In this paper I focus on elaborating one fundamental guiding insight of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the classical Chinese Yijing, i.e., the guiding insight concerning becoming-being complementarity. First, I highlight the metaphysical-vision aspect of the Yijing, among its various aspects, and explain the multiple dimensions of the metaphysical vision of the Yijing. Second, by examining and explaining the metaphysical status and nature of the ideographic signs, the yin-yao and yang-yao and the hexagram in the Yijing, I endeavour to show that what come into play in the Yijing are two metaphysical perspectives, the changing/becoming-concerned perspective and the unchanging/being-concerned perspective, rather than merely the former one. Third, I intend to show that the underlying guiding insight of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision in the Yijing that guides how the two basic metaphysical perspectives play their roles is a thorough Yin-Yang guiding principle, which renders even the most fundamental modes of existence, changing-becoming and unchanging-being, likewise interdependent, interpenetrating, and complementary. Finally, I discuss some significance of the Yin-Yang guiding principle of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing.

This research was supported by the Pacific Cultural Foundation, the Republic of China.

  It is known that the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing (I Ching), reflecting some collective wisdom of ancient Chinese people on the nature and fundamental features of the universe, has fundamentally influenced the orientation of mentality, and the way of metaphysical thinking, of subsequent Chinese thinkers in various schools or movements. To understand how classical Chinese philosophy could contribute to the common philosophical enterprise in regard to metaphysical investigation as well as to understand the orientation and characteristics of the Chinese metaphysical thought, the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing is one of the most important sources.

  In saying this, I need to first make a necessary preliminary clarification of the key term "the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing". By this I mean a set of related metaphysical perspectives and their guiding insights that are revealed in the Zhouyi (the Yijing text in its narrow sense) which consists of the 64 ideographic symbols, the hexagrams,  1  and their respective explanatory texts (i.e., gua-ci and yao-ci). In this way, the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing is explicitly distinguished from some metaphysical views suggested in the commentary part, the so-called Shi-Yi (the Ten Wings)  2 , of the Yijing in its broad sense, i.e., the Yizhuan, which are to large extent subsequent Confucian interpretative elaborations of the Zhouyi texts. Moreover, when using the term Yin-Yang to label the metaphysical vision under discussion, I do not depend on how those subsequent Confucian commentators/interpreters used the term yin-yang or terms yin and yang and what they denoted by the term in the Ten Wings. Rather, I turn on a basic textual fact that the Yijing text comprises the hexagram text, which consists of the yin-yao and/or the yang-yao, and their explanatory text (the gua-ci and the yao-ci).

Greg Whincup:
The I Ching on the Net:
Web guide


Lorraine Patsco:
I Ching Sites.
Web guide

  In this paper I focus on elaborating one fundamental guiding insight of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing, i.e., the guiding insight concerning becoming-being complementarity, which I render philosophically interesting and significant but which somehow fails to be adequately emphasized or even fully realized. For that purpose, I intend to show: (1) the Yijing presents two complementary metaphysical perspectives to look at things in the universe, i.e., the changing/becoming-concerned perspective and the unchanging/being-concerned perspective that point respectively to the two most fundamental modes of existence in the universe, rather than merely the former one; (2) the two complementary metaphysical perspectives are guided and coordinated by a fundamental Yin-Yang guiding insight in the Yijing which renders even the most fundamental modes of existence, changing versus unchanging and becoming versus being,  3  likewise complementary; (3) I thus call into question an alleged Yin-Yang metaphysical view which, though considering many other opposites as being Yin-Yang-complementarily constituted, separates being and unchanging from becoming and changing and renders the former inferior to the latter regarding their metaphysical status.

Chuck Polisher:
I Ching Lexicon.
Lexicon

  The Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing is sometimes or typically identified with one single metaphysical perspective, which highlights and celebrates the changing or becoming aspect of things. The Yin-Yang metaphysical vision is thus often identified with the becoming-concerned metaphysical perspective. Nevertheless, I argue that the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing is not a mono-simplex as the becoming-concerned metaphysical perspective alone but instead a multi-layer metaphysical complex in three senses. First, the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision in the Yijing consists of both its perspective-dimension and its guiding-principle dimension. Second, different from a single-perspective metaphysical view that turns on only one perspective simplex, the perspective dimension of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision consists of both the becoming-concerned perspective and the being-concerned perspective. Third, accordingly, the guiding-principle dimension of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision consists in a reflective guiding polymerization of becoming-concerned and being-concerned perspectives which takes neither priority of becoming over being nor priority of being over becoming but regards becoming-changing and being-unchanging as complementary Yin-Yang opposites in an organic unity. In this way, the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision in the Yijing is not identical with the becoming-concerned metaphysical perspective alone; rather, it is not only compatible with, but also includes, being-concerned perspective as one indispensable component of its perspective dimension, although the becoming-concerned perspective is certainly one indispensable component of its perspective dimension, and although the becoming-concerned perspective becomes dominant in the later Confucian commentary Yizhuan.

  In this section, I focus on the aforementioned second point: the perspective dimension of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision is not one perspective-simplex but a dual-perspective-complex which consists of both becoming-concerned and being-concerned perspectives that point respectively to the becoming-changing aspect and the being-unchanging aspect of things in the universe.

The eight trigrams
(Ba Gua)

A Trigram is build out of three divided or undivided lines placed on top of each other. An undivided line is called a Yin Yao and a divided line is called a Yang Yao. Has a Trigram an odd number of Yin Yao so its nature is Yin. Has it a odd number of Yang Yao its nature is Yang.

Ch'ien
Heaven

Chên
Thunder

K'an
Water

Kên
Mountain

K'un
Earth

Sun
Wind

Li
Fire

Tui
Marsh

  The being-concerned perspective in the Yijing text is highlighted primarily through two basic ideographic categories: the category of yin-yao (  ) and yang-yao (  ), and the category of the hexagram like   . In the following, I explain how the two categories of ideographic symbols employed in the Yijing text function to present the being-concerned metaphysical perspective in the Yijing.  4  Let me first discuss the case of yin-yao and yang-yao.

  The ideographic simplexes yin-yao and yang-yao, i.e., the ideographic symbols    and   , are used in the Yijing text to refer respectively to what might be characteristically called "the YIN-yang universal" and "the YANG-yin universal" for the reason to be explained. The yin-yao    and yang-yao    alone point respectively to the two most basic mutually-opposed but interdependent and interpenetrating forces that exist in the universe, or in everything of the universe, in their various and distinct ways insofar as each of wan-wu (ten-thousand-things) has its own distinct identity. One might as well identify them, in more or less metaphorical terms, respectively as the negative, passive, weak and deconstructive Yin force and as the positive, active, strong and constructive Yang force. They constitute the two most fundamental components of the universe: they present themselves as the unchanging in changing and the being in becoming. The ideographic symbols    and   , as a matter of fact, present one of the earliest attempts of human beings to generalize and abstract the being-aspect of the universe (in this case, what are shared by everything in the universe) into the fundamental metaphysical categories through ideographic symbolization. In so doing, the Yijing philosophy reveals a certain being-concerned metaphysical perspective.

  In contrast to Platonic generalization and abstraction in this regard that result in absolute one-ness in the Platonic Heaven, via the complementary being-concerned and the becoming-concerned perspectives, the Yin-Yang metaphysical generalization in terms of the yin-yao and yang-yao represents some complementary and interpenetrating two-'ness' within this universe: that is, two mereological collections  5  of concrete and specific parts in the following sense.  6  What the yin-yao    alone denotes, i.e., what I call "the YIN-yang universal", is the mereological whole of those yin parts as the concrete and specific yin forces scattered in the individual or concrete things throughout the universe. By the same token, what the yang-yao    alone denotes, i.e., what I call "the YANG-yin universal", is the mereological whole of those yang parts as the concrete and specific yang forces scattered in the individual things throughout the universe.  7  A collection as a mereological whole is not something abstract above, or separate from, individual and concrete things (material objects or dynamic processes whatever).

  Now let me briefly sketch how the category of the hexagram like    is employed in the Yijing to present the being-concerned metaphysical perspective in another way. Each hexagram in the Yijing is intended to denote a certain pattern of changing or Dao-guided changing process in the universe. One can say that, when identifying changing patterns and changing directions via the 64 ideographic hexagrams and their internal structures and mutual structural connections, the Yijing text focuses on being aspect of things through its being-concerned metaphysical perspective in another way to the effect that particular changes reveal multiple patterns of, rather than single-ordered, regularity or directionality as the multiple hexagrams show. In this way, what the hexagram itself delivers in the Yijing in this regard is a being-concerned metaphysical perspective; or, in other words, the hexagram itself, as an ideographic symbol, is employed as an instrumental apparatus to carry out the aforementioned being-concerned metaphysical perspective.

  There is no doubt that one central concern of the Yijing is with changing-becoming process in the universe. But the Yijing never denies but emphasizes that there is always something unchanging in changing, something Dao-guided in the seemingly chaotic, and something stable in the unstable. One might object: Isn't the changing-becoming aspect of the universe considered as absolute while its unchanging-being aspect as relative? It is important to note that one central guiding insight at the guiding-principle dimension of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision as suggested in the Yijing is that unchanging and changing, or being and becoming, themselves constitute a most fundamental pair of Yin and Yang regarding the modes of existence and that they themselves are also interactive, interdependent, and interpenetrating. At each stage of the changing process of each thing, the thing presents its being-aspect through keeping its own identity and through evolving in a certain changing pattern. In this sense, one might as well say that unchanging and being is absolute and fundamental to the same extent as changing and becoming is absolute and fundamental and that changing and becoming is relative to the same extent as unchanging and being is relative.

  The aforementioned two categories of ideographic symbols used to deliver the being-concerned metaphysical perspective in the Yijing are closely connected with each other. On the one hand, the changing and unchanging in the universe result from the interaction between the two independent and interpenetrating basic forces Yin and Yang; the hexagram is constructed out of the ideographic symbols yin-yao    and yang-yao   . On the other hand, the interaction of the Yin and Yang forces proceeds through a certain changing pattern and in a certain process of its progress or during a certain period of its development; the ideographic symbols yin-yao    and yang-yao    thus achieve their new meanings in the context of the hexagram. What a yin-yao denotes, in the context of the hexagram, is a yin-dominant stage of a dynamic event or developing process of something that follows a certain pattern rather than a pure yin force; at this stage, the yang force of the event or process does not disappear but co-exists or is correlated with the yin force and is an indispensable contributor to the development in a certain direction and through a certain pattern. This is the reason why I call what the yin-yao denotes "the YIN-yang universal" above: in the context of the hexagram, the term yang after the term YIN in the phrase "the YIN-yang universal" serves as a reminder of the indispensable role played by the yang force and as a referring expression which denotes the yang force at that yin-dominant stage of a dynamic event or a changing process, although the yang force is not in its dominant state at that stage of the changing process. In this way, the ideographic symbol yin-yao    or the term "the YIN-yang universal" means two related things. First, when used alone, the yin-yao    or the term "the YIN-yang universal" denotes the yin force as characterized before; in this case, the term yang in the name "the YIN-yang universal" is used to highlight the interactive and interpenetrating relation between the yin force and the yang force. Second, in the context of the hexagram, the yin-yao    or the term >the YIN-yang universal" denotes the yin-dominant stage of a changing process at which yang force is also an indispensable contributor to the changing or development in a certain pattern and is denoted by the term yang in the phrase; in this case, the term yang in the name "the YIN-yang universal" is used to denote the complementary yang-component in the yin-dominant state. The same holds for the yang-yao    or the term "the YANG-yin universal".

»The point is that the Yijing simultaneously takes its being-concerned and becoming-concerned metaphysical perspectives.«

  However, as always emphasized in the literature, the becoming-changing aspect of the universe is one central concern in the Yijing text. As the preceding discussion of how the being-concerned perspective in the Yijing plays its role shows, the being-concerned and becoming-concerned perspectives actually interactively and complementarily play their roles in the Yijing. In taking the being-concerned perspective, the Yijing always keeps an eye on the concrete changing process so that each ideographic hexagram is illustrated or explained by a certain concrete situation characterized by its guaci and yaoci. The point is that the Yijing simultaneously takes its being-concerned and becoming-concerned metaphysical perspectives. Now the question is this: How is it possible to take the two seemingly opposed metaphysical perspectives in a harmonious way? In this aspect, the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing suggests some more fundamental guiding principle at its guiding-principle dimension, which guides how the two metaphysical perspectives complementarily function in the Yijing text. The fundamental guiding principle might as well be called "the Ying-Yang metaphysical guiding principle", which constitutes core idea of the guiding-principle dimension of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing.

  It is arguably right that the point explained above is also somehow highlighted by the linguistic meaning of the title of the Yijing in this way. It is known that the ideographic character Yi means both changing and unchanging;  8  metaphysically speaking, what the Yijing text via its key term Yi points to is thus not merely the becoming-changing aspect of the universe but also its being-unchanging aspect; the Yijing text takes the being-concerned perspective as well as the becoming-concerned perspective. One thus can say that, in contrast to some standard and popular translation of the title the Yijing into the "Book of Changes", a seemingly more inclusive paraphrase of the title so far might well be "book of changing and unchanging" – as the discussion proceeds, a more proper paraphrase based on the current paraphrase will emerge in the next section.  9 

»The core idea of the Yin-Yang metaphysical guiding principle lies in its fundamental metaphysical insight to the effect that the being-unchanging aspect and the becoming-changing aspect are two most fundamental but complementary modes of existence of the universe.«

  As mentioned in the preceding discussion, behind the being-unchanging-concerned and becoming-changing-concerned metaphysical perspectives lies a more fundamental guiding principle, the Yin-Yang metaphysical guiding principle, which constitutes of the core of the guiding-principle dimension of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision. The Yin-Yang guiding principle is suggested and presupposed in the Yijing text to guide how the two metaphysical perspectives operate and to unite them as two complementary metaphysical perspectives into a unified Yin-Yang metaphysical vision as a whole. From the point of view of the Yin-Yang guiding principle, the being-unchanging aspect and the becoming-changing aspect of the universe are its two most fundamental aspects which themselves constitute a most fundamental pairs of Yin and Yang as the fundamental modes of existence; they thus respectively constitute the fundamental metaphysical foundations of the being-concerned and becoming-concerned metaphysical perspectives.

  The core idea of the Yin-Yang metaphysical guiding principle lies in its fundamental metaphysical insight to the effect that the being-unchanging aspect and the becoming-changing aspect are two most fundamental but complementary modes of existence of the universe; they themselves constitute one of the most fundamental pairs of Yin and Yang forces in the universe. This fundamental metaphysical insight implies that the being-unchanging aspect is not just something constructed conceptually but a fundamental onto-cosmological constitutional force. Indeed, on the one hand, things in the universe always keep changing, and everything evolves in process. The becoming-concerned metaphysical perspective in the Yijing is intended to capture this fundamental becoming-changing aspect of things. However, on the other hand, although things in the universe keep changing, things keep their being-unchanging aspect in the following three (or one of three) ways.

»It could be argued that a more suitable paraphrase of the title Yijing might be 'Book of Unity of Changing and Unchanging', not merely 'Book of Changing and Unchanging' and much less 'Book of Changes'.«

  First, they always keep their own certain identities at any stage of their changing process. For example, in the first hexagram, Qian-gua, the image employed to illustrate the changing pattern suggested by Qian-gua is the dragon; the dragon keeps its own identity as the dragon throughout the whole changing process, rather than alters itself into something else. Second, as what those hexagrams of the Yijing text are intended to denote indicate, things evolve or change following certain patterns or fundamental ways (i.e., the Daos in Chinese terminology). Third, as what the yin-yao and yang-yao are intended to denote indicate, things are connected with the other things of the same kind by virtue of something common or shared.

  Fourth, last but not least, the Yijing characteristically emphasizes the harmonious stability between the opposing forces at each of the stages of development process of things. Although the harmonious stability is a kind of dynamic equilibrium, this metaphysical characteristic as highlighted in the Yijing should be adequately characterized in terms of being-unchanging in changing-becoming and their interaction and interdependence rather than in mere terms of changing and becoming alone. The point is still this: metaphysically speaking, there is being-unchanging in becoming-changing. In this way, the being-concerned metaphysical perspective, as specified before, is intended to capture the being-unchanging aspect (or a variety of being-related aspects in the above sense) of the universe. In this way, the being-unchanging aspect and the becoming-changing aspect of each thing in the universe respectively constitute the fundamental metaphysical foundations of the being-concerned and becoming-concerned metaphysical perspectives.

  It is important to note that, from the point of view of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision, the being-unchanging aspect and the becoming-changing aspect as two fundamental modes of existence of each thing are not separated from each other but interdependent, interactive, and interpenetrating into each other; the Yin-Yang metaphysical principle renders indispensable and complementary the becoming-concerned and being-concerned metaphysical perspectives.

  The point here is also highlighted by the multi-meaning of the title of the Yijing. As mentioned before, the ideographic character Yi in this context means both changing and unchanging; for what the Yijing text points to is not merely the becoming-changing aspect but also the being-unchanging aspect; the Yijing text takes the being-concerned perspective as well as the becoming-concerned perspective. There is one more point: the two metaphysical perspectives are united by the Yin-Yang guiding principle in the aforementioned sense. It could be argued that, with the aforementioned multiple related meanings of the term Yi, a more suitable paraphrase of the title Yijing might be "Book of Unity of Changing and Unchanging", not merely "Book of Changing and Unchanging" and much less "Book of Changes". As paradoxical it appears to be, the title of the Yijing hit the point home: guided by its Yin-Yang metaphysical guiding principle, the Yijing text reflectively takes two complementary metaphysical perspectives which look respectively to two fundamental aspects of everything in the universe: the changing-becoming aspect and the unchanging-being aspect.

»Both becoming-changing and being-unchanging are themselves a most fundamental pair of Yin and Yang as two fundamental modes of existence; they are thus complementary in the sense that they are interdependent, interactive, and interpenetrating; they enjoy the equal metaphysical status to the extent that neither could exist without the other and neither is absolutely dominant over the other.«

  As I see it, the significance of the Yin-Yang guiding principle concerning becoming-being complementarity as examined and elaborated in the preceding discussion is three-fold: its historical significance, its metaphysical significance, and its methodological significance.

  First, as far as its historical significance is concerned, the Yin-Yang guiding principle concerning becoming-being complementarity, if its elaboration given in the preceding discussion is right, would highlight one important metaphilosophical crucial idea assumed in the Yijing and thus render at least incomplete a quite widely circulated Yin-Yang metaphysical view. This view, on the one hand, considers many other seemingly opposed contraries as Yin-Yang complementary but, on the other hand, explicitly or implicitly rejects the most fundamental modes of existence, becoming-changing and being-unchanging, as Yin-Yang complementary but renders the former superior to the latter regarding metaphysical status. In this way, if my elaboration of the guiding principle as presented before is right, the aforementioned partial Yin-Yang metaphysical view fails to capture one central idea of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision as revealed in the Yijing text and thus, historically speaking, fails to be a complete account of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision in the Yijing. Though with such a historical interest in clarifying the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Chinese classic Yijing, my primary interest is in its metaphysical significance and its methodological significance.

  Second, as far as the metaphysical significance of the Yin-Yang guiding insight is concerned, it itself suggests an outlook of the fundamental nature and structure of the universe through its guiding how the being-concerned and becoming-concerned metaphysical perspectives are related to each other. There are several points as explained in the preceding discussion: (1) Both becoming-changing and being-unchanging are themselves a most fundamental pair of Yin and Yang as two fundamental modes of existence; (2) they are thus complementary in the sense that they are interdependent, interactive, and interpenetrating; (3) they enjoy the equal metaphysical status to the extent that neither could exist without the other and neither is absolutely dominant over the other.

  Third, as far as the methodological significance of the Yin-Yang metaphysical guiding insight is concerned, it guides us to endeavour to look at various aspects or layers of an object under reflective examination and to identify different perspectives, which look respectively to various aspects, as distinct but complementary approaches. For the Yin-Yang metaphysical guiding insight concerning becoming-being complementarity essentially and fundamentally renders various aspects of a thing in the universe as yin-yang complementary. Methodologically speaking, what the Yin-Yang guiding insight, as a methodological guiding principle, guides us to look at is not limited to a metaphysical object in metaphysical studies; instead, one can take what is under examination as any object that deserves reflective investigation. The methodological point of the Yin-Yang metaphysical guiding principle does not lie in mechanically locating some being-aspect and becoming-aspect of any object of study indiscriminately  10  but in guiding us to have a balanced holistic understanding of various aspects or layers of the object in the spirit of dynamic Yin-Yang complementarity.

Bo Mou
is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at San Jose State University, California.

  An illustration is relevant to the theme of "new ontologies": As diverse or even seemingly opposed metaphysical views are, the Yin-Yang methodological guiding principle, as suggested by the Yin-Yang metaphysical guiding principle discussed above, would encourage and guide us to think hard of several related issues: (1) If these metaphysical phenomena identified and characterized respectively or jointly by those distinct metaphysical views are indeed genuine, and somehow interdependent and interactive, aspects of the world that we are commonly facing, would the distinct metaphysical perspectives that are revealed in those metaphysical views and point respectively to those aspects, be eventually complementary? (2) If the metaphysical perspectives involved are indeed metaphysically relevant in the sense that they do point to some genuine aspects of the world, are those metaphysical perspectives per se philosophically innocent, whether or not the metaphysical guiding principles presupposed in the metaphysical views are adequate or inadequate? (3) Would there be any metaphysical guiding principle presupposed in those metaphysical views that would render those metaphysically relevant perspectives complementary or reject some of them as incompatible? I would like to end this essay with those questions to invite possible answers in terms of the explanatory resources and philosophical insights provided by the Yin-Yang guiding principle of the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing, as elaborated in this essay, so as to test its reflective explanatory capacity and methodological significance.  11 

polylog: Forum for Intercultural Philosophy 3 (2001).
Online: http://them.polylog.org/3/amb-en.htm
ISSN 1616-2943

An hexagram, say   , comprise two trigrams, say    and   . A trigram consists of three lines, divided or undivided; the divided line is called yin-yao while the undivided line yang-yao. (I will give more discussion of the meanings and functions of the yin-yao and yang-yao in the text.) A hexagram thus consists of six yin-yao or yang-yao. 

"The Ten Wings", i.e., the Yizhuan, consists of the following ten commentary texts: two parts of the Tuan-zhuan (the commentaries on the gua-ci), two parts of the Xiang-zhuan (the elaborations of the meanings of the gua-ci and the yao-ci), the Wen-yan (the commentaries on the first two hexagrams, the Qian-gua and the Kun-gua, and their gua-ci and yao-ci), two parts of the Si-ci-zhuan (the appended remarks), the Shuo-gua-zhuan (the remarks on certain trigrams), the Xu-gua-zhuan (the remarks on the order of the hexagrams), and the Za-gua-zhuan (the remarks on the hexagrams). Before the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - 220), the "Ten Wings" were separated from the Yijing text; the Han Confucians combined them with the Yijing original text into the Yijing in its broad sense. 

For, though having been taken as a trade-mark term in ontological study in the history of Western philosophy, the term "being" is, when in contrast to the term "becoming", is intended to denote the stable, regular, definite, unchanging aspect or layer of existing things. A prominent example of using the term "being" in this sense is Parmenides' case, though Parmenides assigned much inflated import to the term "being" in his philosophy. In the history of Western philosophy, the two characteristic uses of "being" are somehow closely connected with each other in some philosophers' minds: because the stable, regular, definite, unchanging aspect of an object is considered as the defining or crucial aspect of the object that is supposed to give the essence of the object, the metaphysical study of being as existence is considered as essentially the study of being as the stable, regular, definite, and unchanging in existence. Throughout this writing, the term "being" is used in the aforementioned sense in contrast to "becoming". 

A relevant discussion in this respect is given in Bo Mou (1998): "An Analysis of the Ideographic Nature of Structure of the Hexagram in Yijing: From the Perspective of Philosophy of Language". In: Journal of Chinese Philosophy 25.3, 305-320. 

The term "mereology" means the (mathematical) theory of the relation of parts to the whole. Its two major versions are S. Lesniewski's formal theory of parts and N. Goodman's calculus of individuals. It is important to note that a mereological part-whole characterization of the world is by no means incompatible with the so-called qi-oriented metaphysical view, typically held by some classical Chinese philosophers, to the effect that qi, a kind of fluid vital energy, constitutes the most fundamental stuff out of which everything in the universe condenses and into which it eventually dissipates. (Cf. those discussions on qi in Zhuangzi and by Zhang Zai in Song dynasty.) For qi reveals itself as wan-wu (ten-thousand-things), and such ten-thousand-things might well be characterized in some nominalistic mereological terms. 

For my discussions of why the Platonic one-many problem was not consciously and of how the characteristics of Chinese language bear on ontological insights addressed in the classical Chinese philosophy, see Bo Mou (1999): "The Structure of Chinese language and Ontological Insights: A Collective-Noun Hypothesis". In: Philosophy East and West 49.1, 45-62. 

In his recent book, Event and Substance: Metaphysics of Reality and Realisation, Uwe Meixner's ideas about the »central substance and the pluralistic and conflicting character of the world« (Chapter 5) seems to have some interesting parallel to the elaboration presented here about the way of the two complementary central forces, Yin and Yang. One might say that it is the fundamental interaction between the two complementary central forces, Yin and Yang, throughout the universe that »coordinates the conflicting decisions of the substances concerning the choice of the world and unites them by an impartial balancing of the wills« (Section 5 of Meixner's essay "The Metaphysics of Event and Substance", which is an outline of the basic ideas of the aforementioned book). Insofar as he sets out to do justice to both the plurality and unity of the universe and endeavors to figure out the complementarity between oneness and pluralness of the universe, Meixner is, to some extent, kindred in spirit with the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision of the Yijing in regard to the being-becoming complementarity. 

The Zhouyiqianzaoduo paraphrases the meaning of yi this way: »the name 'yi' has three implications: the so-called yi means the simple, changing (bian-yi), and unchanging (bu-yi)«. There are three corresponding phrases in Chinese: jian-yi (simplicity and easyness), bian-yi (changing), and bu-yi (unchanging). Considering that the character bu is a negation-prefix and that yi in bu-yi is assumed to mean changing, one might feel puzzled about how yi could express unchanging in the context of the Yijing. In my opinion, what coordinates the two seemingly opposed meanings of yi (i.e., bian-yi or changing, and bu-yi or unchanging) into a harmonious whole is the other meaning of yi – simplicity: what emerges as something simple, stable and easy (to capture) in changing is bu-yi or unchanging; or, conversely, what is bu-yi or unchanging in bian-yi or changing is something simple (one in many) and stable. 

I prefer translating yi into verb-form to noun-form. I also prefer paraphrasing what is not changed in terms of "unchanging" rather than 'nonchanges'. For the prefix "non" seems to suggest having no connection with what is prefixed; this implication is clearly not included in what the Yijing suggests. 

A metaphysical object does not necessarily have both being-aspect and becoming-aspect. Moreover, an object of study might have other aspects. For example, a person as an object of study has his or her moral aspect, physical-physiological aspect, etc. The object under metaphysical examination in the Yijing is the natural thing in the universe, which characteristically has both becoming-changing aspect and being-unchanging aspect. What kinds of co-present aspects an object of study has depends upon the metaphysical nature of that object. An abstract mathematical object, say, hardly has any becoming aspect except of its conceptually stipulated being-aspect. For a detailed discussion of the relation of the metaphysical nature of an object of study to relevant methodological perspectives, see Bo Mou (2001): "An Analysis of the Structure of Philosophical Methodology – in View of Comparative Philosophy". In: Bo Mou (ed.): Two Roads to Wisdom? – Chinese and Analytic Philosophical Traditions. Chicago – La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 337-364. 

I am grateful to Lin-he Han for his helpful comments and criticism of an early version of this article. 

Author: Bo Mou
© 2001 Bo Mou & polylog e.V.