Abstract

The Xici 繋辭 (Attached Verbalizations) is commonly considered as a pivotal text that transformed the 周易 ( Zhou Changes or the Book of Changes) from a manual of divination into a philosophical treatise. Yet in current scholarship, there is no consensus as to how to make sense of its authors’ argument that the Zhouyi provides a mantic method—particularly selecting hexagrams based on a counting of the yarrow stalks—to understand the working of the natural system and comprehend the intricacies of a developing event. In this essay, I will offer a reading of the Xici that shows how divination can be philosophically profound, and conversely, how philosophy can be made concrete through a practice of divination. In view of the uncertainty in our times—globally, regionally, socially, and individually—it is in our best interest to learn to see the world from the perspective of the Xici.