The Yijing: The Creative Origin of Chinese Philosophy
Chung‑Ying Cheng
The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy
Edited by William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield
Print Publication Date: May 2011 Subject: Philosophy, Non-Western Philosophy Online Publication Date: Sep 2011 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195328998.003.0003
Abstract and Keywords
This article provides an introduction to the Yijing. The Yijing (the Book of Changes) dates back to the beginning of the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1200 BCE). Although we do not know exactly how it was produced, it appears that the text arose as a result of sustained observations of changes in nature. It is often claimed that the Yijing way of thinking characterizes the basic mode of Chinese philosophical thinking. The Yijing arises from a process of comprehensive observation and empathetic feeling that generates penetrating understanding. The feeling of a person toward a given situation is the reciprocation and interaction between yin and yang, which leads to one's direct experience of the dynamics of unity in duality. There are five steps in realizing the understanding of reality. Apart from comprehensive observation and direct, simple, and penetrating feeling, these steps include understanding and thinking of reality by the way of images. “Images” are actually form-objects or process-events, which may be referred to as overt and ostensible (observable and felt) things in the world. Hence, they are not arbitrary mental fabrications but things in the midst of the thickness of world-reality.
Keywords: Yijing, Book of Changes, Chinese philosophy, yin, yang, reality, duality
Historical Background and Theoretical Presupposition
The Yijing AAf (the Book of īhanges) dates back to the beginning of the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1200 BCE). Although we do not know exactly how it was produced, it appears that the text arose as a result of sustained observations of changes in nature. The purpose of these observations was to provide the foundation for the proper judgment and conduct of appropriate human action, in light of an understanding of future events that would affect the well-being of an individual or a state. The Xici SiR tells us that Fu Xi made comprehensive observations
of the heavens and earth and examined things near and far, and “began to invent the eight gua I' (trigrams), so that we may reach and understand the powers of the divinity (shenming 4F[I ), and classify-record the facts of the ten thousand things.” 2 Thus, the system of gua was not invented (p. 14) arbitrarily but was instead purposefully established in light of comprehensive observations so that we may understand cosmic nature and relate and respond to the myriad things as part of our efforts to develop ourselves as human persons.
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Sima Qian (j 馬j) in his Historical Records informs us that King Wen (文) emended the eight-gua system into the sixty-four zhonggua (hexagrams). The so-called hexagrams are each composed of two trigrams of three yao lines or lines of movement in terms of yin-yang alternation. The doubling of two trigrams in a hexagram is an indication of how two natural states representing complexes of yin-yang could produce a hyperstate of reality embodied in human situations. It is interesting to note that once the double trigrams form a hexagram, the hexagram can be further explained as an ordering of the state of heaven, the human state, and the earth state, with each state represented by two lines of change or movement. We come to have sixty-four hexagrams as a result of two to the sixth power. This expansion is necessary for representing systematically all basic human situations by way of interpretation and therefore integrates situations of change with their different judgments appended, drawing from concrete cases of divination in the two previous dynasties of the Shang and Xia of more than 800 years, and probably before. The so-called judgment is a statement and foreboding on the nature of a situation as represented by a hexagram: it is an interpretation of the situation represented by a generated hexagram. No doubt, divination is an essential part of the Yijing tradition as a practical art to guide human action. But such divination was thought to be based on judgments derived from observed trends in nature; it was not based on the conjectured wills of deities. Even though there was shamanism in ancient China, the wu (shaman) and shi
史 (history recorder) came into being at about the same time, and eventually the shi became dominant. History, then—in addition to a profound understanding of the cosmos—became the basis for predicting the future: a diviner must be one who can interpret the present and its relation to the future in light of the past.
Thus, the Yijing embodies and presupposes a cosmic view that is consonant with human engagement with the natural environment and social practices encompassed by cultural and history. A person resolves practical life problems with reference to a comprehensive system of observation of a holistic nature that consists of heaven, earth, and humanity. In this sense, the Yijing is not just a text of divinatory judgments but also one that contains and presupposes theoretical and practical understanding of heaven, earth, and human being. The theoretical content generates the practical judgments in sixty-four gua. The foundational understanding of nature (heaven and earth) in relation to humanity in the Yijing marks the beginning of Chinese philosophy. And the Yijing, with its tradition of “comprehensive observation of changes” (tongbian ~變), can be regarded as a primary source of inspiration for the later development of Chinese philosophical traditions.
One may question whether the reflective understanding of nature in relation to humanity in the Yijing is philosophy in the proper sense of the word. If “philosophy” (p. 15) is inquiry into the truth of whatever matter that is important and meaningful and that may have a practical bearing on our life and actions, then what is presupposed and preunderstood in the Yijing is precisely what philosophy is all about. Without such philosophical activity, there is no way a deep descriptive account of change as cognized and experienced by an observer could be given. What the Yijing author(s) focuses on in nature reflects the philosophical interest to find out how changes take place and how we may deal with them, in such a way that the practical is built on the theoretical and the theoretical is guided by the practical.
In the original judgments (guaci I'辭), many concepts are implicit; they call for definition and clarification. This is what occasioned Confucius's conscientious effort to seek their meanings and their implication for action. Therefore, the writing and development of the Yizhuan A{ as the comprehensive commentary on the Yi texts (forms and judgments) are a deliberate response to queries about their underlying philosophy in the fifth to fourth century BCE by Confucius and his disciples. Shiyi + (Ten Commentaries), especially
Tuanzhuan 彖{ (Commentary on Judgment), Wenyan (Commentary on Text and Words), Xiangzhuan *{ (Commentary on Images),
and Xici 繫辭(Comprehensive Commentary), are explicit elucidations of the foundational philosophy of the Yi. In all these commentaries, concepts are explicitly defined according to reflective understanding. This understanding is based on the deep experience of and insights into cosmic reality.
The central philosophical concern of almost all of these commentaries can be described as onto-cosmological (i.e., addressing the origin of the cosmos) and cosmological (i.e., addressing the process of how the cosmos is formed), ethical (i.e., human situations and relations) and environmental-ethical (i.e., how humans relate to their environments), and philosophical-anthropological (i.e., relating to the individual) and political-philosophical (i.e., relating to the society). Even though their language is succinct and concise, they espouse a philosophy of reality and a philosophy of humanity. As such, the Yizhuan becomes the explicit source and beginning of Chinese philosophy, containing the implicit onto-cosmological insights uncovered by broad reflections on the part of Confucius and his disciples, just as the Yi text itself was formed from the reflections of King Wen and other ancient sage kings on divinatory practice. In the practice of divination, we may already discern some primary philosophical activities: making onto-cosmic discovery, doing onto-hermeneutical interpretation, exercising moral udgment on action, engaging in philosophical reflection, and providing justification.
Five Stages/Levels of Onto-Hermeneutical Formation of the Yi Text
The above analysis shows that the Yijing embodies five levels or layers of understanding and interpretation of reality (nature), conceived as five stages of development: observation (guan ), symbolization (xiang *), systematization (p. 16) (tong ), divination (bu J'), and interpretation (jie ). They can be described and explained in terms of key concepts or terms in the Yijing or the Yizhuan.
First, comprehensive observation (guan) as presented in the twentieth hexagram is the key concept to understand the formation of the Yi symbols in light of observation and experience of nature and reality as described in the Xici of the Yizhuan. Second, symbolization is the process of forming an image (xiang) of an event or a situation. All trigrams and hexagrams are images or symbols that either iconically or indexically represent real situations in nature and life. Although the Yijing text does not employ the word xiang, the gua symbols are iconic and indexical representations.
Third, the systematization of the Yi symbols, which are composed of their names and appended gua divinatory judgments and line (yao ) divinatory explanations, makes the Yijing a text (wen ) or book (shu ) and a system of ordered sequence of gua. We can understand how King Wen could come to organize the guas and their judgments and explanations into the present ordered sequence. He must have acquired a
vision of the onto-cosmological nature with its creative development, consisting of the interactive yin-yang forces that lead to both differentiation and integration of things. The term “tongbian” (penetrating or understanding changes) indicates this understanding that inspires systematization of forms and images.
Fourth, divination is the practice of determining the nature of a present situation with milfoil stalks (shi) in order to produce an image of the future, the significance of which can be interpreted in light of signs as revealed in the cracks of burned oracle bones. The articulation of the meaning of the divination is called oral divination (zhan jf). The ancient word “zhen” (貞) also suggests divination using sea shells or tortoise shells.
Finally, interpretation stands for two basic concepts in the Yi texts: the concept of clarification or illumination (ming ) and the concept of resolution (jie ). In the Tuan, Xiang, and Xici commentaries “ming” is used to clarify a belief, an argument, a punishment, an administrative policy, the meaning of a time, and the moral implication of fortunate and misfortunate (ji and xiong). “Ming” is to interpret and explain so that a point, a truth, a fact, and a value can be clarified. But a gua situation also calls for resolution. The interpretation of a gua situation requires an informed decision on actions in light of the understanding of the situation, actions that will bring resolution to the present predicament. Here lies the relevance of the concept of “jie,” which refers to resolution of difficulty.
With these five stages of development, in which divination plays a central role in the systematization, form judgments (guaci I'j#—what diviners say about the meaning of the gua as a whole) and line explanations (yaoci Ij#—what the diviners say about the meaning of a line in the gua) are generated to illuminate the gua symbols that accommodate observations of yin-yang forces and their alignments. Consequently, a primal form of onto-hermeneutic understanding4 arises that is based on re-reading a given description in light of experience and engaging with reality.
(p. 17) This onto-hermeneutic understanding is a matter of an onto-hermeneutic circle: an integration of the parts and whole of experiences of a situated state of reality or event. It is a circle because a circulation of attribution and regulation of meaning in light of experience and understanding of a given situation is presupposed.
We may ask how the Yi text comes to be formed as a result of onto-hermeneutic understanding, thereby embodying an onto-hermeneutic
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understanding with an epistemologically oriented methodology and an onto-cosmology, or benti (本J) -ontology, which functions as the foundation of Chinese philosophy. To answer this is to look into the formation of the earliest Yi symbols and names that refer to human experiences in nature (heaven and earth). The trigrams are developed as an organized set of symbols to stand for the observed salient structures, events, and processes of nature. The eight trigrams (bagua) suggest the eight dominant natural phenomena and processes— namely, heaven and earth, fire and water, lake and hill, and wind and thunder, each indicating the presence of a potential force of formation and transformation—that are central to our understanding of nature in that they are the basis for the formation and constitution of all other events and processes of nature.
The eight phenomena-processes are also observed to be derived from even more basic forces or processes. Hence, we can speak of our experiences of yin (shady) and yang (bright), gang Nq (firmness) and rou (softness), dong 0 (motion) and jing If (rest), and related qualities such as empty and substantial, potential and actual, progress and regress, and ups and downs as basic dimensions of events such as fire and water or natural states such as hill and lake. Even heaven and earth have features we normally experience in concrete feelings and actual situations, such as nobility and fatherliness for heaven and tolerance and motherliness for earth. Based on these experienced qualities of events and things, we may reach a more generalized notion of yin and yang as the preserving force and advancing force, respectively, such that all experiences have their polar contrast and dynamic interdependence. This is what Daoism has done by introducing the concepts of de 德 (virtue) and dao j (the way). They can also be described as manifestations of order and vitality—li JN and qi X—in Song-Ming Neo-Confucian philosophy. Insofar as we experience de and dao or li and qi in reality, we also can experience yin-yang qualities such as dark and bright, soft and firm, moving and still, and so forth. Such contrast and interdependence of yin and yang eventually lead to the positing of a single primary source of creativity, which is the taiji t# (the great ultimate). Hence, it is said in the Yizhuan that “Change has taiji, from which two norms (yin and yang) arise” (Xici shang 11). All things arise from the taiji by way of yin-yang operations, which are in turn sustained by the taiji as the inexhaustible source of creativity.
(p. 18) Given the primary symbols of experiences of reality, the eight trigrams can be said to be composed of these primary symbols in terms of the internal de-dao and li-qi relationships. These trigrams further combine into the larger configurations of the sixty-four hexagrams by way of binomial expansion, which logically capture the structures and vitalities of natural events and processes. The sixty-four hexagrams come to represent a usable set of basic human conditions, which we understand, manage, and act on with reason and will. Here we see how a principle of epistemic and regulative simplicity is implicitly at work: the system of sixty-four hexagrams is simply considered a representation of reality at a level consistent with our need for and capacity of understanding.
The sixty-four hexagrams, underpinned by the yin-yang workings, form a web of interrelated meanings that reflect the interrelatedness of things and transformation of events. It is up to the human mind, the interpreter of symbols, to make out tendencies in those changes and transformations and embark on regulative and pragmatic action. The hexagrams are simultaneously an intended objective description of natural and human processes. Thus, they are a system of images-forms-symbols, resulting from observation, reflection, and interpretation of individual and communal experiences encompassed by culture and tradition.
In short, five basic epistemological principles underlie the Yijing system of the dynamic and creative yin-yang symbols and forces: (1) the Principle of Comprehensive Observation, which ensures openness and continuity of observation from both narrowly focused and holistic points of view; (2) the Principle of Systematic (or organic) Consistency and Simplicity, which requires the whole system of observation to be organized in coherent, interdependent experiences and concepts; (3) the Principle of Polar Opposition and Complementation, which shows how production and individuation of things take place; (4) the Principle of Creative Enfolding and Development, which allows and invites new experiences of nature and reality in a growing and expanding process of life realization; and (5) the Principle of Understanding in Human Consciousness and Its Creative Self-Regulation, which points to the emergence of human consciousness and its inherent power of creative decision and action based on understanding of nature. These five epistemic-logical principles define and provide a methodological understanding of Yi thinking.
enti-Ontology as Onto-Cosmology of the Yi
Apart from epistemology and methodology, the Yijing initiated an onto-cosmology, providing an onto-cosmological model of reality with lasting influence on Chinese philosophy. This model of reality may be understood by looking into the mutually defining relationship between the source-origin of creativity and the substantial (p. 19) development of reality. We can think of reality as representing a benti, a source-reality of creativity, or onto-cosmos. How do we understand this concept of source-reality of creativity, or onto-cosmos, and its referents? In the first place, all the changes observed must have an adequate source or ultimate origin so that change can happen and continue at all. This source or origin is called “taiji” in the Xici, but in the Yi text is referred to as the yuan 元 (the ultimate source). It manifests itself in yin and ang and thus has two dimensions, which are respectively referred to as qianyuan 乾元 (the source power of qian) and kunyuan坤元 (the source power of kun); the former is the moving and creating power, while the latter is the preserving and sustaining power. But the two also belong to each other and form a unity, with an undifferentiated and yet interrelated identity. This is the great ultimate (taiji), the ultimate beginning of existence and hence the inceptive creativity. Hence, the root source of being and existence is a matter of unity, duality, and diversity. It is a whole body, with parts, which we can call the ti 體 (the body, the organic wholeness). In other words, all events and the resulting states of being form one body (yiti 一體); even though there is an indefinite number of individual things and events in the universe, they are organically related in one way or another.
Although the Yi text does not explicitly mention this concept of ti, it is implied in the formation of the eight trigrams or sixty-four hexagrams, which have all the qualities of one body that nonetheless exhibits interrelated differences and identities on different levels. Typically, there are levels of living beings, from the great ultimate as the starting point to the two norms, then to the four forms, and then to the eight gua and eventually the sixty-four gua, as shown in Zhang Zai's (張載) “Diagram of Ordering of sixty-four Hexagrams.” Each hexagram has its internal constituent lines, which also form a body of interdependency of two trigrams, the upper and the lower, the inner and outer. But they can also be read as six interactive lines. With this conception of ti, we can speak of benti as the source-reality, original-body, or onto-cosmos, so that we may identify a body with its originating source. From the Yijing's point of view, the universe or cosmos forms a benti by itself. In this cosmic benti, there is no external limitation and yet there is an inexhaustible inner force as its source. We may indeed interpret ontology in this context as the study of being as the ultimate source, and the study of the ultimate source (benyuan 本元 or yuan 元) as the study of being. But as the ultimate source is a creative power for the development of the universe, the study of being is the study of becoming, and vice versa. The universe is the onto-cosmos, or a ti of being, which is simultaneously becoming. This cosmic benti has no boundary between the inner and the outer: “Change has no body and creativity (divinity) has no direction” (Xici Shang 4). On the other hand, for the human being, benti is the emerging and self-realizing self that is rooted in the cosmos and grows and develops in its interaction with the external world, as indicated in Zhongyong 中庸. The human being's creativity is rooted in cosmic creativity, which should be cultivated conscientiously so that individuation can be fully realized, and simultaneously, the creative differentiation of cosmic reality (cosmic benti) could become richly realized in a unity of difference.
(p. 20) In this sense of ti, the Yizhuan speaks of a human person maintaining correct position and dwelling in her own body (zhengwei juti 正位居體) (“Kun wenyan” 坤文言). It is when a person has developed and cultivated herself into an integrative unity of mind and body and maintained her own creative force that we can speak of her benti as such. Benti thus gives rise to an onto-cosmological understanding of the
universe and human being, thereby also giving rise to onto-epistemology, onto-ethics, and onto-aesthetics in which the opposition of inner and outer can be resolved in their unity. We must note that in the Yijing, ben is not a cause but a source, and ti is not substance in the Aristotelian sense, but organic unity. It is not transcendent as there is no real separation between the ben and ti, but it is not pure immanence either as there is always creative action to transcend one's self and state of being. The ben is an ultimate source of creativity without exhaustion, and ti is both the basis and result of actualization and achievement, which display the creativity of the taiji, the powerful source of creativity.
The most important feature of the benti concept is that the human being is creatively rooted in a creative reality and hence can continue to develop capacities for understanding and action. Thus, we can speak of developing oneself into a moral person in accordance with a paradigm of onto-cosmological creativity.
Ti-Yong and the Three Meanings of the Yi
We should also examine the idea of ti-yong 體用, which is based on benti. The notion of yong用 is essential to the understanding of divinatory judgment, which is characterized by utility (yong) in the sense of making pragmatic decisions. But yong as a verb is the actual functioning and agency that come from understanding and engagement. Ontologically speaking, yong is the activity of the ti that gives rise to new events while fulfilling a virtual capacity for creativity. In the judgment “Do not use䩛用䩜the hidden dragon” (Qianlong Wuyong潛龍勿用), 6the energy of the hidden dragon should not be tapped because it would not be effective. Yong or function is the power inherent in a body that could be creatively constructive in appropriate conditions. In the divinatory judgments, there are many statements of “to use” and “not to use,” based on considerations of how a body or ti accords with circumstances and time. In this perspective, the whole universe is a matter of the yong of the cosmic body, and the creative results of yong are the actual contents of (p. 21) the universe that contribute to the development and transformation of benti. Thus, the notion of ti is rooted in ben and realized in yong, thereby forming a process of creative realization of the actuality of heaven, earth, and humanity.
The self-cultivational (xiuji 脩己) process in Confucianism is an embodiment of such a cosmic process of creation and regeneration. A human person has his own benti and hence the yong of his benti. Both the Xici and Zhongyong have remarked that for ordinary people, their life functions with their inner power and yet they are not aware of it (baixing riyong er buzhi 百姓日用而不知). We need to become aware of our benti because we need to know and preserve our inner powers and cultivate them and then make proper use of them to realize our human capacities. Hence, the benti-cosmology has important ethical and moral implications for human development. It involves a process in which the human benti or the human existence with its consciousness could be cultivated to extend its sense of identity and relationships to include other people, other living things, and eventually the whole sphere of heaven and earth with their inherent and incessant creativities.
Moreover, the yong of the Yi in action is first induced by divination in a framework of understanding. One can also point to the xiang象 or image system in the Yi. With each xiang one could design something useful either for oneself or others. According to the Xici, many of the useful inventions from the past are inspired by identifying the relevant gua. It suggests that to understand the images of guas is to relate human purposes and needs to them as they stimulate the mind toward cultural inventions.
Based on this deep understanding of the cosmic benti—which presents this world as a variety in unity and a change in constancy—a theory of the three meanings of yi was developed. First, there is the meaning of nonchange (buyi 不易) of change, in the sense that change is a constant activity. It is said in the Xici that “the life-creativity of life is called the change (yi)” (Xici Shang 5). As this is the nature of the taiji, which stands for the source of life-creativity, one can see how the constancy in change is in fact the creativity of the taiji. In this sense we may speak of a hierarchy of constancies in terms of which concrete events and individual things take place and endure for a time, only to be replaced by other events and individuals. This cosmology of constancy is rooted in the constancy of the ontology of the taiji and dao.
The second meaning of yi refers to the change and transformation (bianyi 變易 or bianhua 變化) of things. The Yijing, as a book on change, deals primarily with the forms of change in this sense and examines their relationships, so that we see how changes follow a dialectical pattern of change and nonchange. One has to learn from these forms and transformations to appreciate how the forms of change in the Yijing are derived, how they are related, and how, given proper conditions, predictions and decisions can be made to more fully realize one's life.
The third meaning is simplicity of change (jianyi 簡易). The word jian suggests the easy and simple way in which recording can be done on the bamboo pieces. But simplicity is also a direct experience of life, and we can sometimes see among different possibilities of life situations those that embody ease and easiness of action and movement.
(p. 22) With these three meanings of change, one learns that the human way of life can achieve a comprehensive content and fulfill its potentiality by following and embodying the ways of heaven and earth, which are creative development according to a deep and simple
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understanding of being and becoming. It is a cosmic education with profound ontological and moral significance.
Diversification of the Yi into Xiang-shuand Yi-li
Images (xiang *) and numbers (shu ) are significant elements of the Yi. Images are forms in which we envisage events and situations so that we can have a comprehensive sense of their meanings. As they are found to be representable in terms of the yin-yang lines of change, odd and even numbers naturally become significant. Moreover, a holistic understanding of the process of change within the sixty-four hexagrams requires consideration of numbers. This no doubt has to do with our reflection on the observed relations among images with regard to their formation and transformation. The representation of heaven and earth in diagrams indicating positions and directions such as iver Chart (Hetu flj ) and Luo Script (Luoshu 洛書) also involves numbers. Hence, numbers become symbolic of image meanings and vice versa. To use numbers to make divination and hence to form a gua may have started very early in the history of the Yijing's
development. Although we can appropriate and explore numbers for telling the future, one cannot ignore judgments of divination made for actual life purposes and in terms of real experiences and knowledge of nature and humanity. How meanings (yi 4) in such judgments and the relevant principles (li ) that are entailed by them are analyzed and related is not simply a matter of images and numbers.
Yet it is clear that one cannot ignore images and numbers for intuitive understanding as well as ways of transformation among hexagrams and thus real human situations. In the early study of the Yi system in the Han period, the school of images and numbers predominates because it wants to identify symbolic meanings for judgments through numbers of lines and gua. It was due to the Daoist focus on contemplative wisdom of the true meanings of words that images and numbers were dismissed. However, hexagrams can be said to be generated by numbers, and their representation in numbers is important for understanding inner and outer relations of the gua. It was not until Zhu Xi wrote his Original Meanings of the Zhouyi (p. 23) 周易本义 that both judgmental meaning and implication, on the one hand, and images and numbers, on the other, became mutually supporting and complementary. The philosophy of Yi thus maintains a balanced and integrative position between xiang-shu and yi-li.
Rise of Daoism and Confucianism
The Yijing led to the rise of Daoism and Confucianism. In Daoism, the dao describes the way of change and transformation of things in nature. The creative function of dao even carries a broader meaning as a creative source than taiji, for it may also refer to nonbeing apart from being. In the Daodejing, one also sees a similar Yi dialectic of development. But there are differences. Daoism is relatively detached from images and forms as it concentrates on how things arise by the wuwei MA action of the dao. In this sense, Daoism is more retrospective than prospective, more inward looking than outward looking. Although things can be said to have risen from the dao according to Laozi 老子, because the dao cannot be positively identified—for it is beyond language and knowledge—the void of the dao suggests a more indeterminist approach to change, which is the process from the void to being. This may eventually lead to the notion of wuji, which is needed for indicating the invisible and inexhaustible origin and source of creative arising, resulting in a more complete redescription of the onto-cosmology of wuji-taiji, which is the essence of Zhou Dunyi's 周敦頤 onto-cosmology of benti.
Confucius, who studied the Yijing from an early age, has achieved deep understanding of the inner meanings of the system of yi divinations, as we have seen in the texts of the 1973 Silk Manuscripts. He regarded the natural generation and transformation of things as a creative process from the ever-present of the heaven. He also saw the development of virtues (such as ren , yi 4, li V, zhi W, and xin {) as a timely pursuit that requires self-control for both the rectification and harmony of relations. All his remarks and observations indicate a heritage of the philosophy of the Yijing at work. As pointed out above, the final formation of the Yizhuan was inspired by Confucius's teaching and thinking about the Yi tradition. The Confucian quest for positive understanding, self-transcendence, and self-discipline represents the benti philosophy of the Zhouyi at its best. Confucian onto-cosmology and moral philosophy therefore can be regarded as a redevelopment and exploration of the Yi principles 义~. There is much from the Yi tradition that can be traced from Confucius, through Zisi 子思, to Mencius, and then to Xunzi 荀子.
The philosophy of the Yijing is further explored and expanded in Neo-Confucian philosophy, with its yi-inspired benti-ontology and onto-cosmology. Apart from (p. 24) breeding a distinctive philosophy of li and qi, the philosophy of Yijing as a way of thinking (as onto-hermeneutics) enabled Confucianism to be brought into closer contact with both Daoism and Chinese Buddhism.
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Conclusion
It is often claimed that the Yijing way of thinking characterizes the basic mode of Chinese philosophical thinking. The Yijing arises from a process of comprehensive observation and empathetic feeling that generates penetrating understanding. The feeling of a person toward a given situation is the reciprocation and interaction between yin and yang, which leads to one's direct experience of the dynamics of unity in duality. There are, as shown above, five steps in realizing the understanding of reality. Apart from comprehensive observation and direct, simple, and penetrating feeling, there are understanding and thinking of reality by way of images. “Images” are actually form-objects or process-events, which we may refer to as overt and ostensible (observable and felt) things in the world. Hence, they are not arbitrary mental fabrications but things in the midst of the thickness of world-reality.
As our experiences of things as images can be said to be based on our feelings (gan 感) as responses (ying ff) to things that affect our perceptions, sensations, and feelings in concrete contexts, they are related to our cognitive language, on the one hand, and idea-intentions of the mind, on the other. In contrast to the transcendent views of Neo-Daoists such as Wang Bi (226–249 CE)—who believed that language, and then images, were to be abandoned as one realized ideas in the mind—according to the Yijing, there is an inclusive continuum. One can see events or things in the world on one side, image-language or symbols for naming and describing them in the middle, and mental activities in our ideas or feelings on the other side, thus forming an ontological-hermeneutical circle and a creative unity of understanding. It is in this sense that we can speak of a genuine ontological understanding or interpretation of reality, which is always rooted in, and supported individually and collectively by, a history of comprehensive observations, individualized feelings, and holistic penetrating syntheses, eventually yielding an organically interrelated image of things.
We can see how the Yijing thinking is largely a dynamic, dialectical (as a dialogical and negotiating process), interactive and integrative process of thinking and understanding, neither fixating on objects as essences nor insisting on reducing things or presentations to pure ideation. The philosophical orientation of the Yi is not essentialist, nor does it follow a reductive phenomenological methodology. (p. 25) Instead, it consists of letting reality speak to us, and of our learning from concrete reality, being both context transcendent and context inclusive. It is focal, contextual, concrete, correlative, and dynamic.
We can point to the history of Chinese philosophy and show that the main developments are guided, inspired, sustained, and enriched by the primary model of onto-cosmological and onto-hermeneutical thinking, knowing, understanding, and interpreting found in the Yijing: the Han Confucianism of Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒; the Weijin 魏晋 Neo-Daoism of Wang Bi 王弼 and Guo Xiang 郭*; the Sui-Tang Buddhism of Tiantai 天台, Huayan 華嚴, and Chan 禪; the Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism of Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai, Shao Yong, Cheng Brothers, Zhu Xi 朱熹, Lu Xiangshan 陸*山, and Wang Yangming 王陽明; and, finally, the Qing Textual Confucianism of Duan Yucai 段玉裁 and Dai Zhen 戴震. A familiarity with the Yi paradigms of bento-ontology and onto-cosmological thinking is necessary for understanding much twentieth-century Chinese philosophy. Thus, understanding the Yijing is an ongoing task.
Bibliography and Suggested Readings
CHENG CHUNG-YING. (2003) “Dao (Tao): The Way.” In Encyclopedia of Chinese
Philosophy, edited by Antonio Cua. London and New York: Routledge, 202–205.
Find this resource:
CHENG CHUNG-YING. (2003) “Inquiry into the Primary Way: Yijing and the
Onto-Hermeneutical Understanding.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 30
(3&4), 289–312.
Find this resource:
LEGGE, JAMES (trans.). (1963) The I Ching: The Book of Changes. Mineola, NY:
Dover Publications. Find this resource:
MARSHALL, S. J. (2001) The Mandate of Heaven: Hidden History in the I Ching. New
York: Columbia University Press. Find this resource:
RUTT, RICHARD. (1996) Zhouyi: The Book of Changes. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press.
Find this resource:
SMITH, RICHARD J. (2008) Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I
Ching or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in China. Charlottesville,
VA: University of Virginia Press.
Find this resource:
WILHELM, RICHARD. (1967) I
Ching, or Book of Changes, trans. in English by Cary F. Baynes (3rd ed.).
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Find this resource:
WILHELM, HELLMUT, and RICHARD WILHELM. (1995) Understanding the I Ching.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Find this resource:
Notes:
(1)Xici was one of the
Ten Wings or Ten Commentaries on the Yijing that were attributed to the
authorship of Confucius. Confucius did not actually write these commentaries
but inspired their composition by disciples such as Zisi or Zixia.
(2)The unit of such a description is gua, which is
composed of three yao lines, each of which indicates a state of change
either in yin or in ang . Human beings live between heaven and
earth. There are three lines, then, representing the state of heaven (the
larger environment), the state of the human person, and the state of earth (the
smaller environment) and in this order. Since each line could be in the state
of yin or in the state of yang, we come to a system of eight guas.
(3)Needless to say, Fu Xi need not be a single person.
Instead, the name could refer to a tribe or group that developed a special
concern with nature and the ways it is related to human living.
(4)If one reads meaning from the gua just in terms
of apparent reference, one has a hermeneutic understanding. But if one
understands the gua symbol in light of some discovered or recovered
philosophy of reality (namely, ontology), one's hermeneutic understanding
becomes onto-hermeneutic.
(5)I use the term “benti” to refer to a unified
body developed or arising from an origin that gives unity and structure to the
body.
(6)Whether the Chinese dragon—long 龙—in the present
expression is an actual living animal the ancient Chinese saw as an open
question. It is partly to do with whether there were such animals that can hide
in the depth of water, can walk on the field, and can fly in the sky. There
might well be. But in later use of the term long is often described as
having a buffalo/goat head and a snake body with many small legs and being
capable of flying and playing in the sky. It is obviously a product of human
imagination. The purpose of such an imagined being is to focus on its being a
symbol for exuberant energy, power of transformation, and the outburst of creativity.
(7)The fact that human activity is creatively meaningful
may be illustrated by two additional principles of the onto-cosmology of the yi:
the Principle of Exchange (jiaoyi 交易) and the Principle of Harmonization (heyi 和易).
(8)In this connection we may also mention that Chinese
Buddhism is distinct from Indian Buddhism because of the fundamental notions of
benti-ontology, which gives rise to the notion of original-nature and
Buddha-nature that underpins many Chinese schools of Buddhism.
Chung‑Ying Cheng
Chung-Ying Cheng received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from
Harvard University. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawai'i
at Manoa, where he teaches both Western philosophy and Chinese philosophy. His
special interests include philosophy of language, metaphysics, ethics, and
onto-hermeneutics. He has given invited lectures at numerous universities
around the world and has published over twenty-three books and more than three
hundred articles in various fields of philosophy. He founded both the Journal
of Chinese Philosophy and the International Society for Chinese
Philosophy (ISCP).
Oxford Handbooks Online
===
Chung-ying Cheng
Chung-Ying Cheng | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 8, 1935 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | B.A., National Taiwan University M.A., University of Washington Ph.D., Harvard University |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Occupation | Philosopher, professor, educator |
Chung-Ying Cheng (Chinese: 成中英, born November 8, 1935) is a distinguished scholar of Chinese philosophy and Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. He is considered one of the pioneers who formalized the field of Chinese philosophy in the United States in the 1960s.
Education and career[edit]
Cheng received his B.A. from National Taiwan University in 1956, his M.A. from University of Washington in 1958, and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1963. He joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1963. He has lectured at numerous prestigious institutions such as Yale University and Oxford University. He also served as Chair of Department of Philosophy at National Taiwan University and Director of the Graduate Institute of Philosophy at Taida. Currently, he is Visiting Chair Professor in Chinese Philosophy at King's College London, visiting professor at Peking University and Tsinghua University, Distinguished Chair Professor at Renmin University, and Visiting Chair Professor of Humanities at Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Cheng's research interests are in the areas of Chinese logic, the I Ching and the origins of Chinese philosophy, Confucian and Neo-Confucian Philosophy, the onto-hermeneutics of Eastern and Western philosophy, and Chan (Zen) philosophy. Recently, he has specifically worked on the philosophy of c-management and Confucian Bio-Ethics as they relate to the Chinese tradition, and on how Chinese culture relates to world culture. He founded the Journal of Chinese Philosophy published by Blackwell Publishers in 1973 and has served as editor-in-chief since then.[1][2]
Books[edit]
- Philosophical Methodology in Classical Chinese and German Philosophy, (Weltphilosophien im Gespräch Band 16), ed. with Christian Krijnen. Verlag Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen 2021. ISBN 978-3-95948-512-8.
- Contemporary Chinese Philosophy, ed. with Nicholas Bunnin. . Malden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. 429 pages.
- A Treatise on Confucian Philosophy: The Way of Uniting the Outer and the Inner, Beijing: China Social Sciences Publishers, 2001, 431 pages.
- Ontology and Interpretation, (in Chinese), Beijing: Sanlian Publishers, 2000. 382 pages.
- C Theory: Chinese Philosophy of Management (in Chinese), Shanghai:Xueling Publishers, 1999. 458 pages
- Light of Wisdom: The Contemporary Application of Chinese Management Philosophy (Ed. w/Zhou Hanguang). Shanghai: Chinese Textile University Press, 1997.
- C lilun: Yijing guanli zhexue. [C Theory: The Yijing philosophy of management].Taipei: Dongda Tushu Chubanshe, 1995.
- Wenhua, lilun yu guanli: Zhongguo xiandaihua de zhexue xingsi. [Culture, Ethics, and the Philosophy of Management]. Guiyang: Guizhou Renmin Chubanshe, 1991.
- Shiji zhi jiao de jueze: Lun Zhong-Xi zhexue zhong de huitong yuronghe. [Choice at the Turn of a New Century: On the Interflux and Integration of Chinese and Western Philosophy]. Shanghai: Zhishi Chubanshe, 1991.
- The Distribution of Power and Rewards: Selected Essays from the Conference on Democracy and Social Justice East and West (Co-ed. w/James Hsiung). Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1991.
- New Dimensions of Confucian & Neo-Confucian Philosophy, Albany: New York University Press, 1991.
Articles and book chapters[edit]
- Creative Ontology of Interpretation. How to Understand Identity, Difference, and Harmony in Chinese Philosophy? // Weltphilosophien im Gespräch Band 15, Verlag Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen 2020, p. 169-188.
- “Transforming Confucian Virtues into Human Rights: A Study of Human Agency and Potency in Confucian Ethics” in Wm deBary (Ed.) Confucianism and Human Rights. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
- The Yijing as Creative Inception of Chinese Philosophy // Journal of Chinese Philosophy 2008, vol. 35 (2), p. 201–218.
- Logic and Language in the Chinese philosophy // Journal of Chinese Philosophy 1987. Volume 14, Issue 3, p. 285-307.
- Chinese Philosophy in America, 1965–1985: The Retrospect and Prospect // Journal of Chinese Philosophy 1986, Vol.13, Issue 2, p. 155-165.
References[edit]
- ^ University of Hawai'i at Manoa: Chung-ying Cheng (Accessed March 2013)
- ^ Journal of Chinese Philosophy - Routledge
