Synopses & Reviews
Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World is the firstfull-length study in any Western language of the development of the Yijing in Chinafrom earliest times to the present. Drawing on the most recent scholarship in bothAsian and Western languages, Richard J. Smith offers a fresh perspective onvirtually every aspect of Yijing theory and practice for some three thousand years.Smith introduces the reader to the major works, debates, and schools ofinterpretation surrounding this ancient text, and he shows not only how the Book ofChanges was used in China as a book of divination but also how it served as a sourceof philosophical, psychological, literary, and artistic inspiration.
Among its major contributions, this study revealswith many vivid examples the richness, diversity, vitality, and complexity oftraditional Chinese thought. In the process, it deconstructs a number oftime-honored interpretive binaries that have adversely affected our understanding ofthe Yijing--most notably the sharp distinction between the school of images andnumbers (xiangshu) and the school of meanings and principles (yili). The bookalso demonstrates that, contrary to prevailing opinion among Western scholars, therise of evidential research (kaozheng xue) in late imperial China did notnecessarily mean the decline of Chinese cosmology. Smith's study reveals a far morenuanced intellectual outlook on the part of even the most dedicated kaozhengscholars, as well as the remarkable persistence of Chinese correlative thinking tothis very day. Finally, by exploring the fascinating modern history of the Yijing, Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World attests to the tenacity, flexibility, and continuing relevance of this most remarkable Chinese classic.