Philosophy of the Yi: Unity and Dialectics

This volume, an assemblage of essays previously published in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy , conveniently and strategically brings together some of the trenchant interpretations and analyses of the salient, structural aspects of the philosophy of the Yijing . They reveal how the ancient Classic offers a graphically vivid and conceptually dynamic dramaturgy of the ways in which the natural world works in conjunction with the human one. Its cosmological architectonics and philosophical worldview continue to have enormous purchase on our current imagination, even though readerly imperatives and responses have rendered this classic into a text of multiple significances, catering to pluralistic readerships and clienteles. Nonetheless, the essays in this volume lay bare some of the original authorly visions and insights of the Yijing , clearly showing that their apparent truthfulness to our cosmic and human conditions inspire philosophical and even theological questions. The Yijing′s authorial designs of the eight trigrams and hexagrams, which encapsulate the primordial state of homo–cosmic phenomena and situations, together with the yin–yang forces and the dao , are taken for granted as integers in a grand universal equation, factored out to represent a ceaselessly changing cosmos in which heaven, earth and humanity commingle, such that the whole and unity can be found in the individual and the opposite, and vice versa.

Preface ( Chung–Ying Cheng ). Introduction: Rehearsing the Old and Anticipating the New ( On–Cho Ng ). On Harmony as Transformation: Paradigms from the Yijing ( Chung–Ying Cheng ). A Set Theory Analysis of the Logic of the Yijing ( Jesse Fleming ). The Structure of Change in the Yijing ( Peter D. Hershock). Li and Qi in the Yijing : A Reconsideration of Being and Nonbeing in Chinese Philosophy ( Chung–Ying Cheng ). The Yijing and the Formation of the Huayan Philosophy: An Analysis of a Key Aspect of Chinese Buddhism ( Whalen Lai ). Time as Emotion versus Time as Moralization: Whitehead and the Yi Jing ( Linyu Gu ). Flowers and Steps in the Boolean Lattice of Hexagrams ( Andreas Schöter ). Select Bibliography of Works on the Yijing since 1985 ( Richard J. Smith ).