CHAPTER V

ON THE ORIGIN OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE FORMS OF THINKING

FU JIZHONG AND ZHOU SHAN

            Chinese culture has so long a history that its origins are shrouded in mystery. At present there are many extremely divergent views regarding the appropriate approach to the study of the origins of traditional Chinese form of thinking and their characteristics, none of which views prevails over the others. It is, as Lao Tzu described ancient Chinese philosophy of 2000 years ago, "in a state of drifting from place to place."

            Here I would suggest that while Westerners attach great im-portance to deduction, the Chinese give priority to analogy. This is not what Westerners call scientific analogy, but has dialectics as a central factor so that it is characterized by creative thinking. There-fore, it might be said that the traditional Chinese form of thinking has dialectics as its core and analogy as its cover. Combining this with the Western tradition could create a new theory about the form of thinking which would answer to the needs of development in our times.

THE HIEROGLYPH: THE BEGINNING OF

            THE TRADITIONAL FORM OF THINKING

            The choice of forms of thinking by the ancient Chinese took place at the same time as that of the creation of characters. Indeed, the creative process of the hieroglyph, called symbolically the father of birds and beasts by later generations, is itself the process of searching for and selecting the form of thinking.

From Painting to Hieroglyph

            It is said that these earliest Chinese characters took the form of paintings. Each painting, representing a character, is not a patch-work pieced together from sketches, but an indivisible body. For the character "µ¶" (knife) the earliest painting looks like " ", for the character "Ö¹" (end) " ". In the course of engraving this sort of hieroglyph on the surface of bamboo boards or tortoise shells, people gradually found it rather inconvenient. To solve this problem, another kind of hieroglyph made up of lines arose. Take the same examples, the character "µ¶" was engraved as " ", and the character "Ö¹" as " ". During long practice, the former was gradually transformed into the shape of " " which is very much like the present character "µ¶"; the latter, into the shape of "»ð" which is also close to the present form. The hieroglyphs of that age were already extremely similar to current characters. At the time of Xia (ÏÄ) dynasty, about 4000 years ago, the Chinese characters were reaching maturity.

            The first stage of character creation had undergone a very long period of some 20,000 years; starting from integral paintings it ended with hieroglyphs consisting of clear lines. This is also the first step taken by our ancestors in search of the form of thinking; it determined the formation of thought patterns for the following several thousand years. From that time the Chinese form of thinking gradually took the shape of the object referred to, and facts were described by names.

From Hieroglyph to Ideogram

            The second step, the transition from hieroglyph to ideogram, was taken as soon as the elementary form of thinking had been selected.

            Generally speaking, a hieroglyph consists of a single cha-racter. For example, the hieroglyph "Éí" (body), indicates human sense organs like eye, ear, nose, etc., and limbs like legs and arms. "¹¹" (object) refers to sky and earth, mountains and rivers, birds and beasts, insects and fishes, etc. "¹¤" (manmade objects) represents utensils and clothes. But with the development of human knowledge, the hieroglyph became increasingly inadequate for the requirements of thinking. Therefore, from the elements of the hieroglyph there arose an entirely new type of character which is composed of a syn-thesis of two or more kinds of hieroglyph. This is what we now call an ideogram.

            In essence, an ideogram is composed of a hieroglyph and in this sense, without the hieroglyph there would have been no ideo-gram. The difference between a hieroglyph and an ideogram con-sists in the fact that while the hieroglyph is always involved in a name which usually indicates a single object and contains no other meanings than that of the object referred to, an ideogram is a kind of character which expresses a certain relation between objects. Certain dramatic changes take place when some hieroglyphs are bound together to produce a new type of character. In other words, what is displayed by the transition from hieroglyph to ideogram is a certain relation between objects or some kind of phenomenon. For instance, the ideogram "è±" (jade) is made up of several the hie-roglyphs: "ɽ" (mountain), "è±" (jade), "ÈË" (human being), "ľ" (wood), and "¿ð" (basket). It forms the following symbol " " with the symbolic meaning: on the mountainside there is a person who holds up a wooden stick to strike away and then puts it in the basket. Another example is the character "Öý" (forge) which is composed of the hieroglyphs "ÊÖ" (hand), "ت" (pot) "¯" (stove), and "»ð" (fire) and appears as the form of " " symbolizing that a pot held by two hands was being heated on the fire.

            Hieroglyphs as components of ideograms very often are given meanings which as single characters they do not possess. For ins-tance, the character "Îä" (military) is composed of two hieroglyphs, "Ö¹" (end) which look like a foot and "ß®" (dagger, axe), whereas as a component of "Îä" "ß®" has the sense of walking. In this way the character "Îä" signifies a person walking with a dagger axe on his shoulder, from which derives the meaning imposing or powerful. If it be supposed that a hieroglyph comes from imitation of the shape of the object, it can be inferred that ideograms whose meaning can be understood by the composite structure of independent hiero-glyphs reflect the beginning of generalization and abstraction from concrete things and specific circumstances. If the analogy is made properly the object referred to will be seen clearly.

            As the transition from specificity to generality is a big leap by human beings in the course of understanding the world, the develop-ment from hieroglyph to ideogram is a major breakthrough as regards the form of thinking of our ancestors. By the analogical method it enabled traditional thinking to grow more and more solid.

Ideography and Analogy

            Ideograms may generate all sorts of images according to the structure of the characters, as well as the broad association which often prompts one ideogram to acquire several new meaning asso-ciations through analogy. As noted above, this differs from scientific analogy in the Western mind which focuses on consistency for the reasoned connection between different objects. Furthermore, this does not necessarily reflect a general law but only one aspect of objects, that is to say, the resemblance between some objects on one point. Hieroglyphs play an active role as media for such associations. The character "ĺ" (dusk) is an example. Its archaic form looks like a sun hanging over an expanse of thick forest, which is likely to remind one of a sunset as the sun approaches the West and is likely to lead people to think of reaching old age. Thus, the character "ĺ" has acquired two different meanings: the original meaning refers to early evening when the sun is just setting. Thus, it can be connected with other characters to form such phrases as "ÈÕĺ" (the waning of a day), "ĺɫ" (twilight). The analogical meaning indicates being close to the end of one’s time, and can be linked to other characters to produce such phrases as "ĺÄê" (old age), "ĺ´º" (late spring), "ĺÆø" (lethargy), etc. Though "ĺ" has two distinct meanings they are connected in a certain point through the objects to which they refer.

            It is because ideograms may cause associations which make it possible for people to use analogical inference that ancient Chinese philosophers paid great attention to analogical forms of thinking. The ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius, regarded as important the task of cultivating the mental power of association and it is no wonder that one of his students, Yan Hui, who could know other things from those he had learned became his favorite disciple.

            Anyone who thinks with hieroglyphs and ideograms invariably will adopt an analogical form of thinking. This is the basic reason why from the very beginning the Chinese took analogy as their basic form of thinking.

ZHOU YI: THE BIRTH OF THE DIALECTICAL FORM

            OF THINKING

            Anyone who holds the view that the Chinese analogical form of thinking is derived from the hieroglyph and ideogram will surely agree that the Chinese dialectical form of thinking originated from Zhou Yi, the first symbolic deductive system in Chinese history. The appearance of Zhou Yi marks the birth of the Chinese dialectical form of thinking, and its prominent position in the whole of traditional Chinese culture helped this form of thinking to become a tradition.

The Ideogram and the Double Divination Symbols

            It is agreed universally that Zhou Yi was produced during the Yin period or the Zhou dynasty. But no evidence discovered thus far enables one to fix the time or the person who began the 64 double and the eight singular divination symbols made up of three primitive sym-bols in the symbolic system. It is a still more puzzling mystery as to how these singular divination symbols and double divination symbols were invented. Consequently, it seems useless for some people to seek evidence of their creation from ancient divinatory activity.

            The eight singular divination symbols are composed of three primitive symbols and every singular divination symbol imitates a category of things. Some of the symbols bear a resemblance to the object referred to by the hieroglyph. For instance, as the divination symbol kan (¿²) refers to water, which symbol is similar to hieroglyph (water), it is quite natural for some to argue that this divination symbol comes form hieroglyph . As another example, divination symbol qian (Ǭ) takes the form of which designates heaven and has much resemblance to the hieroglyph "Ìì" (heaven). This led some scholars to assume that it stemmed from the con-troversy as to whether the divination symbol is the source of the hieroglyph or vice versa which has lasted a very long time without definite conclusion. From the epistemological point of view, they seem to be the product of the same historical period and conse-quently the problem of what follows and what precedes does not exist. The hieroglyph imitates some concrete objects, and in the same way the singular divination symbol came by abstraction from some divination symbol/primitive symbol categories of objects, e.g., a singular divination symbol stands for heaven and earth, thunder and wind, water and fire, mountain and river and has the purpose of summarizing natural phenomena. In reflecting family relations, they stand for father and mother, elder son and daughter, second son and daughter, youngest son and daughter. Likewise in order to represent the parts of the human body, they stand for head, abdomen, foot, buttocks, eye, ear, hand and mouth. This system classifies every-thing in the world only by means of eight singular divination symbols. Obviously, this method of classification with the category as its basis is more systematic and abstract than that a hieroglyph. The difficulty in deciding the origin of divination symbols is that after 10,000 years of history they probably are too remote from the present age.

            At the time when our ancestors started to invent ideograms of complex shapes and various meanings by combining hieroglyphs indicating singular objects, they also began to join singular divination symbol in order to continue the process of summarizing the law of nature. Just as the creation of an ideogram indicates the end of the process of recognizing objects in isolation and the development of the art of discerning the relation between them, so the appearance of the double divination symbols signifies mankind’s grasp of the law of origination and development within objects. The ordinal arrange-ment of the six four double divination symbols of Zhou Yi indicates the beginning of the mature stage of comprehension of the regularity of the objective world and the elementary establishment of a basic form of thinking. The double divination symbols and the hieroglyph originated from the same source and at the same time: the Xia dy-nasty. As for Yi, an innovation of Zhou Yi by Zhou emperor Wen, the question of whether it was only a rearrangement of the 64 double divination symbols in an ordinal sequence or whether, apart from that, some other changes, like adding statements to its symbols, were made remains to be settled through further archeological research.

From Analogy to Dialectics

            The form of thinking adopted by Zhou Yi clearly shows two major characteristics of the traditional form of thinking: analogy and dialectics.

            Analogy is one of the most outstanding features of Zhou Yi. A double divination symbols can be divided into two singular divina-tion symbols, the upper and the lower, each singular divination sym-bol consisting of three primitive symbols An analogy is constituted by the relationship between the things that the two singular divination symbols imitate. For instance, the divination symbol yian (salty) is              the lower singular divination symbol is called can (¿²) which looks like a mountain, but also like a boy; the upper singular divination symbol is called dui (¶Ò) which imitates both rivers and girls. By analyzing the double divination symbol it seems quite natural for us to reach the conclusion that a boy courts a girl. One cannot make a mistake if one conducts one’s life in accordance with this law: it is a good fortune if the boy marries the girl. The double divination symbols is named xian (saltiness, ÏÌ) and the character xian (ÏÌ) can be obtained by taking away character xin (heart, ÐÄ) from character gan (feel, ¸Ð). This fact can be easily explained as: the boy expresses his love for the girl with all his heart and sincere affection. But as from another viewpoint the lower singular divination symbol represents a mountain and the upper singular divination symbol a river, we can arrive at an entirely different analogical inference: trees and grass are flourishing on the mountain because there is no lack of water: the mountain and the water show their verdant beauty, rather than being barren and bleak.

            Each of the 64 double divination symbols is assigned a certain law of origination and developments about one category of objects. The statement following each divination symbol is a sort of illus-tration made by ancestors to clarify the implication of symbols so that analogical inference can be performed and puzzling mysteries solved. Thenceforth, the Chinese form of thinking with analogy as its feature tended to be accepted by more and more people.

            Apart from analogy, the divination symbols and statements of Zhou Yi were endowed also with the quality of dialectics of eight singular divination symbols. Except divination symbol qian (heaven) and divination symbol kun (earth), the rest of the six are formed by both positive and negative primitive symbols to set up a pattern embracing both negative and positive elements. Of these six singular divination symbols, the one with more negative primitive symbols is called negative divination symbol and the others are called positive. The dialectical thinking in these symbols is buried deeply in primitive symbols, and made manifest through the different positions occupied by primitive symbols as well as by their different relationships. The dialectical form of thinking is unveiled in the statements attached to them. In performing this sort of analogy, the ancient people actually were employing dialectical methods to ascertain the law of origina-tion and development; thus they turned analogy into a sort of in-ference for comprehending or grasping the essence of objects.

The Dialectical Form of Thinking in Zhou Yi

            From its divination symbols and the statements of Zhou Yi, we can see that as early as 2000 years ago, the ancient Chinese were aware of the dialectical form of thinking.

            Firstly, there was the recognition of the law of the unity of opposites. The ancients employed positive and negative elements in the primitive symbols in Zhou Yi’s deductive system to build up 64 double divination symbols. Except for divination symbol heaven and divination symbol earth, which are made up of positive or negative primitive symbols, this pattern shows that the genesis of any object is a result of a struggle between positive and negative elements. Everything contains the two opposite aspects of a contradiction. These not only oppose each other because of their negative and posi-tive quality, but also coexist within the same object on account of their opposition.

            Apart from that, Zhou Yi makes a full demonstration of all sorts of relations of opposite aspects inherent in an entity. He points out profoundly that every such relation not only is restricted by the entity but conversely effects the nature of the entity. For instance, on the one hand, every negative or positive primitive symbol is re-lated to the adjacent primitive symbol and produces a different effect if the neighboring primitive symbol is different. On the other hand, the two correspondent primitive symbols being opposite in nature stand for good luck: otherwise, it usually means ill luck. Both the proportion of positive primitive symbol to negative primitive symbol and the position of a primitive symbol in a divination symbol have profound effect upon its nature. For instance, the first three primitive symbols of divination symbol tai (Ì©) are positive; the remaining three are negative. This suggests that negative and positive qualities are not well-fitted in an object and therefore it is unlikely to grow soundly. Although the opposed relation of the contradictory aspects of a thing is described in a somewhat primitive manner, thus far no other book has ever given the movement of contradiction in a thing so systematic and full a description as Zhou Yi.

            Secondly, we will discuss the theory that good luck and ill luck are mutually dependent and that weal and woe are inseparable. In Zhou Yi there is neither absolute good divination symbol nor absolute bad divination symbol. For example, all the statements of divination symbols, gua (ØÔ), kun (À¤), tun (ÍÍ), ling (Áã) and tai (Ì©), belong to the lucky type, while those of divination symbols song (ËÏ), pi (·ñ) bo (°þ) kai (¿ª) and gu mei (¹éÃÃ) are attributed to the unlucky type. But the lucky divination symbol contains unlucky factors, and the unlucky divination symbol contains lucky ones.

            Lastly, there is the theory that anything developed to its extremity invariably will turn into its opposite. In fact the character yi (Ò×) means change and hence Zhou Yi is about the universal law of change. The outcome of the struggle of contradictions within objects is necessarily a conversion to the opposites. But change is a gradual process from quantitative change to qualitive change, from the negative extremity to the positive, and from the extreme positive to the negative. This is not only the end point of a former process, but also the starting point of a subsequent one.

            Throughout Zhou Yi one can see the role played by this law of change. For instance, divination symbol qian (Ǭ) discloses the development of a healthy power from weak to strong by way of the description of a dragon from plunging into the abyss to flying in the sky. At the same time it reveals the law of change by an analysis of the fact that a virtuous man who for a long time has served in a high office often finds it difficult to stay on. Another instance is divination symbol pi (·ñ), which symbol is made up of the singular divination symbol kun (earth) at the lower position and qian (heaven) at the upper position, meaning that heaven stays high and earth exists below. This explanation is consistent with natural phenomenon, but this consistency makes it an unlucky symbol, because the negative primitive symbol signifying a sinister tendency is in its growing stage, while the positive basic unit indicating righteousness has attained its climax and therefore is gradually weakened by the negative primitive symbol. On the other hand, primitive symbol upper-nine shows the law of extremity turning into its opposite. In traditional Chinese culture there is a saying that a peaceful situation follows upon one that was turbulent, which is a summary of this law.

            (The last instance is divination symbol ji qi, the sole symbol of the sixty four double divination symbols in which all the primitive symbols are well-fitted and whose double form seems immaculate. Hence, it is given the name "ji qi", which means that its merits and virtues are perfect. But it is just the perfection that makes it turn to the opposite. Therefore primitive symbol upper-six expresses the disaster of being drowned at the time of crossing the river.)

            From the above examples we can see that the dialectic was refined in the course of the study of Zhou Yi, and thus evolved into a tradition.

THE EFFECT OF DIALECTICS ON

            TRADITIONAL PHILOSOPHY

            It would not be going too far to say that the Chinese traditional form of thinking, which take analogy as form and dialectics as kernel, had already taken shape by the time of the appearance of Zhou Yi. The dialectical form of thinking has governed the direction of the development of the entire traditional Chinese culture. The philoso-phical thinking of ancient Chinese scholars is largely inspired by the study of Zhou Yi. Their way of analogical thinking and their ca-pability in dialectical thinking for the most part were formed and improved under the impact of the annotation of Zhou Yi and by the discussions between the different opinions in its regard.

            Confucius was one of earliest scholars to study Zhou Yi. He worked exceedingly hard on it, for he felt that the study of Zhou Yi could so guide people as to avoid serious errors. Dealing with forms of thinking, he very much approved of the analogical method de-monstrated in Zhou Yi and consequently required his disciples to be equipped with the inferential ability to know three things from the one thing learned. He once warned his disciples in a class: "If some one cannot gain insight into three other related things from the one thing, I will teach him no more." Under his rigid training, the most excellent disciple could infer ten things from one thing by the analogical method.

            Lao Tzu, the founder of Tao School (though there is no histo-rical record of his having studied Zhou Yi), is the author of Nature and Intelligence (Tao Teh King), the first masterpiece in Chinese history which shows clearly the influence of the dialectical form of thinking of Zhou Yi. Lao Tzu described thus the sequence of the ori-gin of species in Nature and Intelligence, based on the principle of the formation of divination symbols in Zhou Yi: "Nature first begets one thing, then one thing begets another, the two produce a third. In this way, all things are begotten." According to the painting of divina-tion symbols in which the positive and negative primitive symbols are combined, he also interpreted the law of the unity of opposites in the following manner: all things are pervaded by two alternating tenden-cies, that toward completion and that toward initiation; acting toge-ther, they complement each other. For the painting of divination sym-bols Lao Tzu used concrete things to bring out the subtle and implicit significance.

            Indeed, all distinctions naturally appear as opposites, which get their meaning from each other and find their completion only through each other. The meaning of "is" and "is not" arises from our distin-guishing between them. Likewise, "difficult and easy", "long and short", "high and low", "loud and soft", "before and after" -- all derive their meaning from each other. By divination symbols and statements added to them, Zhou Yi embodies the dialectical thought that good luck is closely related to ill luck, and weal is inseparable from woe. To express his approval of this thought, Lao Tzu said: "Happiness depends upon little, and misery depends upon much."

            The dialectical theory of the conversion of the opposites in a contradiction is reflected in Zhou Yi by divination symbols and the statements. Lao Tzu applies this theory to many fields such as so-ciology, politics, ethics, and states: "Submit to Nature it you would reach your goal. For, whoever deviates from Nature’s way, Nature forces back again; whoever gives up his desire to improve upon Nature will find Nature satisfying all his needs; whoever find his desires extinguished will find more desires arising of their own accord; and whoever desires little is easily satisfied; whoever desires much suffers frustration."

            He believed also that dialectics is the sole criterion for the observation of the world. Therefore, the intelligent person is at one with Nature and so serves as a model for others. He took up this criterion to sum up what happens in the world: The tougher fighters are more likely to be killed, and the harder trees are more likely to be cut down; therefore it is better to be soft and weak than to be hard and tough. On the basis of this principle, he suggested a series of scientific ways of dealing with various problems: the purpose of contracting (returning to Nature) is served by the expanding (emerging out of Nature in the first place); the purpose of weakening (subsiding or satisfying desire) is served by strengthening (arousing the will to live); the purpose of decline (of individual self-assertion) is served by arising (of individuality); and the purpose of taking away (culminating or perfecting life) is served by being given (it is the last of life for which the first was made). Simply speaking, Lao Tzu was inspired by Zhou Yi to set up a comparatively mature method or logical system of dialectical thinking and therefore became one of most outstanding philosophers in ancient China.

            On the other hand, the dialectics of Lao Tzu is not perfect, but has some mistakes. For instance, he drew some arbitrary, absolute conclusions from the rule of the conversion of extremes. He says: He who is genuine is not artificial; who is artificial is not genuine. He who is intelligent is not quarrelsome; he who is quarrelsome is not intelligent. According to this theory, he further suggested such political propositions as evading secular events and establishing small countries with small populations.

            During the time of the warring states, against the background of the contention of a hundred school of thought, the form of thinking of Zhou Yi was first widely adopted. Analogy not only became the basic way of inference for dialecticians to express their academic views and political position, it also was summed up by Hui Shi, the leader of Ming School, and Han Fi, the leader of Fa School in theory and defined as the way of enabling one to know by likening what he does not know to what he has known. The dialectical form of thinking was chosen by dialecticians as the best approach to express their thoughts. Some famous dialectical propositions like "the heaven and the earth are on the same height and the mountain and the river are on the same level" indicate their basic outlook regarding the outside world.

            In the early Qin dynasty, not only philosophers whose principal concern lay in abstract theories were much affected by Zhou Yi, but also pragmatic strategists and medical doctors were influenced, giving rise to the systematic military theory and medical theory re-presented by "The Tactics of Sen Tzu".