If oracle bones represented the earliest form of writing in Chinese civilization, the first book or ideological system was the I Ching -易经, (also Zhou Yi - 周易), usually translated as the Book of Changes, a system devoted to foresee the future.
The I Ching is sometimes considered as the Fifth Confucian Classic, as it was compiled by Confucius. He indeed edited most of the written production before him. The I Ching has not only influenced Confucian and especially Neo-Confucian thinking but is also deeply rooted in the Daoist and the Yin-Yang theories.
The book, as it is received, consists of two parts, the classic and a series of comments. The classic (the actual I Ching) was originally a divination book with a divination method by which 64 signs or symbols (gua 卦) are generated and interpreted.
In my opinion, while the West has relied on mathematics to calculate, and as a result of it science has been developed, Chinese focused in foreseeing basically other people intentions, which, if actually unpredictable, Chinese considered convenient to analyze a number of possibilities or hypothesis in advance to identify easier and faster the one which actually turns up.
The mathematical point of view in the West is also expressed in the Logic, as the formal ways of our thinking.
ResponderEliminarThe most popular among these logical forms is Identity (Tautology), expressed when God says to Moses, “I am who I am”.
This one is also the basis of all philosophical Western views on God existence as also the basis for the Koran too.