples include love and hate, life and death, string and arc, the great and the small, heat and cold, one and many, etc. He points out that this unity of opposites arises from the existence of the same matter. In summary, the publication of this Chinese translation provides favorable conditions for us to conduct in-depth research on Bruno.