Philosophical Studies On Hellmut Wilhelm's Yi-ology

As a renewed sinologist,philosopher,and specialist in Yi-ology,Hellmut Wilhelm was an active scholar in the West World for the past century.Taking a third-person perspective,he promoted insightful interpretations on the Book of Changes(hereafter the Yijing,unveiled its logical relationship,and finally created his own doctrine.There are four developmental stages of the Yijing's traveling from East to West."Figurist" focused on theological tradition of Jesuits and their relations with ancient wisdom,namely,the Yijing.They sorted out concepts in the Yijing to match the Bible.During transition period,some scholars tried standing on the side of Chinese culture and thoughts,which shed lights on perspectives' changes from Jesuits to Sinologists.As a result,there were two camps in interpreting the nature of the Yijing,some followed historical reading while others stood by philosophical point.Such a controversial condition had changed since late nineteen century.Scholars tried to get rid of the traditional dualistic thinking and traced back to the original text.In this period,they valued Oracle and Wisdom equally.When it entered another period,how to apply ancient wisdom to solve modern issues became increasing important.To summarize,as pioneer of the third period,Hellmut Wilhelm had three main contributions,i.e.,changing dualistic position of East and West,enriching insightful meanings of divination,and modernizing the Yijing as well.His profound and irreplaceable position in the West might be influenced by two traditions.On the one hand,after disputations between James Legge and Richard Wilhelm in pros and cons of East and West,scholars tried to find some universal laws though.On the other hand,appeals of putting theory into practice in late Ming and early Qing dynasty influenced Hellmut at the same time.For instance,they explored how to charge human's fate and humankind's position in the universe.Being effected by both traditions,he thought the nature of the Yijing was not only Oracle but also Wisdom.In order to support his argument,he firstly illustrated the methodological changes of Oracle from Shang's sacrificing animal life ?? to Zhou's usage of vegetable??.This change implied the nature of the Yijing was to record the rules of cosmos.Therefore,creator of the Yijing put universal principles inside.By those general rules,this book could transcend the limitation of time and place.It could also lead people to the only correct answer.On this level,Oracle was a method to gain knowledge of universal laws and observation of human's positions in the cosmos.Then,based on three traditional interpretations of the term of Yi?,namely,simple,changeable,and unchangeable,Hellmut summed up one paradoxical proposition-"Change:that is the unchangeable." he explained this philosophical doctrine in claiming that the only one unchangeable rule in the universe was change,if so,change was human's fate.However,how to master such a change was a problem.Hellmut took human's consciousness and their wisdom into consideration.According to his explanation,Chinese sages discovered and unveiled such an amazing doctrine.The reason that they could create such a brilliant book was they could detach themselves,observe this principle engraved in their heart,and further apply them in the process of creating the Yijing.Therefore,this book reflected human's wisdom.Self-cultivation would help people gaining knowledge of the cosmos."Heavenly city" was the starting point of Hellmut's study of the cosmology in the Yijing,based on which he proposed the idea of archetype.Due to Mandala's weakness of "circling time," Hellmut discovered "space can express time" and applied this idea to his interpretation of the sequence of the hexagrams.Inspired by Leibniz's binary system,Hellmut transferred the Former Heaven sequence of the hexagrams to the numeral order,i.e.,from 000000 to 111111,whereby he based himself on Chinese onto-cosmology,took advantage of numbers as a medium,realized the expression of the "abstract time" by the sixty-four hexagrams,and established a "complete archetypal system." However,there still a few of points open to discussion.Given that his theory was based on Shao Yong's scholarship on the Changes,original meaning of the text of the Yijing was not retraced thoroughly;as he ignored the sequence of 0 and 1,the origin of the cosmos could not be clearly seen;several materials were cited without argumentation,which led to the crisis to his interpretative system.Inspired by the differences between East and West on the process of creation,Hellmut found that when the "complete archetypal system" was forming on the metaphysical level,its image was also being formed.He then took Qian ? as an example,through analyzing the philological meaning,historical interpreting,and relationship between Qian and Kun ?,he found that Tian? could insight the origin archetype,and Di? would display what Tian showed.Therefore,Di was a metaphor for the reality.Then,he criticized Wang Fuzhi ??? and Leibniz's theories.Then,he pointed out Heaven,Earth,and Human were elements in the "Creative Unity," which was also the biggest "Trinity." If human wanted to explore such a Trinity,he or she needed to grasp the insightful meaning of Heaven.It meant how to change such a Heavenly cosmos to humans'.It was in this progress that human's conscious was formed;furthermore,they could apply their conscious to sort out abstract theories,for example,metaphysics.In Hellmut's opinion,human's conscious by sequence gained their bases of ontology.If people's existence was only for disclosing the principle of the universe,men had have been in the inferior position.By discoursing "wondering poem" and "contemplating view," Hellmut thought people could transform and further transcend cosmic restriction.Because human could detach from themselves,use "contemplating view" to observe themselves,and further achieve liberty.Compared with western approaching to the origin of universe,the Yijing gave another possibility.With "mind-to-mind," anyone could communicate with origins directly therefore mastered their fate.However,"Trinity" should be engraved into the system of Heaven,Earth,and Human in the Yijing.In Hellmut's mind,Dao ? was the essence of of the latter.He summarized various usages of Dao,and disclosed that human being was the central in the three.He could not only abstract such a principle of cosmos but also apply it to the reality again.In the beginning,Human unified Heaven and Earth by his or her creativity virtue.Then,he explained the importance timing.Finally,human's knowledge and their actions should be unity,which were finished within one's mind.On the one hand,he emphasized human's unique value in the cosmos,namely,using creative thinking to disclose cosmic principles.On the other hand,human's creation was not unlimited,and they needed to act with timing.With "complete archetypal system," Hellmut reinterpreted the classical text.The Yijing,representative of ancient wisdom,was used to solve modrn problems,such as fate.With this explanation,Hellmut absorbed the essences from both West and East.It was not a simple copy but a careful selection,therefore,his methods showed a harmonious orientation.Even though he contributed a lot in interpreting the Yijing in the past,there are some drawbacks that cannot be neglected if we should give him some comments from contemporary perspective.There is a contradiction between the completeness and diversity.Also,lacking philological analyzing and over-interpreting are another two problems in his theory.What his interpretation's influence,although has some problematic points,could be viewed as an enlightenment.It sheds lights on gender studies nowadays.How to use Chinese harmonious theory about Yin ? and Yang? to establish Chinese gender equality is a response to Hellmut nowadays.This dissertation tries to apply Hellmut's method to practice and further to solve real problems.To sum up,Hellmut's interpretation is trying to get rid of the distinction between ontology and cosmos,across the sinology,psychology,Buddhism,and even the theology,transcend the traditional divergence of image and philosophical,and further get rid of the restrictions from philology and figurist.He takes the stance of Chinese mode of thinking,combing the archetype and reality,ontology and cosmology,if any words can describe his works;onto-cosmology promoted by Mou Zongsan is a suitable one.Therefore,by displaying Hellmut's interpretation's logic on the Yijing,there are several topics can be further explored,including but not limited,how to internationalize,modernize,and socialize the Yijing in modern society.