Era of Deduction - From Experience and Concepts to Discourse and Schemas

Author: Ni Nan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: "Applying the Dao of Heaven to illuminate human affairs" is the fundamental characteristic of the entire school of I Ching thought. The Dao of Heaven is the substance of the I Ching, while the I Ching is the application of the Dao of Heaven. In the trajectory of I Ching thought, the concept of "Dao" has evolved from empirical verification and conceptualization to discourse and schema. From the perspective of historical development, this process was primarily completed during the Shang Dynasty to the Western Han Dynasty, which aligns with the period of maturation of China's entire intellectual and cultural development. Within the framework of Chinese intellectual history, the school of I Ching represents a unique cognitive paradigm. Over two millennia, generations of thinkers have gradually established a comprehensive system of concepts and discourses about the universe, society, and even human life through the study and elaboration of the I Ching, a text composed of a series of symbols and characters. This system, with its dynamic and open structure, accommodates the diverse perspectives of ancestors in observing the world, thereby becoming the main "meta-structure" of the framework of traditional Chinese intellectual and cultural thought. Within this discourse system, the Book of Changes (I Ching), the Commentaries on the Changes (I Ching Zhuan), and the I Ching Weis are three landmark core texts. The significance and vitality of the school of I Ching in Chinese intellectual history do not lie in becoming an independent theoretical system that stands alongside Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Rather, it is the transcendent and dynamic wisdom embodied in its mode of thinking that serves as an inexhaustible and boundless source of inspiration for all schools of thought.