AN ANALYSIS OF THE IDEOGRAPHIC NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF THE HEXAGRAM IN YIJING: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

Abstract

In this paper, I have examined the surface ideographic structure of hexagrams in the Yijing from the perspective of their ideographic construction. In so doing, I have discussed the various senses in which the system of the hexagrams in the Yijing need to be considered as a sub-system of the Chinese ideographic language, and have given a case analysis of hexagrams in regard to illustrate how some pre-theoretical metaphysical insights have influenced the construction of the ideographic language. Following this I have suggested an interpretation of a triple ideographic semantic structure for the hexagrams, seeking by this means to have a more complete understanding of the ideographic semantics of the hexagrams in the Yijing. In my interpretation, the ideographic semantic structure of the hexagrams reveals itself at three different but correlative levels, each of which involves three components: the ideographic text, the connotational meaning consisting of its image-graphic meaning and its ideo-interpretative meaning, and the denotational meaning or reference. These three levels indicate three stages of a dynamic process of understanding the Yijing text in its semantic aspect. Finally, I have discussed the denotational meaning of the hexagram in terms of a collective-noun hypothesis for the semantics of Chinese nouns and, in this way, have suggested how the hypothesis may be extended to cover the case of dynamic process-reference.