Abstract
This essay, drawing on Richard Wilhelm’s conception of Chinese space, derives a distinct model of sign arrangement based on the ancient Chinese Book of Changes. The Book of Changes is characterized by a profound understanding of change and contingency and represents a semiotics of life. The abstract nature of Structuralist semiotics, an artificial system based on the principle of division, contrasts strongly with the Chinese semiotic system and fails to reconcile itself to contingency. However, Roland Barthes’s thinking displays a tendency to merge semiotics with anthropology and language logic with life logic. Thus, Barthes unconsciously approaches the philosophy expressed in the Book of Changes. This essay postulates that if semiotics were to adopt the perspective proposed by the Book of Changes, the resulting hybrid would facilitate a life-oriented neo-semiotics capable of accommodating and reordering the chaos of the postmodern era.
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