The basic proposition of these two categories pertains to the nature of reality, and the primary distinction between them is the way they answer two fundamental questions: "what does reality consist of?" and "how does it originate?"
這兩類哲學的基本主張和現實的本質有關，而其主要差異出現在對以下二個基本問題的回答上：「現實包括什麼？」以及「現實如何產生的？」。