隨著郭店楚簡〈太一生水〉、上博楚簡〈恆先〉等文本的出土，中國先秦形而上學的研究乃多有新資料及新範疇可探討。然資料仍是不斷公布，適才出爐的《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書（七） 》中，即有題為〈凡物流形〉的一篇（有甲、乙兩本），饒具形而上學的意義，對先秦思想史研究的價值極其珍貴。如《楚辭•天問》所提：「遂古之初，誰傳道之？上下未形，何由考之？」等名句相類，〈凡物流形〉亦多以疑問句成篇，如：「凡物流形，奚得而成？流形成體，奚得而不死？」等，並且處處押韻，兩書之間的關係頗饒興味。此外尚有與《莊子》 、 《淮南子》等書中形而上學方面的段落相近的章節，然其間亦多有出入可談。本文擬先就〈凡物流形〉前半篇提出若干釋讀方面的意見及約略的解說，以供大方之家參考指正，作為學者進一步探討其形而上學意義的基礎。

With the recent unearthing of such Warring States bamboo manuscripts as
“Taiyi sheng shui” of Guodian and “Heng xian” of the Shanghai Museum corpus, the study of Chinese metaphysics has gained a wealth of new materials and concepts for exploration. Yet new materials continue to come forth, such as the recently published Shanghai Museum v. 7 manuscript “Fan wu liu xing” (in two copies), a text rich in metaphysical significance and of tremendous value to the study of pre-Qin intellectual history. In a form similar to the Chuci text “Tian wen,” this text
is made up of a series of fundamental questions—all in rhymed stanzas—such as “By what means are all things able to take form?” or “Once things take form, by what means do they survive?” It constitutes an important early example of metaphysical inquiry in the Chinese tradition, with interesting similarities to and differences from major received philosophical texts from the same time period and region. This essay aims to provide a credible reading of the first half of this
important new document and make a brief inquiry into its metaphysical significance.