魏晉玄學雖以本未、有無之辨為核心，然在魏晉學者之相關論述中，亦屢屢可見透過氣化觀點以說明有世界之生成變化的例子。其說大體上可歸別為三種不同之理論型態：何晏、王弼、韓康伯、《列子》、張湛等以為「氣化自然，以無為本」；阮籍、嵇康、郭象等則主張「氣本自有，陶鑠萬形」，認為氣化即是自然，無須任何最後本體，而有別於氣化以無為本之說；此外，楊泉則提出氣為自然之的說法，認為宇宙萬物皆由氣所構成，並試圖藉由氣來解釋節而成之論，為魏晉氣學理論之主要特色。

　　　　　Though revolving around the differentiations between “essential and non-essential” as well as “being and nothingness,” Neo-Taoism in the Wei and Jin Periods contains a lot of discourses on the creation and transformation of the material world from the perspective of metamorphosis. Those discourses are generally divided into three different types of theories: He Yian, Wang bi, Han Kang-bo, Zhang Zhan and Lie-zi maintain that “Qi tranfforming into Nature from nothing”, Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, and Guo Xiang believe “Qi is nature cultivating everything,” assuming that Qi is nature without any ultimate essence; besides, Yang Quan proposes that Qi is the essence of nature and that everything in the universe is made from Qi, by which he also tries to interpret the change of seasons. All these various theories are all based on the doctrine that Qi transforms into nature by doing nothing, which is characteristic of the theories of Qi in the Wei and Jin Periods.