Correlative thinking: From abduction to Ars Contextualis in early Chinese cosmology

Abstract

The items available for ars contextualis can be characterized in terms of the focal point from and to which the lines of divergence and convergence attributable to them move and find resolution, and the field from which and to which those same lines proceed and have influence. To take Confucius himself as a concrete example, we would have to allow that he is corporate in the sense that the lines of divergence and convergence that constitute his focus and meaning move throughout the entire field of the Chinese cultural tradition. Confucius is both focus and China as a focused field.