This article reflects on important terms and concepts that constitute the cosmology of the Yijing: ji, tian, yin-yang , and the correlative aspects of temporality. These are familiar terms from the Yijing as well as other philosophical texts from ancient China. It begins with a comparative inquiry into Chinese and Greek attitudes toward time and then explores the related philosophical consequences. Although the ancient Chinese view of the world as temporal, processual, and relational may be found to be in contrast (...) with Greek substance-oriented philosophy, it is argued here that we should revise some commonly accepted interpretations of Chinese terms. Without adequate reflection on temporality and process, many important terms may be misconstrued as atemporal and substance-oriented, which would be alien to the sensibilities of East Asian traditions. Thus, it is attempted here to gauge the adequacy of the prominent existing interpretations of these terms and ideas while giving an account of how such interpretations may be revised to better recognize the role of temporality and process. Specifically, it is proposed that the interpretations given here accord best with a conception of time as a spiral trajectory, as opposed to either the cyclic or linear conceptions of time usually considered dominant in the Yijing and ancient Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

In this article, it is argued that Ch'oe Han-gi (1803-1877), a Korean Confucian scholar from the late Chosŏn, can be credited with finding the full philosophical significance of the notion of experience (kyŏnghŏm). At the same time, his philosophy of experience can be interpreted adequately in the context of not British empiricist but Confucian philosophical assumptions. There is both continuity and discontinuity in Ch'oe's relation to Confucian tradition. Unlike the Confucian traditionalist, he admitted that inherited knowledge and practice are potentially (...) fallible. Confucian tradition, though still reliable, becomes less important than the process of the world itself, in whose flux all experience must be repeatedly tested. For Ch'oe, humans imbued with configurative energy and with their capability for correlative thinking become skilled in experiencing the world directly without absolute dependence on past Confucian traditions. (shrink)

The aim of the inquiry is to interpret the Yijing consistently in terms of time and creativity. In the course of analysis of cosmology, changes and constancy, the self and community in the Yijing, this inquiry suggests that time and creativity play a significant role to understand the whole text. ;In the Yijing, change and time are the ultimate facts of the world. As there is no external agency, every being is in the middle of self-realizing process. It is an (...) one-world view in the sense that myriad things generate and produce in the same field. They are unique and self-determining in that they have freedom to make a decision to construct themselves in their own way. ;There are various kinds of term for change and constancy in the Yijing. While bian tends to be employed as discontinuous breakthrough from one to another, tong refers to continuity. The compound biantong, a dynamic concept of concord of the opposites, seems to signify effective change under the changing environment and "to hit the mark timely." ;Constancy in the Yijing is full blossom of realization and unbounded movement of dao. ;In the Yijing, instead of defining general quality of human being, human being is characterized as temporally self-creative. Image and word play a reinforcing role in the creative process of person-making. Images and words point out the experience of perceiver to orient oneself to the goal of maximizing one's potency. This process suggests a magnifying process of the person. ;Time and creativity play a primary role in making many kinds of interpersonal relationships. Interweaving interpersonal relationship is serial and continuous. At the same time, relationships are discontinuous in that they do not repeat and duplicate what the initiators achieved. The process formulates seamless network of persons. (shrink)