THE ISSUE OF PARADOX AND CREATIVITY IN THE LANGUAGE OF YIJING. In this paper I will discuss the problem of paradox developed in Yijing (the Book of

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1 THE ISSUE OF PARADOX AND CREATIVITY IN THE LANGUAGE OF YIJING In this paper I will discuss the problem of paradox developed in Yijing (the Book of Changes, ca., BCE), one of the primary classics in the Chinese traditions. I will bring Bertrand Russell s introduction of paradox with the problem of Aristotle s logic and examine how the issue of paradox is applied to the correlative thinking of Yijing formed in such opposite factors as yin and yang. In particular, I will explain that the model of sagehood developed in the historical formation of Yijing is based on the paradoxical combination and harmony between mind and nature. Finally, I will explore this motif of paradoxical combination in terms of the correlative view of Yijing language and its contextual formation and uses. The Problem of Paradox in the Yin-Yang Relation The paradoxical relation of Yijing has shown the character of the thinking system of the East Asian tradition, which has noticed opposite situations in complementary relation. With regard to the issue of paradox, Sang-Il Kim, a Korean philosopher, articulates the distinction between the West and the East with Aristotle s logic and the issue of Bertrand Russell s liar paradox presenting the problem of ascribing the value of truth to a liar s statement I am lying. This problem raised by Russell shows that, if that sentence is true, it becomes false, while if that sentence is false, it becomes true because the speaker making that statement is a liar. According to Sang Il Kim, In Aristotle s logic, the Law of Contrast and the Law of Excluded Middle deal with the problem of the true and false in the dualistic way. It is the Law of Contrast that the true is true but not false and the Law of Excluded Middle that a proposition 1

2 should be true or false. However, the Liar paradox manifests the logic that the true is the false and vice versa.... This Liar paradox is the well known logic in the East tradition. The western scholars using this type of logic such as Heraclitus, Meister Eckhart, and the mathematician Cantor have been regarded as having the heterodoxical perspectives excluded from the prevalent western tradition.... [That is to say] Eckhart s statement that the human being is God or Cantor s proposition that the infinite number is the very finitude was regarded as heretical views in those days. In a word, the traditional and orthodox logic in the East was the heterodox logic in the West that was easily neglected as a minor point of view. 1 While the Western tradition has regarded the paradox as something pathological, the Eastern tradition has regarded it as the basic method and starting point for creative process. Under Aristotle s logic pursuing rationality at the cost of eliminating the paradoxical such as fuzzy or chaos, a proposition cannot be both true and false but should be either true or false. However, true and false are both aspects of a thing in Yijing. The opposite elements of you and me, my mind and nature, God and the world, or Heaven and Earth are not independent realities but the complementary characters of yin and yang formed in an organic relation. They are not static in the dualistic way of true and false but always changed and transformed by the continuous cycle of true and false. From the instance of the liar paradox, Kim examines the language of paradox in Yijing with regard to the problem of paradox in the set theory raised by Principia Matematica (1910-3) written by Whitehead and Russell. The problem of paradox usually called Russell s Paradox occurs in the intermixture of the class type of language and member type of language, that is, the confusion of meta language and object language. 2 In other words, the paradox occurs when class (meta language) contains 1 Sang-Il Kim, Dong-hak gua Shin-Seo-hak [The Eastern and New Western Study] (Seoul: Jishiksanupsa, 2000), Sang-Il Kim, Russell Yok-sol gua Guahak Hyuk-myung ui Gujo [Russell s Paradox and the Structure of Scientific Revolution] (Seoul: Sol Publications, 1997), 25. 2

3 itself as elements (i.e., members, object language). 3 That is to say, in the sentence of Russell s Paradox, when a liar told a lie, the speaker s statement becomes true because the speaker is a liar, the language referring to the situation of when a liar told a lie is the object language or the member type of language. On the other hand, the language indicating the situation of the speaker s statement becomes true because the speaker is a liar is the meta-language, that is, the class type of language. 4 Thus, when the class is confused with the member, that is, when the meta-language is confused with the object language, a paradoxical situation emerges. This situation is clearly shown in another example of the Barber s Paradox. In a rule that the barber shaves only those who do not shave themselves, if we include the barber himself in that rule, a paradox appears. In other words, if the barber does not shave himself, he should shave himself according to that rule, if he shaves, he should not shave himself. While the if-clause with a focus on the shaving activity is the object language, the main-clause referring to the barber himself is the meta-language. 5 When the meta type of language and its object type are intermingled, opposite statements, that is, true and false, are cyclically revolved. Russell, who raised the problem of Aristotle s logic by bringing up issues of paradox, also attempts to disentangle paradoxical situations in the circulation of true and false by distinguishing class from member, that is, meta language from object language in his theory of logical type. According to Russell, paradox appears by overlooking the 3 Ibid., 47. See also John L. Casti, Complexification: Explaining a Paradoxical World through the Science of Surprise (New York: HarperPerennial, 1995), Ibid., 25. See also Keith Simmons, Universality and the Liar: An essay on truth and diagonal argument (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), Ibid., See also Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: George Allen and Unwin LTD, 1960), 181ff. 3

4 hierarchical type of language, so that we can solve paradox with the distinction between logical types. In other words, type 1 is individual members, type 2 is the set of the members, and type 3 is the set of sets. 6 This solution of the paradox through the ascent of the type follows, according to Kim, the way of hierarchical-consistent logic in which the lower and upper level of types are always demarcated by the heightening of the logical types. 7 In an attempt to solve the problem of paradox, Russell presents the clear distinction between class and members. This means that the part is the part and the whole is the whole, whereby the two different types cannot be intermingled with each other. 8 Therefore, Russell is not far from Aristotle s logic in that he regards the paradoxical as still something problematic. To put it another way, by attempting to cease the continuous cycle of true and false with the solution of it through a hierarchical-consistent method, Russell returns to Aristotle s logic although pointing out the problematic point of Aristotle s method. Kim indicates two important factors of self-reference and self-annihilation to understand a paradoxical situation. While it is self-reference that the barber shaves himself by applying himself to the very rule he made, it is self-annihilation that the class or meta (i.e., the barber himself) turns to member or object language by annihilating the status of the class. 9 In the same manner, for the Liar Paradox, while self-reference means that the liar refers to himself as the liar by including the speaker himself (class or 6 Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, Principia Mathematica, vol. 2 (Cambridge, England: 1912), Kim, Whitehead and Russell, Kim,

5 meta) in his or her statement (members or object language), self-annihilation means that the liar denies his or her statement by that self-reference. In other words, self-reference continuously entails self-annihilation, thereby resulting in one s denial of oneself. True becomes false and vice versa by self-reference and self-annihilation. Kim does not regard this problem of paradox as a simple logical issue. How to handle the paradox reveals the distinction between the Western and the Eastern traditions in forming any realistic world views. The way of understanding paradox reflects the central issue of the history of philosophy in the East and the West. In particular, the problem of the one and the many or that of the whole and the part shows their different metaphysical views. Plato s Idea, the notion of God as the One in the Christian tradition, and Kant s noumena, which constitute the main streams of the Western philosophical and religious tradition, maintain the transcendence of the one beyond the many of the phenomenal world. That is to say, such transcendent reality is outside the paradoxical situation of self-reference and self-annihilation. On the other hand, in the Eastern tradition, particularly in the East Asian tradition of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism, the relation between the one and the many is developed in a paradoxical relation with the circulation of true and false. In this manner a reality view is based on the statement in which A is both A and not-a that takes a different path from Aristotle s Law of Identity and Contrast. The relation between principle (li) and material force in Neo-Confucianism, emptiness and fullness in Buddhism, Dao and phenomenal things shows that a proposition (e.g., nothingness) is both A (i.e., nothingness) and not-a (i.e., fullness) or neither A nor not-a. In this manner, Kim presents the circular-inconsistent logic for developing the 5

6 perspective of paradox shown in Yijing. In other words, the issue of truth in Yijing is not linear but circular, whereby the pattern of harmony and order is naturally formed in the ceaseless increase of the dynamic circle of true and false or yin and yang. This method is a very different approach to the issue of paradox from that of hierarchical-consistent logic. The circle of yin and yang shown in Yijing does not mean a simple but rather a creative circle in that novelty is produced by change and transformation in the repetitive increase of the circle. As Hans Herzberger indicates, a series of true-false chains is not simply repeated in an unstable cycle but makes a pattern and order by reaching a certain phase and thus becoming stable. 10 In other words, the state of harmony or order is issued not by eliminating paradox but by drawing a certain circular pattern from paradoxical situations of yin and yang or true and false. In this manner the logic of Yijing is developed by connecting all opposites. The relation between yin and yang is developed in a similar way to the chain of true and false. Kim applies the chain of true and false made by Herzberger and Anil Gupta 11 to the continuous cycle of yin and yang for the significance of paradox as follows: Hans G. Hertzberger, Truth and Modality in Semantically Closed Languages, in The Paradox of the Liar, ed. Robert L. Martin (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1970), For Anil Gupta s argument of paradox, see Anil Gupta, Truth and Paradox, in Recent Essays on Truth and the Liar Paradox, ed. Robert L. Martin (New York: Clarendon Press, 1984), Kim, 76 6

7 T FT TFT FTFT TFTFT F TF FTF TFTF FTFTF Yin (broken line ) and yang (solid line ) can make a chain link by connecting them according to the paradoxical combination of opposites for which we arrange each T and F or yang and yin above and below the middle line and proceed to the direction of Yang goes down to yin and again goes up to the yang in a diagonal direction, continuously drawing the cycle of true and false and expanding its complementary relation. In the same manner, yin goes up to yang and goes down to yin. As the broken line and straight line proceed up and down, a true-false chain is formed, whereby the opposites of yin and yang constitute the hexagram of Yijing. In this manner, the hexagram does not mean any finished form. As we can see in the developmental process of the Supreme Ultimate to the hexagram, more lines of yin and yang can be continuously added to each hexagram. In this context the hexagram refers to the process of change other than the completed or closed system of changes. Following the idea of Yijing by way of the connection between the opposites, Sangil Kim develops the principle of change by bringing to his argument the theory of change of Ilbu Kim ( ), one of the representatives of Korean Yijing thought: If we see the circular diagram of Fu Xi s eight trigrams, we find the conversed 13 Ibid. 7

8 direction between the group of yang (1 Qian, 2 Dui, 3 Li, 4 Zhen ) and the group of yin (5 Sun, 6 Kan, 7 Gen, 8 Kun ). But we can also see a certain directionality within each group. In other words, from number one to four, the arrangement of each trigram is directional and so does it from five to eight. The four trigrams in each group of yin and yang are directional.... However, Ilbu Kim attempts to advance the relation of the opposites by turning upside down even the direction in each group. 14 In other words, Ilbu Kim s attempt was to shift the consecutive order of one to four in the yang group by arranging the relation between one and two (1 2) in consecutive order but that between three and four in reversed order (4 3). In the same way, for the group of yin, five and six are in consecutive order (5 6) but seven and eight are in reversed order (8 7). Ilbu Kim s Eight Trigrams attempts to enhance the relation of the opposites by annihilating any directional order. It changes all directional consecutive order of the yang group (1234) and the yin group (5678) to the non-directional order of each yang (1423) and yin (5876). What Ilbu Kim attempts from this shift is to overcome the hierarchical order of all things by changing the order of the Supreme Ultimate, yin-yang, four images, and eight trigrams. This means that all individual lines in each hexagram are not subordinate to their higher levels of class. By articulating the non-directional relation, Ilbu Kim attempts to show that the part should not be reduced to the whole in some hierarchical order. Sang Il Kim notes this point as follows: In the hierarchical order, human is subordinate to God, nature to human, women to men, wherein reductionism and foundationalism of philosophy is formed. Any equality and autonomy cannot be expected in that hierarchy. Some directional order from taiji to hexagrams had been one of the reasons for the feudal system and gender inequality in the eastern society.... Ilbu Kim s trigrams attempted to make the world without any discrimination Sang-Il Kim, Cho Gong-gan gua Hangook Munwha [Trans-Space and Korean Culture] (Seoul: Gyohak Yungusa, 1999), Ibid.,

9 Because the emphasis of Ilbu Kim s trigrams is laid on the circular system of natural phenomena in change and harmony, it cannot be viewed in a fixed system of directional order. Sang Il Kim s perspective with his statement of Ilbu Kim s trigrams and argument for the unceasing connection of contrasting points shows that the principle of change in Yijing is unfinished but still in an on-going process. In this manner the trigrams or sixtyfour hexagrams in Yijing system can become more expanded by the additional symbolic lines of yin or yang and intensified by the continuous contrasts of contrasts. The Sagehood of Yijing in the Correlative Pattern of Culture and Nature Kim s insistence has an historical significance beyond the logical issue, by referring to the process of change through the encounter with the opposite. In this regard Michael Puett examines why Commentary on the Appended Phrases called Xici zhuan emphasizes the change and transformation through ceaseless encounter with contrasting elements in relation to the sage image in terms of historical criticism: The General cosmology presented by the author of the Xici is a variant of the one common at the time. He describes the basic components of the universe as pairs of opposites (Heaven and Earth, hardness and softness, yang and yin), and the changes as a consequence of the mating of the two. He then presents the changes on the hexagram lines of the divination text known as the Yi as mirroring the changes that occur in the natural world. He thus portrays the text as a microcosm of the processual changes of the universe itself. 16 Processual changes mean changes in the dynamic tension between culture and nature. The image of the sage is not fixed but always transforming itself in interaction with nature. Puett continues, 16 Michael Puett, The Ambivalence of Creation: Debates Concerning Innovation and Artifice in Early China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 86. 9

10 Thus, the sages acts of creating (zuo) and making (wei) implements simply involved lifting out the pattern implicit in the hexagrams. The transgressive implications of such acts have been strongly limited. The hexagrams were inspired by the patterns of nature, and the cultural implements were inspired by the hexagrams; the sages institution of culture through this process therefore at no point entailed the introduction of artifice or arbitrariness. Each stage of the process simply involved lifting the pattern from the previous stage, a process that can be traced back ultimately to the patterns of the natural world itself. 17 Puett s argument shows how seriously the sage recognizes the paradoxical relation between cultural institution and natural process, which are mediated by the hexagrams. The hexagram was originally based on natural phenomena but has provided implications for highly developed cultural contexts. In other words, the relation between nature and culture through the hexagram is developed in a cyclical chain of true and false, that is, the paradox. If one understands the hexagrams in some specific life and cultural situation, one should also consider such understanding to be false in other contexts and ages. This consideration means selftransformation by recognizing the principle of change by the cyclical movement of true and false. The hexagram of Yijing should not be used for the validity of one s own position but for self-transformation. In this manner, the sage recognizes the fact that his/her understanding of a hexagram based on a cultural institution cannot be always guaranteed but should be transformative in dynamic relation to the pattern of nature. This recognition requires the relation between true and false. The sages acts lift up the pattern of nature, thereby making the pattern of pattern (i.e., meta-pattern) heightened from the natural pattern to the cultural pattern. Yet, what Puett emphasizes is not the one-sided direction of pattern. It is like a zigzag step between patterns. 17 Ibid.,

11 Why does the Xici zhuan give such extraordinary prominence to the Yi, even to the point of subordinating the sages themselves? I suggest that the text is a critique of the claims being made for sagehood that were becoming increasingly common in the late Warring States period. To oppose the assertions that one can attain the powers of, even become, a spirit, the text subordinates sagehood to textual authority. 18 From the historical perspective, the emphasis of yi (change) in Xici zhuan for the Warring period ( B.C.E.) shows opposition to the ideology of sagehood in the Warring period. Whereas textual authority focused on the natural pattern of the hexagram, sagehood was drawn with some divine power in the Warring State, particularly its late period. Yet, the divine in Yijing does not mean power but change per se, which is also regarded as textual authority. From Puett s perspective, the significance of yi in Xici zhuan is in the change and transformation of sagehood misused for political power. While sagehood is metalanguage, political and historical context can be object language. To put it another way, when the notion of sagehood is intermingled with the political situation, a paradoxical problem occurs. If we connect sagehood as divine power with the political context and fix its image, it is no longer sagehood, whereby sagehood as meta-language is confined in the political context as object language. In this sense Xici zhuan accentuates that sagehood as meta-language performs the change of change (yi) in interpreting the hexagram and its contextual application. Sagehood cannot be separable or distinguishable from the historical context. Yi refers to continuous transformation by drawing the cyclical chain of true and false in forming the image of the sage in a specific context. In other words, the divine in Xici zhuan indicates the very principle of change in the cycle of true and false other than referring to a certain 18 Michael J. Puett, To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2002),

12 fixed reality: The movement of the universe is defined by the interplay of yin and yang; the interplay of yin and yang lines in the Yi therefore replicates the interplay of yin and yang forces in the cosmos at large. And that which defines this interplay is divine and therefore not explicable in terms of yin and yang. The Yi is divine precisely because it penetrates to the workings of change itself. 19 The authority of the Yijing text is in leading the sage to yi, change and transformation, which means the divine. The Yijing text (particularly Xici zhuan) does not support a fixed and substantial truth and reality. It emphasizes that the sage pursues selftransformation in the patterns of the cosmos that is the authority of Yijing: There is an inherent alignment in the cosmos, generated and maintained by the Great One, that provides the basis for human action. Power and knowledge are thus to be gained not by appropriating the powers of spirits but by understanding and subordinating oneself to the patterns of the cosmos. The cosmos is thus seen as following a normative pattern discernible by those who know how to understand it. 20 Of course, the patterns of the cosmos do not mean natural patterns without the human cultural context. As is seen in the basic assumption of Yijing, the dynamic tension and harmony of heaven, earth, and humanity entail the ceaseless cycle of yin and yang or true and false, drawing the patterns of the whole cosmos. In this manner, the sage should be able to subordinate oneself to the pattern of change, which is also referred to as the Supreme Ultimate seeking harmony. The harmony of Yijing, which the Xici zhuan asserts, is based on the rhythmic balance performed in the interaction of opposite poles, that is, humanity and the rest of the universe, which also constitutes the images of the hexagrams. Puett writes that in the Xici zhun, for example, humans act properly by following a set of refined images that crystallize, in a series of full and broken lines, the movements of the Ibid., 191. Ibid.,

13 cosmos. The images are continuous with the pivot of the universe, but humans, because they are separate from the pivot, can act properly only by subordinating themselves to those images. The Yi, therefore, was placed between humanity and the rest of the cosmos. 21 Puett s statement implies that humanity and the rest of the cosmos are interrelated but distinguished in a comprehensive whole. With the development of consciousness, humanity does not remain in the natural manner. Human consciousness often proceeds in a conflicting direction to the rest of the cosmos, which makes the tension between culture and nature. Yet, human beings themselves are always surrounded by the periphery of natural patterns. This process is not the problem for either nature or human culture according to Aristotle s law of exclusive middle but the issue for change and transformation in dynamic tension between the two. Therefore, what the author of Xici zhuan emphasizes is that one s authority does not come from exercising power and knowledge but from embodying the principle of change. Particularly in misunderstanding the authority of the sage and employing Yijing only to make fortune for the victory of the war and thus to keep the validity of exercising power in the Warring State, the author of Xici zhuan needed to return such power of the sage to change itself, thereby achieving equilibrium between humanity and natural process. This does not mean reducing human affairs to natural pattern but to the pattern of harmony between the two by developing the correlation between yin and yang or true and false. The basis of such cyclical relation is on the change of change through the opposite relation, which means the divine and also the authority of the text that the image of the sage should follow. Citing Xici zhuan, Puett argues the following: Therefore, when a gentleman is about to take an action, or is to begin moving, he makes a vocal inquiry to it. As I read it, this argument is directed against those who 21 Ibid.,

14 were arguing that, through self-cultivation, one can attain sagehood and achieve divine powers. The authors of the Xici zhuan, on the contrary, placed the text of the Yi between their contemporaries and divinity: we can only attain a proper understanding of fortune and misfortune through the Yi. The Xici zhuan does not, of course, argue that it would be impossible for a new sage to arise, but the text does imply that even a new sage would need to be guided by Yi (although not by the line statement), just as the great sages of antiquity were. Moreover, since the Yi is already divine, this cosmology does not appear even to entertain the possibility that the Yi could be superseded. 22 While natural process forms a pattern such as the hexagram, self-cultivation forms a cultural pattern on which creation of the sages is located and craft is made in the name of culture. Since this cultural pattern with regard to the sages creation is based on natural pattern, self-cultivation refers to self-transformation through rhythmic balance in the interaction of humanity and natural process. This means that the cultural process and natural process cannot be separated. The cultural process is to the focus-activity of human consciousness what natural process is to the periphery of consciousness. Yijing articulates the balance between these two processes by drawing a comprehensive whole of the opposites in the zigzag step between natural pattern and cultural pattern. This theme of Yijing requires the whole pattern of change to overcome a one-sided direction at the cost of the other, thereby articulating the meaning of the divine. In this context Puett writes that by thus regulating the myriad things, the sage is able to perfect his heavenly endowment. His powers and faculties then connect properly with the rest of the cosmos: as his spirit becomes harmonized with the cosmos, his senses are able to perceive without error. As a consequence, the sage himself becomes like Heaven and Earth Ibid., Ibid.,

15 The Yijing Language and Correlative Thinking The issue of understanding the principle of change with the problem of paradox is associated with the character of language on the basis of which Yijing develops correlative cosmology. As Roger Ames argues, the Chinese sense of order is generally organized in the language of mutually defining and thus complementary opposites such as inner-outer where history is construed as correlated events that move the process along this continuum. 24 In other words, language does not refer to a fixed reality but has its meaning in relation to its opposite term. Yin does not refer to a certain object but defines itself in relation to the character of yang. Words are interwoven in contexts with their corresponding meanings. If we drive language apart from its contexts, language falls into abstraction regardless of its practical use, thereby distorting its meaning. According to Graham, Before thinking in sentences we already think in the broad sense that we pattern experience in chains of oppositions and expect the filling of gaps in the pattern. When the pattern is familiar this is no more than the recurrence of habitual expectation, when a new pattern takes shapes it is sudden insight, whether as the everyday intuitions of common sense or the illuminations of the visionary and the fantast. The expectations spring from and are initially confirmed by experience. We do regularly encounter light by day and darkness by night, the night does bring ignorance of surroundings and dangers and evils. Since the distinguishing of oppositions is guided by dangers and evils. Since the distinguishing of oppositions is guided by desire and aversion, which enchain the pairs with good and evil, someone thinking correlatively is satisfied not only of what to expect but of what to approve and disapprove; values appear self-evident and he needs analytic thinking only in the service of what immediately presents itself as good Roger T. Ames, The Classical Chinese Self and Hypocrisy, in Self and Deception: a cross-cultural philosophical enquiry, ed. Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1996), Graham, Disputers of the Tao,

16 Graham s statement presents the very crucial point of the relation between language and its reference. The relation is based on our experience and habit rather than the relation between a passport photo and the fixed facial expression taken in it, that is, oneto-one correspondence between a word and the thing it presents. Yet, one is easily driven to the assumption that language has substantial property. What Graham argues is that such an assumption originates from our habitual experience. Language cannot be understood without its contextual meaning. Graham continues to say, The connexions between light and knowledge, darkness and evil, are vaguer and less regular than between day and light, not to mention that there are times when one even encounters darkness by day. One is then forced to analyze the syntagmatic relations critically and seek the precise, invariable and so causal connexion. A tension grows between the pressure of fact and the need for the security of remaining inside a fully comprehensible world. Causal relations begin to interlock, opening the prospect of another cosmos, that of modern science, in which prediction is more accurate than ever before but there is nothing to tell us what to approve or disapprove. 26 Language with regard to the correlative cosmology of Yijing is deeply rooted in its concrete use in contexts. Words are not, therefore, illuminated in their logical or causal relations but in a diversity of contextual meanings in relation to other words. The paradoxical phenomenon of language originates in examining its character not in context but in referential meaning, thereby bringing about the contradiction of various meanings. The causal relations of words and their references are based on the abstract manner with the analysis of syntagmatic associations in sentences to seek unchangeable meaning apart from the linguistic context. From Yijing perspective, language is understood in relation to our life process. When we cling to one aspect of language, we fall into the trap of the reductionism in which various aspects of language are framed within a logical consistency that can distort the concrete feature of language. As Whitehead indicates the 26 Ibid.,

17 matter, this problem of reductionism corresponds to the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. 27 In other words, the fallacy means that our abstracting or theorizing linguistic sense often misplaces only one aspect of language with the real and concrete feature of language. In this regard Ludwig Wittgenstein s ( ) theory of language game developed in his Philosophical Investigations (1953) is insightful for understanding Yijing language. According to Wittgenstein, we practice the usage of words employed in linguistic activity such as questioning, naming, ordering and also learn how words are employed in contexts. Learning language is playing the language-game. Wittgenstein defines this language-game as consisting of language and the actions in which it is woven, the language-game. 28 A word is like a chess piece, and the meaning of a piece is its role in the game. 29 The language game refers to the phenomena of language differently used in different contexts. These phenomena have not a common quality but at most a family resemblance. Wittgenstein insists that the concepts of words do not denote sharply fixed substances but remark family resemblance between the things named with the concepts. The use of language is established upon the language game and family resemblances. 30 Wittgenstein asserts that if we drive the language given to ourselves into a formalized pattern on the basis of our conceptualizing and theorizing minds, we can fall into the fallacy of reducing a diversity of language uses to a one-sided, oversimplified view wherein we pursue the essentialism of language. In this sense, according to 27 Whitehead, Process and Reality, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1968), Ibid., Ibid.,

18 Wittgenstein, concepts are flexible or elastic. For in the flux of life, where all our concepts are elastic, we couldn t reconcile ourselves to a rigid concept. 31 Because words are deeply rooted in a pattern of life, they contain the characteristic of indefiniteness, for the pattern of life is not always formed in regularity. Language is in the dynamic process in conjunction with the forms of life. This view of language maintains that we cannot solve all the philosophical problems from the sheer clarification of language as we cannot cut off everything with a sharpened knife. For Wittgenstein, philosophy has overlooked the obscure aspect of language, thereby eliminating its ambiguity and driving it to lucidity in reductive ways apart from its given circumstances. The description of a word is the description of a certain system or circumstance. For instance, simplicity and complexity do not have absolute quality existing in the thing itself. We use the two words in a number of different ways according to various contexts in which one shows its meanings in relation to the other. 32 From Wittgenstein s perspective of language, the problem in which Yijing language was used for keeping the divine power originates from the static aspect of language in which words have the characters of noun with fixed reference. The author of Xici zhuan, according to Puett, attempted to drive the Yijing language into its natural process working with the characteristic of verbs to focus on dynamic moving. For example, Qian (Pure Yang) reveals its meaning in relation to Kun (Pure Yin) but if one understands the meaning of Qian as strong and above Kun in the hierarchical structure, one falls into the trap of linguistic reductionism with its fixed referential character. Wittgenstein calls this 31 Ibid., K. T. Fann, Wittgenstein s Conception of Philosophy, trans. Maurice Cranston (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986),

19 situation language goes on holiday 33 or language is like an engine idling. 34 In order to understand a word or a sentence, we should observe that it is not idling but working in its house. In other words, we have to pay an attention to its role playing in the proper language game or forms of life. In this manner language does not refer to a fixed reality but to a specific context expressing the dynamic process of life. With regard to language developed in the traditional Chinese context, David Hall and Roger Ames write, No ontological referencing serves to discipline the acts of naming. That is, there is no object language in the strict sense. Language is, in this sense, nonreferential. For if we understand the term refer in the strict linguistic sense to mean denote or to stand for, then the denotation of a term is the class of particulars referenced by that term. 35 The denotation of a word is not allowing for object meaning with a static picture. Like Russell s paradox in the theory of set, language is formed in the relation between the class and the member by way of which pattern and meta-pattern of language are continuously revolved. For example, in Yijing, Zhun (Birth Throes or Difficulty at the Beginning) does not present its meaning through the certain property of that term but in connection with other related terms such as Pure Yang, Pure Yin, Juvenile Ignorance, and Waiting. Zhun does not mean eternal difficulty but difficulty as a current in a series of those related contexts. In this fashion Zhun is not only explained in the definition of the term but also in relation to the class of other related words, which draws on the metapattern of language. For example, if we ask the meaning of Zhun without considering its degree, 33 Wittgenstein, Ibid., David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1987),

20 situation, and relation, the notion of that term per se is obscurely defined. At the same time, however, this obscurity brings us a rich pattern of language, which instigates a cluster of diverse linguistic contexts. While the meaning of Zhun itself forms a linguistic pattern, its reference to the class combining various contexts makes a meta-pattern of language. In this regard, Hall insists that the important terms in our conversations are all richly vague semantic clusters, which are formed by combining different senses of the term. Every stipulative act threatens to raise alternative meanings to the level of consciousness. 36 Hall s argument maintains the paradoxical aspect of language occurring in its working with diverse contexts in the developmental process of consciousness. What Hall emphasizes is that one should not confine a linguistic term simply into a frame but consider it in diverse contextual relations. To put it another way, in the paradoxical relation rather than in logical consistency, linguistic contexts intensify their correlative structure. From this perspective, Puett s explanation of sagehood in Xici zhuan is to indicate the fallacy of regarding a contextual usage of the term (i.e., divine power in the late Warring State) as a fixed image with absolute value. Such employment of the term fails to convey the natural process of language moving between one context and another context by way of which a class with the diverse meanings of sagehood is shaped. This process of language is continuously developed by various dimensions of application, thereby expanding to the context of context (i.e., meta-context). This relation of language does not show the referential character of language denoting a thing 36 David L. Hall, Our Names are Legion for We are Many, in Self and Deception,

21 but rather a member in the class that gathers some contexts of individual words into relationship. Hall and Ames continue: the relative absence of abstract nouns in Classical Chinese militates against the denotative or referential employment of language (in any but ostensive manners) to the degree that such employment requires the class names as ground for the referencing an item. For example, the denotation of a concept such as courageousness would be all of the instances of courageous activity, past, present and future, to which the term would appropriately refer. The strict connotation of the term is all of the characteristics that permit a formal definition of the concept. The ability of a linguistic expression to be referenced seems to depend upon the existence of a formally definable concept which permits the identification of an item as a member of a class of such names. 37 A class of names is associated with their contextual usages based on communicative activity. A class of words is formed by the tradition and the present practice in the duration of time other than by reference to things corresponding to the words. In other words, language shows words meanings by indicating their class units reflecting the past tradition and the present linguistic context. Therefore, linguistic activity is developed in the relation between class and member, whereby one word elucidates its meaning in related terms including opposite pairs such as day/night, light/dark, true/false, or yin/yang. In this manner, the most crucial condition for linguistic activity in the Yijing sense is communicative activity in which one word makes its meaning in organic relation to other words. This view of language does not support a fixed picture of language within which a proposition should be either true or false. A proposition is not the issue of true or false but forms meaning and value in the circle of true and false by drawing a pattern in communicative activity. According to Hall and Ames, Language is the bearer of tradition, and tradition, available through linguistic expression and ritualistic evocation, is the context of all linguistic behavior. The 37 David L.Hall & Roger T. Ames,

22 language user appeals to present praxis and to the repository of significances realized in the traditional past, and he does so in such a manner as to set up deferential relations between himself, his communications, and the authoritative models invoked. 38 The linguistic activity characterized by the language of deference is the pivot of Yijing language with mutual resonance of words. Each word constituting sixty-four hexagrams has not an independent meaning but presents a symbolic meaning in its correlation with others in sequential contexts. That is to say, Hexagram 33, Dun (Withdrawl ) is in mutual resonance with other hexagram words such as Hexagrams 32, Heng (Perseverance ), 34 Dazhuang (Great Strength ), and 35 Jin (Advance ). Also, such words have no referential meaning apart from their particular contexts. This linguistic pattern of Yijing shows the way of correlative thinking on the basis of which a self means the relational self. From the inseparable structure of language and thinking, a self is constituted by interdependent relation with other cosmic events by way of which opposite elements are paradoxically combined. This structure of self developed in Yijing is not confined in logical consistency. It is based on correlative thinking with a focus on concrete contexts formed in the empirical world. Relational self is the self constituting its character in difference, which is not regarded as exclusive but correlative with self-identity. As Ames argues, Correlative thinking is basic to the art of contextualizing, which constitutes a self. Yin and yang are familiar metaphors used in the classical tradition to express contrast and difference.... The nature of the opposition captured in this pairing expresses the mutuality, interdependence, diversity, and creative efficacy of the dynamic relationships that are deemed immanent in and valorize the world. The full range of difference in the world is deemed explicable through this pairing. Yin and yang are ad hoc explanatory categories that report on interactions among immediate concrete things of the world Ibid. Roger Ames, The Classical Chinese Self and Hypocrisy, in Self and Deception, 22

23 The notion of change in Yijing is rooted in the concrete world in which the self dynamically moves with the correlation of the opposites. Therefore, the idea of change is not an abstract concept but is a contextual notion developed in an attempt to describe immediate things grasped in the phenomenal world. In this process, the pattern of change is rhythmically formed in yin-yang relation of concrete things of the empirical world. In other words, logically inconsistent relations are gathered in correlative thinking and language that constitute the self and the world. The source for such correlation is in the interchangeableness of opposite things. The opposite is not the substantial opposite but the relational opposite that can be interchangeable with its different aspects in dynamic tension, thereby contextually defined in the correlative manner. In this sense self is not clearly defined by the law of contrast. It is based on the aesthetic complex transforming logical inconsistency into creative moments. The transformation of self is achieved by appropriating logically inconsistent terms into the aesthetic context in which a self enjoys the experience of novelty. Even if two different terms are logically inconsistent, they can be transformed to the creative relation by the aesthetic enjoyment of the self. Thus, Hall argues, Terms characterized by recourse to a cluster indifferent to the question of logical coordination are, nonetheless, contextually defined. Such definitions must result from aesthetic juxtapositions which highlight the tensions of contrasting and conflicting referential associations against the background of an aesthetically complex, if logically inconsistent, context. Our understanding of such terms would have to be closer to the experience of enjoyment and appreciation than to that of an act of grasping cognizable import. The only hope of accommodating the incoherences, incongruences, and inconsistences embedded in cluster concepts is that the self appropriating these notions must be of the same flexible form as the notions themselves. In this case, a mind becoming like that which it knows lead to a seriously ambiguted self David L. Hall, Our Names are Legion for We are Many,

24 Ambiguted self means the self that cannot be reducible to our focal self by our conscious activity. It is not confined in a logical self based on scientific rationality in which self can be clearly defined. The correlative terms of the opposites in Yijing assumes the ambiguity of the self, which attunes logically inconsistent notions in an aesthetically complex context. This motif of Yijing originates in the fact that the Chinese tradition locates the value ideal in realizing a harmonious world view. This view does not refer to an abstract value system but to the correlative system of the real concrete world. Harmony is not attained in a logical reductionism but in incorporating logical incongruousness through the process of change. In this sense the notion of change in Yijing entails the transformation of the self by encountering the different world that cannot be easily described in logical consistency and scientific rationality. This transformation of the self makes possible the aesthetic view of the world that converts the paradoxical relation into a creative moment with self-enjoyment. This process of embodying the aesthetic self accommodates the fringe or background of the focal self. In other words, the focal self is only a partial aspect of the whole self. It is always surrounded by a wider context encompassing the periphery field of the self. Ames says, A focal self inheres in the natural world as its field, and where it shapes and is shaped by the field in which it resides. The dynamic structure and regularity of the focal self is immanental, inhering within it, and making it ever continuous with its context. As such, it is constitutive in its relationship to its world. The focal self is not in any sense discrete or independent, but is rather intrinsically related to and interdependent with its field. 41 Ames s argument about the focal/field self as developed in the Chinese tradition becomes the key to understanding the principle of change and transformation in Yijing that cannot 41 Ames, The Classical Chinese Self and Hypocrisy,

25 be explained within the frame of the focal self. Because the focal self grasps the flowing of things in a fixed picture, their real concrete feature within moving process is easily overlooked within the focal self. The important issue in this discussion of the self developed in Yijing is to understand the complexity of the ambiguous self with the field of the self formed in the aesthetic context. The creative transformation via the paradoxical combination of yin and yang, heaven and earth, retreat and progress cannot be limited only to the clarity of the focal self or logical self but entails the theme of the ambiguous self. The ambiguity of the self does not mean the chaos of the self but the non-reductive way of the self, which is always open to change and transformation toward aesthetic harmony attuning different entities and terms in opposite relation. This character of the self starts with an emphasis on particular contexts. It proceeds to a different path from development with the first principle with the assumption of universality. The significant differences between the metaphysician Plato (to the extent that we want to continue this unfortunate caricature of a more complex philosopher) and the Chinese model are many, the most obvious being that the senses of order to which they subscribe Plato beginning from first principles and classical Chinese thinkers from particular details are irreconcilable. 42 In other words, while Plato s metaphysics stipulates concrete and empirical contexts with the criterion of universal value or the Idea, the classical Chinese tradition defines the value of beings in particular details and contexts. This does not mean that the world-view of Yijing pursues only empiricism. This perspective of the Chinese tradition is different from the empiricism focusing on private events based on sense-perception. From this empiricist perspective, value is defined in terms of subjective sense-perception. In this empiricism the item felt and enjoyed in experience is regarded as a derivative from a 42 Ibid.,