Abstract
Classic of Changes is a Chinese cultural classic born more than 3000 years ago. Its profound philosophical thoughts and the use of divination have brought Classic of Changes to a strong oriental mysticism. The view of the heaven and man of yin and yang and the five elements states of Classic of Changes are completely different from the Western elemental theory of ancient Greece. The latter gave birth to classical and modern scientific theories, and the yin and yang and the eight trigrams symbol has become synonymous with oriental mysticism. In fact, the cosmology of the Holism of Classic of Changes is a precious scientific heritage of mankind. The axiomatization of the symbolic formal system of Classic of Changes aims to unveil the veil of oriental mysticism and provide oriental wisdom for the development of modern science. Transforming the symbolic system of Classic of Changes into a formal axiom system is the crystallization of the fusion of wisdom between the East and the West. The axiomatization of the symbolic formal system of Classic of Changes shows that the oriental and the western scientific tradition harmony but not sameness and there is no conflict. Classic of Changes can also be interpreted by the axiomatic system like Euclid’s Elements. The main contribution of this paper is that the author skillfully uses mathematical language to formulate the system of Classic of Changes, reconstructs the ideological system of Classic of Changes with the axiomatic method and realizes the scientificalization of Chinese classical natural philosophy. The formal axiom system of Classic of Changes may give us such a revelation: the gap between the oriental and western scientific traditions is mainly in the axiomatization, but the lack of oriental scientific tradition may be the bottleneck of the development of modern science.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler, J. A. (2002). Introduction to the study of the classic of change (I-hsüeh ch’i-meng). Provo: Global Scholarly.
Kline, M. (1972). Mathematical thought from ancient to modern times. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nelson, E. S. (2011). The Yijing and Philosophy: From Leibniz to Derrida. Journal of Chinese Philosophy,38(3), 377–396.
Newton, I. (1729). The mathematical principles of natural philosophy, trans. A. Motte, London.
Nielsen, B. (2003). A Companion to Yi Jing numerology and cosmology: Chinese studies of images and numbers from Han (202 BCE–220 CE) to Song (960–1279 CE). London: RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 0-7007-1608-4.
Peterson, W. J. (1982). Making Connections: ‘Commentary on the Attached Verbalizations’ of the Book of Change. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.,42, 67–116.
Qian, M. (2011). History of Chinese thought. Beijing: Kyushu Publishing House.
Raphals, L. (2013). Divination and prediction in early China and ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 1-107-01075-6.
Russell, B. (1972). A history of western philosophy. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc.
Shaughnessy, E. (1983). The composition of the Zhouyi. Ph.D. thesis. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Shchutskii, J. (1979). Researches on the I Ching. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09939-1.
Smith, R. J. (2008). Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: the Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and its Evolution in China. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-2705-6.
Song, Z. Y. (2000). Zhou Yi. Changsha: Yuelu Book Society.
Wang, X. J. (1997). Modern interpretation of classic of changes system. Social Science, 9.
Wang, X. J. (2018a). Cosmic continuum theory: A new idea on Hilbert’s sixth problem. Journal of Modern Physics,9, 1250–1270. https://doi.org/10.4236/jmp.2018.96074.
Wang, X. J. (2018b). New discovery on planck units and physical dimension in cosmic continuum theory. Journal of Modern Physics,9, 2391–2401. https://doi.org/10.4236/jmp.2018.914153.
Wang, X. J., & Wu, J. X. (1992). Unification. Shenzhen: Haitian Publishing House.
Wang, X. J., & Wu, J. X. (1994). Unification—deciphering the mysteries of the universe. Xinhua Digest, 1.
Wang, X. J., & Wu, J. X. (2001). To solve the mystery of scientific unity. Changsha: Hunan Science and Technology Press.
Zhang, S. H. (2008). Laozi. Changsha: YueluBook Society.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, X. Axiomatization of the Symbols System of Classic of Changes: The Marriage of Oriental Mysticism and Western Scientific Tradition. Found Sci 25, 315–325 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-019-09624-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-019-09624-5