Philosophy of the Easy Learning

Author: Zhu Bokun
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-04-01
Features: The theme of this book is to narrate the interpretation of the original texts of the I Ching and the historical development of the resulting I Ching philosophy. It covers the period from the pre-Qin era to the Qian-Jia period of the Qing Dynasty. The main thread is to elucidate the worldview and way of thinking of Chinese cosmology and metaphysics. The book explains the characteristics of traditional Chinese philosophy from the perspective of the history of classics, opening up a new field for the study of the history of Chinese philosophy. As an I Ching scholar, Mr. Zhu Bokun naturally discusses "images and numbers"; as a historian of philosophy, Mr. Zhu also pays great attention to "reasoning." Mr. Zhu's representative work, The Philosophy of the I Ching, systematically and deeply explains the images and numbers of I Ching scholars throughout history, particularly focusing on the philosophical research of the reasoning school and the image-number school. Images and numbers are the two major elements that constitute the I Ching, and also the two major schools of studying it. I Ching scholars throughout history have each had their own characteristics in their attitude towards studying and annotating the I Ching, and can generally be divided into the image-number school and the reasoning school. The General Catalogue of the Four Treasuries divides I Ching studies into two schools and six sects. The two schools refer to the image-number school and the reasoning school, while the six sects refer to the divination sect, auspiciousness sect, creation sect, Lao-Zhuang sect, Confucianism sect, and historical events sect. The six sects can actually be attributed to the two schools: the divination, auspiciousness, and creation sects belong to the image-number school, while the Lao-Zhuang, Confucianism, and historical events sects belong to the reasoning school. Academia generally regards the I Ching schools that interpret the I Ching with abstract and general meanings as the reasoning school, while those that interpret it with concrete imagery as the image-number school. Throughout the development of the history of the I Ching, the mutual attacks between the two schools have never ceased. In contemporary academia, research on the reasoning school is relatively in-depth and fair; whereas research on the image-number school is not as thorough and has been unfairly treated. Because the image-number school, while interpreting the I Ching, involves astronomy, calendar, music theory, ethics, philosophy, medicine, divination, and other content, the image-number system becomes extremely complex, which also greatly increases the difficulty of understanding it. Over time, the image-number school was shrouded in a mysterious veil and suffered unfair treatment. In modern academia, one can say that the attitude towards the image-number school is still not fair. Some believe that image-number is synonymous with divination techniques, meaning fortune-telling and divination, and should be classified as "feudal superstition"; others argue that the image-number school is not the orthodox of the I Ching and has nothing to do with philosophy. Around the connotations, attributes, evolutionary process, status, and role of "images and numbers," academia has debated extensively, with many mistaken views. What exactly are "images and numbers"? What is the relationship between "images and numbers" and "reasoning"? Are the "image-number school" and the "reasoning school" completely opposed? To resolve these issues that still puzzle academia today, one should objectively review the entire history of the I Ching. Mr. Zhu's The Philosophy of the I Ching sets a good example for us. Reading the discussions of the reasoning scholars on "images and numbers" in The Philosophy of the I Ching is meaningful for correcting biases against "image-number scholars" and misconceptions about "image-number." In the section on the characteristics of the I Ching Commentary, The Philosophy of the I Ching states: "The I Ching Commentary has two sets of languages: one is about divination, and the other is about philosophy." "From the perspective of the history of the I Ching, there are two tendencies in interpreting the I Ching Commentary. One tendency leans towards interpreting the philosophical issues from the perspective of divination methods, later known as the image-number school. The other tendency emphasizes interpreting the divination methods from the perspective of philosophy." (Vol. 55, Huaxia Publishing House, 1995) During the Western Han Dynasty, the image-number school of interpreting the I Ching was formed, represented by the official I Ching studies of Meng Xi and Jing Fang. This school of I Ching, called by the Song people "image-number studies," has three characteristics: First, it explains the texts of the I Ching using the odd and even numbers and the symbolic images of the Eight Trigrams; second, it explains the principles of the I Ching using the Guanqi theory; third, it uses the I Ching to discuss the changes of yin and yang and disasters." (Vol. 114) During the Wei-Jin period, the reasoning school of interpreting the I Ching was formed, turning towards the path of interpreting the I Ching with Lao-Zhuang metaphysics, becoming a major school in the history of the I Ching. Wang Bi was the founder of this school." (Vol. 246) Starting from Wang Bi, the reasoning school inherited the tradition of interpreting the I Ching from the classical text school, with reasoning as the main focus, interpreting the I Ching from the perspective of the I Ching Commentary, and excluding the learning style of the vernacular text school, not discussing mutual bodies, Guanqi, Guan transformation, and Na Jia, etc. In my understanding, the image-number school and the reasoning school are not completely opposed, but simply have different tendencies in interpreting the I Ching. The image-number school takes images and numbers as the position, interprets the I Ching with images and numbers, and discusses reasoning with images and numbers; the reasoning school takes reasoning as the position, interprets the I Ching with reasoning, and discusses images and numbers with reasoning. The Philosophy of the I Ching, in its four volumes, systematically discusses the I Ching philosophy of the reasoning school and the image-number school from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, with particularly detailed discussions of the "image-number" views of the reasoning school.