Yih-hsien Yu [1]

 (Department of Philosophy, Tunghai University, Taizhong, Taiwan, China)

 

Comparative Philosophy and Cross-cultural Dialogue

 

In the intellectual histories of China and the West, the philosophical speculations of universal principles governing man and nature and their relationship and the rational concerns with ultimate reality has characterized the common features of the greatest achievements of civilized mind, East and West alike. Just as Lu Hsiangshan 陆象山(1139–1193) of the Southern Song Dynasty once remarked, “If a sage appears in the East Sea, his mind will coin the same principle as the sage appears in the West Sea.” This statement presupposes some universal elements on a high level of human thought, which are beyond the limitations of space, time and cultural setting from which individual thinkers arose. The present paper will echo this philosophical universalism by introducing the concept of “creativity” in the Book of Changes or I Ching 易经and in Western process thought, especially in Whitehead, so as to explore their philosophical relevance.

The reasons for this project are as follows. First, though the major theme of the Book of Changes is “creativity” which indicates the book to be a philosophical work of high value, it had long been seriously distorted as merely a book of divination and unavoidably entangled with various kinds of superstitions or pseudo-sciences, such as the doctrine of “Yin-Yang and Five Agents”（阴阳五行说）. [2] Therefore, if one be interested in investigating the philosophical aspect of the book, he\she might very well seek help from some spiritual allies of the I Ching, most promising from contemporary Western process philosophers who have provided subtle analysis and complicated modern theory with regard to the concept of creativity. Second, among the contemporary process philosophers, most notably Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), William James (1842–1910), Henri Bergson (1859–1941), Samuel Alexander (1859–1938), and Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), only Whitehead has shown his sympathetic understanding of and theoretical inclination to Chinese thought. Third, it will be interesting and helpful for Chinese scholars to find how a contemporary Western philosophy to assume so much alike to the philosophy of the I Ching, one of the Six Classics of antiquity. On the other hand, the Western process philosophers may be benefited from understanding how the view of a creative universe and its organic relation with humankind can be developed from comprehensive synthesis of human experience, untrammeled either by theistic or by materialistic frame of thought. And we shall see, the major difference between I Ching and Whitehead consists in that the metaphysics of creativity in the I Ching is primarily founded on “fundamental humanism”（人本主义）and idealistic contextualism, whereas Whitehead's metaphysics has been deeply imbibed with the Western traditions of atomism and Christian theology. Thus, in the I Ching there is only a creative universe in which human beings are among the most important, though not dominant, members; nonetheless, the “actual entities” and “God” which are paramount in Whitehead play no roles in it.

To start this cross-cultural dialogue between the Eastern and Western process thought, we will discuss, first of all, how Whitehead has anything to do with the I Ching. We then turn to the concept of “creativity” in the I Ching, in the Western philosophical traditions, in modern process thought, and in Whitehead. Ostensibly, the scope here we are dealing with is too wide for the present paper. Yet so long as the significance of the metaphysics of creativity in the East and West is brought to light, the purpose of the paper is fulfilled.

 

Whitehead and Oriental Thought

 

It will not be a surprise for scholars to find that Whitehead's philosophy has been constantly associated with Oriental thought, specifically with Mahayana Buddhism. [3] Not only because Whitehead himself has made some insightful remarks on the general features of Buddhism in comparison with Christianity in his Religion in the Making, but also because many a scholar has found the organic mode of thought is essential to both Whitehead's philosophy and Buddhism. Nonetheless, few people have taken Whitehead's words in Process and Reality seriously, as he writes, “In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed ‘Creativity'… In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.” [4] Though to see the world as in an ever flowing process is a shared view for Whitehead and the Buddhists, Whitehead lays greater emphasis on the positive aspect of this process and described it as “creativity.” On the other hand, the Buddhists take a more or less negative attitude toward this transient world and contrive to surpass it through “nirvana” and, therefore, lack of the concept of “creativity.” Taking the above-quoted passage seriously, one might find Buddhism has been incongruously conjoined with Whitehead's philosophy in many ways. To take one example, according to the Buddhist doctrine of dependent-origination, everything is doomed to reduce to the state of sunyata空 or emptiness and is without its own nature. This is at odd with Whitehead's philosophy which suggests every actual entity is real (not empty) and can be characterized by certain permanent patterns, namely, eternal objects.

But there is, however, another Oriental philosophy which Whitehead might not be aware of, namely, the philosophy of the Book of Changes which takes “creativity” as its central theme and can fit much better into the context of the above-quoted passage than that of Buddhism. This has been clearly observed by two Chinese philosophers, Thome Fang方东美(1899–1977) and Shih-chuan Chen程石泉(1909 – 2005), in their comparative studies of Chinese and Western philosophies started as early as in 1930's in Mainland China. In their view, the I Ching is the metaphysical fountain for both Confucianism and Taoism, as it is documented in the Hsit'zu Ch'uan系辞传(The Conspectus), “What is metaphysical, supersensible, is Principle or Tao, whereas what is concrete, sensible, is Material\Artifact or Ch'i.”（形而上者谓之道，形而下者谓之器）Here, then, the concept of Tao, a notion very close to the Greek work logos, initiated the philosophical movements of almost all Chinese scholars ever since the pre-Ch'in period (ca.722-221 B.C.). In addition, according to the I Ching, as Fang and Chen construed, the universe is an animating field constructed by time (Ch'ien or Heaven)乾 and space (K'un or Earth)坤 wherein all creatures generate, flourish, and perish incessantly and human beings who joined with heaven and earth in this creative process are the most significant members of the universe, the sustainers of value.

It should be noted that there has long been some serious difficulty involved in our understanding of the true meaning of “I”, the very soul of the I Ching. One of the earliest interpretations was Iwei Ch'ientsaotu易纬乾凿度(“An Interpretive Companion to the I Ching: Understanding Ch'ien”) of the late Western Han (47 – 8 B.C.) in which the term “I” was given three meanings, i.e. “I”, “Pien I” and “Pu I.”（易， 变易，不易）The reading of this interpretation met two serious problems. First, the meaning “I” has long been construed as a synonym of “simple” and “easy” and is thereby illogical and inconsistent with the whole text of the I Ching which has told a most complicated and sophisticated story of the universe. Second, the second meaning “Pien I” or “changing” and third meaning “Pu I” or “unchanging” are semantically contradictory to each other and perplexed rational understandings. For Fang and Chen, Whitehead's metaphysics of creativity assumes the greatest similarity to that of the I Ching and, of course, will be in great help for clearing these problems. And the more we know about other process philosophers associated with Whitehead, the more we will find them also can make similar contributions. Now we will come to the philosophy of creativity in the I Ching, and to see how it arises from a Chinese humanistic context.

 

A Short History of the Book of Changes or I Ching

 

Before our discussions of the concept of “creativity” in the Book of Changes, some preliminary remarks about the book itself are required. The Book of Changes or I Ching composed of sixty four hexagrams (from Ch'ien or “Heaven” to Weichi or “Before Completion”始乾终未济) and explanatory menu (kua t'zu and yao t'zu卦爻辞) has remained an enigma to Chinese scholars for more than two thousand years. Just as Shih-chuan Chen points out that no one could honestly claim to have understood the I Ching. [5] Yet the I Ching is considered a work of cosmology among the traditional Six Classics, [6] and has been studied arduously and tenaciously by the educated gentlemen in all times. Thus, a reasonable question has been raised by Irene Eber, “Should one conclude then that people anywhere read that which they do not understand?” [7] Eber's own answer is that though the text of I Ching is complex and obscure, its very abstruseness suggests an intriguing richness of multiple meanings.

To endorse this answer some further explanations are required. To begin with, according to Shih-chuan Chen, the development of the I Ching has undergone three stages: (1) the pre-language stage (c. 5000–3000B.C.) of Fu His (literally means “the Animal Domesticator”伏牺), (2) the divination stage (c 2000–1000 B.C.) of three dynasties (Hsia, Shang and Chou)夏商周, and (3) the philosophical stage of Confucius (c.500 B.C.). It is told that Fu His once produced eight trigrams composed of three lines of broken stroke, yin yao (- -)阴爻, or one stroke, yang yao (—)阳爻---a relic of rope-knots record---to symbolize eight kinds of most popular natural phenomena, which are Ch'ien , K'u n , Ch'en , Ken , K'an , Li , Hsun , and Tui  , (乾坤震艮坎离巽兑) representing heaven, earth, sounder, mountain, water, fire, wind and lake respectively. Fu His was a legendary sage king, presumably existing more than 6,000 years ago, who was believed to have brought human culture from the primitive state of fishing and hunting to the state of animal domestication. Accordingly, the eight trigrams can be regarded simply as the signs of natural phenomena adopted by primitive people at the pre-language stage, there is nothing mysterious in them.

However, one can imagine that since the eight trigrams possess a kind of mathematical necessity, i.e. the third power of two is eight, and were handed down by a sage king, they soon were deemed to acquire some magic power that might reveal to us about the future. This led the development of I Ching to a stage of divination; and by doubling the eight trigrams to sixty four hexagrams the royal courts of three dynasties, Hsia (2033–1562 B.C.), Shang (1561–1065 B.C.) and Chou (1066–771 B.C.), had used the sixty four hexagrams as a device for divination on major events, such as military actions, sacrifices, marriage, etc. They then recorded the results of divination and produced their own “Book of Changes,” the so-called Lien Shan of Hsia, Kuei Ts'ang of Shang, and Chou I of Chou (连山，归藏，周易). Among them, only the text of Chou I was preserved and became the current edition of the I Ching. [8]

When the text of Chou I was given to the hands of Confucius in his old age by his pupil Shangchu'u Tzumu (商瞿子木), it soon became Confucius' favorite. As it was told in Ssu-Ma Ch'ien's Historical Records（司马迁史记） and the recently excavated Po Shu (Silky Manuscript帛书) [9] of Western Han Dynasty (202 – 8 B.C.), “Confucius was very much fond of the I Ching in his later years, such that he kept it at hand and brought it with him all the time. No matter he was at home or out to travel, the book was always accompanying him.” Ssu-Ma Ch'ien then confirmed that Confucius had produced the ten commentaries of Chou I, i.e. “Ten Wings” （十翼） [10] ，to explain the true meaning of the text (the sixty four hexagrams and their Kua tzu卦辞 and yao tzu爻辞, or words appended to kua and yao) as well as the philosophical significance of the whole book. Among them, “Conspectus” is the most important one. This revolutionary work had made the I Ching transformed from a book of divination to a book of philosophy.

 

The Major issues of Creativity in the I Ching

 

To catch the gist of the “Ten Wings,” one may find them tell us that the I Ching is a book of metaphysics that deals with the most general principles of the universe and of humankind, and also with man's place in nature. In fact, the title of book, “I” (literally means “change” in Chinese), [11] has shown the basic notion of its authors, who conceived this universe as in constant change, which reminds us of the aphorism pantra rhei, “everything flows,” proposed by Heraclitus. However, the concept of change in the I Ching is much more complicated than that in Heraclitus. As we have mentioned before, the Iwei Ch'ientsaotu of the late Western Han Dynasty has distinguished three different meanings of the term “I,” [12] namely, creativity (I), changing (Pien I), and unchanging (Pu I). How to understand the true meaning of this distinction has perplexed scholars for almost two thousand years. As Iwei explains the first meaning of “I” just by repeating the very same character, it inevitably invites some turbid thought of the term. Many scholars took it as the synonym of “simple” and “easy,” and associated it with the Taoist doctrine of naturalness; most notably were Ch'eng Kangch'eng (127– 200) of the Eastern Han（东汉郑康成） and Kung Yingta (574–648) of the T'ang（唐朝孔颖达）. [13] Undeniably, in the original text of Iwei the hue of Taoism is discernable. As it says,

 

The term “I” has three meanings, namely, “I，” “Pien I” and “Pu I.” Here “I” refers to the function or virtue of the universe. There is no other way to reveal cosmic feeling or to hide the divinity. All must be manifested in accordance with natural laws, as heaven and earth, sun, moon, and stars all shine and move in an orderly way. The juxtaposition of eight hexagrams, the rotation of the zodiac, the movement of heavenly bodies and the alternation of four seasons are all following the same law. … No worry and undisturbed, the “I' has nothing to lose with a disinterested attitude. (“Three Meanings of the I,” Iwei Ch'iensaotu) [14]

 

However, there is no evidence to assert that Iwei suggests the “I” equivalent to “simple” and “easy” as one of its connotations. In fact, the text only shows that the “I” should be taken as the impetus of natural order and, therefore, acquires a strong sense of natural law. This can be confirmed by the opening passage of “Conspectus” which says,

 

Heaven is high and the earth is low, thus Ch'ien (time) and K'un (space) are fixed. From earthly low to heavenly high, there is analogously a hierarchy of values from baseness to nobility. Movement and rest have their own way and are represented by hardness (yang) and tenderness (yin) respectively. People are getting together with their own kind and natural species are divided into different groups; by this way good fortune and misfortune come about. Change and transformation manifest in the constellations of heavenly bodies and the display of geographical features. Thus hardness and tenderness touch each other, the eight trigrams are formed. Plants and animals are aroused by thunder and lightning and nourished by wind and rain. The sun and moon rotate and the four seasons alter in the order of cold after hot and hot after cold. [15]

 

The above text translated from the first few lines of “Conspectus” highlights the whole theme of the I Ching---a book about “change.” As the authors of the book observed, the most significant “changes” one can conceive are the movements of the universe, the alternations of four seasons and of day and night, the growth and flourish of plants and animals, and above all, the orderly change of everything in nature. Apparently, the author of “Conspectus” took natural order or natural law--- the regular changes in nature, as the basic principles behind the sensible things. N. Sivin correctly points out that in the above-quoted passage the author of “Conspectus” has shown by the harmoniously alternating interplay of opposite that forms what it is time underlying cosmic process; and it is cosmic process that provides a pattern for human reflection and conduct. [16] However, he only saw the cyclic sense of time in this passage and failed to find in it the “creative” sense of time, i.e. the function of time demonstrated in cyclic recurrences and in natural law that gave birth to and governed the universe and all beings.

The universe, for the ancient Chinese, is composed of finite, concrete space (earth) and infinite, cyclic time (heaven) and is within whatever our concrete experience can reach. Admittedly, Chinese people were more realistic and less imaginative than the Indians in terms of number, space, and time; the latter had the great idea of infinity and applied it to the concepts of number, space, and time extensively. Being an agricultural people, ancient Chinese took heaven and earth as their living environment which might be concrete and limited in their experience, but they apprehended the infinitude of the function and worth of heaven and earth. As the author of “Conspectus” conceived, the universe governed by the abiding law of nature is not a universe of brutal facts; it is rather a universe of value in which an axiological hierarchy from baseness to nobility analogously displays as the positions of earth and heaven from low to high.

Accordingly, if we understand the meaning of “I” correctly, we had better take it as “the regular changes occur in time and space” instead of “simple” and “easy.” This can be proved by the text of “Conspectus” at least in three places. First, in one place term “I” was defined as “shengsheng,” or “giving birth unceasingly” (生生之谓易)---in Thome Fang's term “creative creativity.” [17] There is no implication of “simple” or “easy” in “shengsheng,” since the incessant generations of multiple and multiplex natural species are a very “complicated” thing and by no means “simple” or “easy.” Second, the paragraph following the above-quoted passage shows the Ch'ien has to do with “time” and K'un has to do with “space”; and if one renders the “I” as “simple” and “easy,” as Richard and Hellmut Wilhelm did, the text will turn out to be incomprehensible. As they write,

 

The Creative knows the great beginnings. The Receptive completes the finished things. The Creative (Ch'ien) knows through the easy. The Receptive (K'un) can do things through the simple. What is easy, is easy to know; what is simple, is easy to follow. He who is easy to know attains fealty. He who is easy to follow attains works. He who possesses attachment can endure for long; he who possessed works can become great. [18]

 

Though Hellmut Willhelm tries to justify this rendering by appealing to the “literal meaning of the character I” as “the easy, the simple, the naturally given,” which mirrors the simpler and clearer image of the agricultural life of the ancient Chinese, it is still unconvincing how, this easy and simple way of agricultural life has anything to do with “change.” And with this misinterpretation, Hellmut thought the text has said, “The good that lies in the easy and the simple makes it correspond to the highest kind of existence.”

Nonetheless, if we understand the term “I” correctly as “regular changes occur in time and space,” then the whole text will make much better sense and can be coherent with the rest part of the I Ching. As one may suggest the above-quoted passage to be translated as follows,

 

The Creative (Ch'ien or Heaven) reveals the essence of time or beginning, and the Receptive (K'un or Earth) is spatial as the bearer of all creatures. So one knows Ch'ien in terms of change or temporality and knows K'un in terms of its function as space. Change implies time and space compiles with time. Once change happened, something new will follow. [19] As space is in compliance with time, all creatures flourish accordingly. With the introduction of novelty, the universe becomes everlasting in long duration, whereas the flourishing of all creatures by virtue of spatial function makes the universe ample.

 

It is understandable for the people who run an agricultural life, the most important thing is to farm their “land” (K'un or earth) in compliance with “seasonal alternations” (Ch'ien or Heaven). A Chinese proverb “Plowing in Spring, weeding in Summer, harvesting in Fall, and storing food in Winter”(春耕，夏耘，秋收，冬藏) tells a typical story of the life routine of ancient Chinese. With this understanding, we may come to a different conclusion as follows,

 

Vastness and greatness is the nature of heaven and earth, while temporal change is the nature of four seasons. The meaning of yin (darkness) is moon and the meaning of yang (brightness) is sun. The function of space and time is the highest virtue of the universe.

 

Third, it is also stated in “Conspectus,”

 

Ch'ien punctually shows us temporal changes. K'un flatly shows us extensive space.

 

Here the adverb “punctually” (ch'ueh jan确然) implies “definiteness,” and “flatly,” “openness.” Neither of them have anything to do with “simple” or “easy.” Nonetheless, Wilhelm has rendered it as follows,

 

The Creative is decided and therefore shows to men the easy. The Receptive is yielding and therefore shows to men the simple. [20]

 

If Chinese scholars who took “simply and easy” for “change” since the Eastern Han Dynasty could have learned more from the Western process philosophers about the concept of creativity, they might have been given a chance to avoid such a distortion of the text of “Conspectus.” And by understanding Ch'ien as time and K'un as space, the following text of “Conspectus” can be easily interpreted:

 

Time and space are exactly where changes as well as creativity reside. Once time and space established, creativity is within them. Once time and space ruined, there is no way to see changes and creativity. Once changes and creativity become invisible, then heaven and earth are doomed to perish. Therefore, what is metaphysical, supersensible, is Principle or Tao; whereas what is concrete, sensible, is Instrument or Ch'i. To cause transformation in things is called change, and to implement order and law in things is called getting through. To apply it to all people in the world is called enterprise. [21]

 

The second difficulty to be found in the last two meanings of “I,” “Pien I” (changing) and “Pu I” (unchanging) are semantically contradictory to each other. How could one term connote two opposite meanings? Is it a kind of “oxymoron”? According to the explanation of Iwei itself, here “changing” and “unchanging” refer to the different aspects of the same thing---I. As it is said,

 

Changing has to do with pmeuma (ch'i)气. If heaven and earth had not changed, then physical force would not have the chance to function. The reciprocal influences of the five agents would come to termination, and the alternations of four seasons would cease. The sovereign and his vassal take their different positions in a harmonious way. Those which are in decreasing will eventually cease to exist, while those who are dictators are doomed to fall. If there is no distinction between the sovereign and his subordinates, they cannot set up monarchical government. … If there is no distinction between husband and wife, they cannot organize a family. This is changing. As for “unchanging,” it refers to the immovable “position.” That heaven is above and the earth is low, that the lord faces south and the vassal faces north, that the father is seated and his son bows before him: this is the unchanging aspect of “I.” [22]

 

Here “changing” is to describe the transformational nature of the world, physical and human alike. While “unchanging” is used to describe the fixed natural relations between heaven and earth, and the fixed ethical relations between sovereign and vassal, father and son, etc. This reminds us of the first two lines of “Conspectus” which suggests the relative positions of heaven and earth are fixed and are analogous to the axiological hierarchy from baseness to nobility. Thus, one might well argue that to say “I” implies both the senses of “changing” and “unchanging” is not a self-contradiction, but a demonstration of an organic, complementary view on reality. For the authors of “Conspectus” and “Iwei,” the I Ching has shown to us the most prevailing features of the universe, the changing aspect of the temporal world and the unchanging aspect of an axiological, patterned world. This organic, complementary mode of thought is most vividly displayed in the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate (Taichi t'u)太极图 in which the white yang is in contrast and complemented by the black yin, vice versa. The diagram, a perfect circle, is composed of two contrasts and opposites of yin and yang, where yin is in yang and yang is in yin. It signifies the ultimate reality, as the authors of the I Ching conceives, being a harmonious whole with contrast pairs of all kinds complemented to each other as its constituents. It is in fact a principle of complementarity and one of archetypal ideas of Chinese culture. [23]

  To sum up, almost three thousand years ago, the I Ching already showed to us the universe is a self-creative process, and space and time are inseparable in exercising their function in cosmic process. Human beings as the most significant participants in this creative process, they are the appreciator, the producer, and sustainer of value. [24] This is clearly indicated by the “Principle of Three Calibers (Heaven, Earth and Man)” 天地人三才之道 stated by the “Conspectus,” another archetypal idea of Chinese culture. It is said the reason for a trigram to be composed of three strokes is because it signifies the principles of Heaven, of Earth and of Man; and it also signifies man's central position in the universe. This fundamental humanism asserts that Man's creativity is an integral part of the creativity of Heaven and Earth and thereby human creation is as high a performance as cosmic creation. [25]

 

Creativity in the West

 

Though the view that the universe is in a constant flux and becoming, and process is reality was popular to the Orientals, Indians and Chinese alike, it is relatively a rare case in the Western philosophical traditions. Among the pre-Socratic philosophers only Heraclitus (540-480 B.C.) of Epheus endorsed this view. Parmenides (515- ? B.C.) abides by the law of conservation and denies the possibility of any change or the reality of time; and therefore denies creativity to be a feature of reality. In his view, there is only one eternal being, nothing can come out of being, nor can being turn out to be nothing, and our temporal experience is merely an illusion. The clashes between the Heraclitus' being and Parmenides' being reach a reasonable comprise in Aristotle's  doctrine of “actualization” which suggests all existence undergoing a process of actualization with entelechy from material potentiality to formal actuality predetermined by final causality. Thus Aristotle admits three kinds of change to natural and artificial courses of all substance, namely, alternation (including generation, qualitative and quantitative change), local motion, and chance. By this way, just as Nathaniel Lawrence suggests, Aristotle has offered “a number concept of time” as well as “an active, teleological sense of time.” [26] This may help us to argue that a theory of “teleological evolution” had been addressed by Aristotle who saw the universe as dynamic, purposive, and always in temporal process. Nonetheless, since Aristotle also made the static substance the most fundamental being of his categories, his metaphysics was unavoidably trapped by a kind of substance-attribute dualism or a subject-predicate mode of thought which is unfit to describe the reality of an organic world. Again, according to Aristotle, the teleological development of all beings is pre-determined by some “perfect forms” or “final ends,” this account failed to offer an open ending for the creative advance of the universe. Admittedly Aristotle did give us the most important concepts related to “creativity”---such as space, time, matter, cause, becoming, change, generation, motion, chance, etc., but he failed to give us a full account of creativity by his substance metaphysics.

Though theology is the crown of Aristotle's metaphysics and he placed “God,” the “Unmoved Mover” or “the First Cause,” in the highest position of his metaphysical system, his God is of philosophical nature and possesses no power to create. In contrast to Aristotle's God, even to Plato's Demiurge, God in Christian theology of the Medieval Age is the only creator who created this world and all creatures from nothing. Thus in traditional theism, the divine creation is a miraculous performance conducted by the hands of a supernatural, transcendent, omnipotent Supreme Being, i.e. God. However, ever since 17^th century, this idea of divine creation was seriously challenged by the scientific materialists in Europe who conceived this universe as a configuration of scattered matter (either corpuscles or atoms) simply located in the measurable frameworks of space and time, whose movements are straightly governed by causal mechanical law without any divine purpose or design behind. With the tremendous success of modern science and technology that presupposed scientific materialism and causal mechanism the concept of creativity alone with that of freedom are dismissed as unwarranted fantasies which correspond to no reality. The image that the universe being a brutal fact made of dead matter governed by mechanical law was greatly modified in the 18^th century when biology and geology became prominent in the study of natural sciences. As various types of evolutionist theories developed, the scientists and philosophers of the Enlightenment and subsequent 19^th century philosophers of the Romantic Movement (most of them were German idealists) no longer took the physical universe as a static, fixed, closed deterministic system, but as a dynamic, evolving system. [27] Though the evolutionists and the German idealists did leave some room for the concept of creativity and paved the way for the development of contemporary process philosophies, the former were constantly involved with a mechanical view of evolution and therefore precluded any purpose in natural evolution, [28] whereas the latter eventually fell into the abyss of idealism which failed to do justice to the existence of the objective, external world.

To take the risk of oversimplification, one may argue that in the history of Western philosophy the concept of “creativity” or “creation” has been either denied by the materialistic mode of thought as being against the law of conservation or ascribed exclusively to the miraculous performance of supernatural God as the sole Creator. It was not until 18^th century when the evolutionist theories prevailed, the view that our universe is a dynamic, evolving, changing, organic system and always in a process of becoming did receive due attentions. The concept of “creativity” then gradually became the central theme of modern process thought.

 

Whitehead and Contemporary Process Philosophers

 

Our universe is composed of internally related, ‘living' organisms and continuously evolves in a creative process are the shared view of contemporary process philosophers who have, however, associated this view with different schools of thought. For instance, Peirce and James were process philosophers of pragmatism, who had laid great emphasis on the continuity, spontaneity, interactivity, responsiveness, and interrelatedness of experience in general. Accordingly, their process thought expressed in a form of metaphysics of experience or panpsychism which makes the universe a unified field of feeling or drops of experience. [29] With the concept of love as the agency of the universe, Peirce further proposed the doctrine of “evolutionary love” or agapism which suggests one three modes of evolution is evolution by creative love, the other two are evolution by absolute chance and evolution by mechanical necessity. [30] Henri Bergson was a process philosopher of vitalism who introduced the doctrine of “creative evolution” in the early 20^th century. As Charles Darwin had proposed a scientific evolutionist theory which suggests the process of natural evolution to follow a mechanical law of struggle for survival and elimination of the unfit, Bergson rejected it to be the real case of evolution. He then advocated the doctrine of creative evolution which maintains the real facts of evolution to be found in the creative surge of life, in an élan vital. In this process of creative evolution, change is real, novelty is real, and freedom is real as well. Here “time” plays a vital role; it should not be “spatialized” as a physical framework consisting of measurable, homogeneous instants. Time, or duree, is in fact the very life of an organism which is qualitatively different in every moment and cumulatively progressive in convergence of its experiences of perceptions, memories, and anticipations. [31] Samuel Alexander was a process philosopher of neo-realism who stood most closely to Whitehead, a process philosopher of organic realism. Neo-realism rejects both idealism and realism for neither of them can do justice to each other; it asserts the realities of mind and things and the relations between them. From the standpoint of neo-realism, Alexander has laid great emphasis on our knowledge of relation, of the relation between the experiencer and the experienced. He agreed to Bergson's emphasis on “time” as life-duration, but disagreed to Bergson's degradation of space relatively to time. He then proposed a concept of “Space-Time” as the basis matrix of all things and made space and time internally related to each other. “Space-Time” is, in fact, a continuous, interrelated complex of motion, goaded by a nisus or creative tendency. [32] Under the condition of “Time-Space,” Alexander described natural evolution as a process of creative synthesis: there are always new qualities arising from the older type and the complicated arising from the simpler type at critical points, which cannot be explained mechanically. Though the quality of life may arise from physico-chemical process, but it is the emergence of something completely new. By this way, Alexander allowed genuine freedom from determination by previous conditions to the evolutionary process; and he called for an attitude of natural piety for us to accept the emergence of new qualities. [33]

Undeniably, before we come to Whitehead, the above-mentioned process philosophers already offered nearly every important element to build the metaphysics of creativity. In fact, Whitehead has shared with them the ideas of feeling, continuity, immediate experience, duration, time-space, process, creative evolution, becoming, change, emergence, novelty, chance, relation, internal relatedness, organism, etc. as the fundamental elements of his philosophy. And it was exactly because process thought being very close to Chinese philosophy in general and to the I Ching in particular, that Bergson, Whitehead, and the American pragmatist John Dewey were among the few Western philosophers welcomed by Chinese in the early 20^th century. However, among the process philosophers above-mentioned, only Whitehead has shown his inclination to Chinese thought and developed a rigorous metaphysical system which takes “creativity” as one of its ultimate notions. And it is only Whitehead proposes a philosophy of organism which attempts to dismiss various kinds of philosophical dualism in the West and thereby appeals to the modern Chinese philosophers, Fang and Chen.

 

“Creativity” in Whitehead's Philosophy

 

The concept of creativity in Whitehead has undergone various forms along with the different stages of his philosophical development. To number the most significant ones: (1) in the form of “creative advance” at the earlier stage of his nature philosophy; (2) in the form of “creativeness” in his theory of organic mechanism ascribed to the first part of the transitional period; (3) in the form of Spinoza's “substantial activity” in his early metaphysics ascribed to the second part of the transition period; (4) and finally, “creativity” as one of the ultimate notions at the later stage of his process cosmology. [34]

Firstly, in his earlier work, Whitehead has used the term “creative advance” to describe the main feature of nature, or of the passage of nature. In the course of spatial-temporal transitions there are always new events happening, events as durations, or spatio-temporal relations. [35] Whitehead also has made the claim that “nature is a process,” as he fully accorded with Bergson who took “time” as the fundamental fact of nature. [36] Here the term “process” has at least four different implications, i.e., the heterogeneity of time, continuity, becoming, and novelty, which are all the essences of time for Bergson and for Whitehead as well. Dissatisfied with the scientific-materialists' view of nature as a configuration of dead matter within the framework of absolute space and time, Whitehead points out that nature in our concrete experience is composed of events internally related to one another in spatio-temporal extensiveness as a continuous whole.

Secondly, in the first part of the transition period, the term “event” becomes a synonym of “organism” in Whitehead's theory of organic mechanism, which maintains entities, such as molecules “may blindly run in accordance with the general laws, but the molecules differ in their intrinsic characters according to the general organic plans of the situations in which they find themselves.” [37] Again, in Whitehead's view, natural evolution has to do with the emergence of novel organisms as the outcome of chance, and there are two sides involved in it: “On the one side, there is a given environment with organisms adapting themselves to it…. The other side of the evolutionary machinery, the neglected side, is expressed by the word creativeness. The organisms can create their own environment.” [38] At this stage, Whitehead has introduced the concept of “prehension” that would help the organism to infuse with other organisms and to grasp some particular “patterns” or aspects of other organisms into its own unity. He then called the patterns “eternal objects,” the permanent characters of things. Thus in the organic theory of nature, organism is fundamental for nature and “a unit of emergent value, a real fusion of the characters of eternal objects, emerging for its own sake.” [39] It is worth noting that here Whitehead used the term “organism” not only in a biological sense, but also in a non-biological sense; the term for Whitehead already transgresses the biological boundary as it refers to whatever exists, living or non-living alike. [40]

Thirdly, in the second part of the transition period, the term “organism” is transformed metaphysically into “actual occasion” or “actual entity,” and “creativity” takes the form close to Spinoza's substance. Whitehead first brought on the concept of “substantial activity” as the underlying, dynamic metaphysical situation in which eternal objects as possibilities and as the source of value become realized in the prehending actual occasions. As Whitehead writes,

 

Thus the eternal relatedness is the form – the eidos--; the emergent actual occasions is the superject of informed value; value, as abstracted from any particular superject, is the abstract matter—the hyle—which is common to all actual occasions and the synthetic activity which prehends valueless possibility into superjicient informed value is the substantial activity.” [41]

 

He then explained the individual activity of an actual occasion is nothing but a particular mode of the substantial activity, which is the general metaphysical character underlying all occasions that unities them as an organic whole. This substantial activity has nothing to compare with except for Spinoza's one infinite substance. [42]

Finally, at the last stage of Whitehead's philosophical development, the concept of creativity is made one of the three notions of which the Category of the Ultimate is consisted, the rest of the two are “one” and “many,” in Process and Reality. Since the Category of the Ultimate is said presupposition by all the more special categories, “creativity” should be regarded as the ultimate presupposition of the Whitehead's metaphysical scheme. [43] “Creativity,” according to Whitehead's definition, is the universal of universals which characterizes the self-caused, free act of actualities by which the “many” enter into “one.” Under this metaphysical scheme, the creative process of the universe is construed as composed of the becoming of infinite actual entities, which are drops of experiences, as trivial as a puff and as great as God, that enter into novelty by simultaneously contrasting with each other or by succeeding to one after another in the flux of time, a process called by Whitehead as “concrescence.” By succeeding to the previous actual entity, each actual entity is caused and determined and thereby is under the sway of efficient cause, which has to do with its “physical prehensions” (or physical feelings) of other actual entities. On the other hand, the actual entity is also under the influence of final cause, which has to do with its “conceptual prehensions” (or conceptual feelings) of eternal objects, for it is with the capacity of self-creation and is constantly goaded by its subjective aims that seek for self-satisfaction. Accordingly, actual entities as the final realities of the Category of Existence are of dipolar nature and the opposite pairs of mental and physical, actual and potential, cause and effect, subject and object, indeterminate and determinate, continuous transition and atomic succession, etc. all turn out to be its different factors complemented to each other.

All actual entities are of temporal nature except God. According to Whitehead, God is the “non-temporal act of all-inclusive unfettered valuation,” the “organ of novelty,” “the outcome of creativity,” “the foundation of order,” “the goad towards novelty,” and “a creature of creativity and a condition for creativity.” [44] Following the strain of natural theology, [45] Whitehead's God is immanent in this world for reasons of transcendence. Analogous to the “physical prehension” and “conceptual prehension” of an actual entity, God is also dipolar with his “primordial nature” and “consequent nature.” As Whitehead suggests, the primordial nature of God is the unconditioned conceptual valuation of eternal objects from which the initial phase of the subjective aim lured to the feelings of actual entities is derived. [46] And the consequent nature of God results from his physical prehensions of the derivative actualities and evolves with the development of the temporal world. [47] By this way, Whitehead has proposed what Charles Hartshorne calls “panentheistic God,” he is at once eternal and temporal, one and many, creating and created, absolute and relative, independent and dependent, immanent and transcendent, conscious, knowing the world, and having all things as his constituents. [48]

 

Summary and Conclusion

 

Charles Hartshorne, a great appreciator and misconceiver of Oriental thought, once denied Buddha and Confucius of the claiming for humanism, humanism in sense that taking an interest in man. Were Hartshorne familiar with the I Ching, specifically with Confucius' “Ten Wings,” he would not have made such a judgment and remarked, “Confucius makes a number of references to the will of ‘Heaven,' to its interest in his life–work, … The great religion of China, then really was a religion, and not, as is so often asserted, a mere ethics. It did not take man to be the highest being in the universe.” [49] It is evident that Confucius has proposed a rational cosmology based on fundamental humanism, the Principle of Three Calibers, which has “Man” in middle between “Heaven” and “Earth.” The humanistic spirit which underlies this principle is prominent and should not be obscured by Confucius religious sentiment, not religious belief, when he appealed to “Heaven” for superhuman power --- but not supernatural power. To be sure, Confucius also endorsed sacrifices to Heaven and the practice of ancestors–worship, but his attitude toward religion was quite liberal and humanistic. And this can also be discerned in “T'uan Ch'uan of Kuan Hexagram (20)” of the I Ching, as it says, “Observe the regular movements of the heavens and the four seasons following one another without mistake! The sage set up religious practices for the sake of education, and then the world will be submissive to him and in peace.” [50] To make religion a device for education is the essence of “Confucian religion.” And in the I Ching, man may not be the “only” highest being in the universe, yet he may be “one” of the highest beings in the universe. It is the very characteristic of creativity shared by heaven and earth and man that put them together as the productive powers in the universe.

In the end, to put the metaphysics of creativity in the I Ching in contrast to that in the Western process thought, especially in Whitehead, one may find some striking parallels as well as significant differences between the two parties. They both lay great emphasis on the notions of temporality, creativity, novelty, order, self-cause, telos, indeterminacy, organicity, and the continuity of space and time, and they both agree on creative process of the universe to be unpredictable, indeterminate, and self-determined. [51] This make them closely allied in the spiritual war against scientism, determinism, materialism, and any form of dehumanization directly and indirectly resulted from modern science and technology. They all have some highest good behind them, only it is the Ultimate Harmony for the I Ching, but freedom for the Western process thought.