Kūn’s ‘body’: the many appearances and meanings of the pure even-numbered trigram in the early Yìjīng and related texts

One of the main reasons why words (i.e., ‘images’) in the Yìjīng and Guīcáng might appear so enigmatic is because they have become detached from the ‘pictures’ (guàhuà 卦畫) or ‘bodies’ (guàtǐ 卦體), as divination results, in which diviners first recognized them. This paper has two objectives. The first, as part of a larger database project, uses early Chinese excavated materials to reconstruct and reimage the many configurations and appearances of trigram Kūn’s ‘body’ (Kūn tǐ 坤體). Seeing and thinking about the pure even-numbered, yīn trigram in its original configurations leads us toward a deeper appreciation and understanding of the complexity of this early system of divination, and doing so is integral to investigating, as a thought experiment, complex relationships between divination results (i.e., trigrams and hexagrams) and numbers, numbers and images, and images and predictions. Users of the Changes should no longer visualize Kūn’s ‘body’ as one-dimensional ☷ and . The second, examines images of trigram Kūn in the Yìjīng, with a starting point being the images in the canonical commentaries, and the Shuō guà commentary in particular, by using hermeneutic principles in the ‘numbers and images’ tradition. The Shuō guà presents images either found in or to be extrapolated from the base text within a structured and highly interpretive system that creates ‘image programs’ for each of the eight trigrams. I argue the Shuō guà’s image programs have a defined architecture, and its images are not random lists of words collected without an agenda and devoid of relationships and mutual interaction with others.

The path of reflection into the world: Voices from the Guangzhou Triennial (2002‐08)1

Biennial and triennial exhibitions were first established in western countries, gradually becoming a well-recognized formula that came to influence non-western nations. Biennial and triennial exhibitions rose in prominence beyond western boundaries as they strove for the right to speak on the international stage. The sudden rise of biennial and triennial exhibitions in China is closely linked to these concerns. It is generally accepted that China’s biennial exhibitions first entered into the international field of vision in 2000 with the Shanghai Biennale, closely followed in 2002 by the Guangzhou Triennial, which has garnered frequent mention internationally. Viewed from a historical perspective, the themes explored by the first three editions of the Guangzhou Triennial constituted a different set of ideas regarding the international predicament of Chinese contemporary art, while the featured artists in the latter two editions were not limited to China. The backdrop for these ideas was the frequent appearance of Chinese contemporary artists on such international platforms as the Venice Biennale beginning in 1993, and the tendencies and conditions of the selections for such appearances. Chinese contemporary artists at the time were excited to gain entry to these important international platforms, but at the same time, the ways in which they were interpreted and selected gave pause for reflection. This reflection was directed not just at the artists themselves, but at the response from the critical and curatorial realms. A very important matter within this was the need for China to establish its own interpretive system and internationalized platform. Below, I will follow a chronological path in outlining the gradual progression of the Guangzhou Triennial in regard to these themes, and the connections between them.

Between Numbers and Images: The Many Meanings of Trigram Gen 艮 in The Early Yijing

This paper examines the images of trigram Gen in the Yijing, with a focus on images in the Shuogua 說卦 commentary. The Shuogua presents images either found in or to be extrapolated from the base text within a structured and highly interpretive system that forms “image programs” for each of the eight trigrams. I argue the Shuogua’s image programs have a defined architecture, and its images are not random lists of words collected without an agenda and devoid of relationships and mutual interaction with others. My main thesis is a high percentage of images in the Changes developed through a simple and direct pictographic method, like the one used in a recently discovered Warring States period divination guidebook called Shifa 筮法 (Method of Milfoil Divination*), that was done by matching the graphic shapes of individual numbers and the overall shapes of numbers in three-line combination to shapes of real objects and logographs. If a diviner could see so many pictographic images in single numbers and sequences of numbers in combination, like what we now see in operation in the Shifa, then we ought to assume that a deeper repository of subjective and innovative images could be observed in number combinations at the multiline, trigram, and hexagram levels. Stated directly, trigram and hexagram diagrams were not pictorially meaningless; numbers produced images, and images produced the words and judgments that form early layers of text. Professional diviners had an expert knowledge of the tradition and Warring States use of the Changes continued to develop and explain image programs for the eight trigrams along these guidelines.

Muhammad's Social Justice or Muslim Cant?: Langdellianism and the Failures of Islamic Finance

"40 Cornell International Law Journal 89 (2007)Though it is advertised and promoted as the bulwark of an alternative economic system based on populist Muslim notions of social justice and fairness, Islamic finance as a practice has failed to meet these objectives. The causes of that failure and the question of whether alternative approaches are possible are the subject of this Article. The failure of Islamic finance to provide that which it promotes is the direct consequence of the application of an Islamic logic driven interpretive system through which rules are derived, which its adherents claim was formalized and systematized by the early jurist Muhammad Ibn Idris Al-Shafi'i. The system bears remarkable resemblance to the jurisprudential theories of Christopher Columbus Langdell in that particular cases (the reports of Muhammad, or hadith) are selected and then expanded into fundamental principles, or at least fundamental rules, through a doctrine known as qiyas, or analogical reasoning. The result is a financial system characterized by an incoherent web of rules, convenient and specific blindness respecting those rules in particular contexts, and deceptive and obfuscatory measures intended to lend the entire affair a patina of legitimacy as Islamic. Social justice and fairness are not significant components of the system. A principled alternative interpretive system, however, does seem possible so long as it remains within particular parameters, among them faithful adherence to Qur'anic verse, substantial respect for the hadith and sufficient systematization and methodological rigor to avoid what some Islamic jurists call subjectivity, or lack of interpretive control. Specifically, the Article engages and expands upon the ideas of Abdul Razzaq Sanhuri and Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr as potential avenues for reform that lie within these parameters. For the full text of the Article, please see 40 Cornell International Law Review 89 (2007)."

The Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement Provides Too Many Scores for Clinical Interpretation

The Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement, Fourth Edition (WJ IV ACH) is purported to align with Cattell–Horn–Carroll (CHC) theory and offers upward of 20 scores within its interpretive and scoring system. The Technical Manual does not furnish validity evidence for the scores reported by the scoring system, suggesting that evidentiary support may be incomplete. Exploratory bifactor analysis (EBFA; maximum likelihood extraction with a bigeomin [orthogonal] rotation) was applied to the two school-aged correlation matrices at ages 9 to 19. Results indicated nonalignment with CHC theory and do not support the interpretation of most of the scores suggested by the scoring system. Instead, the results of this study suggest that the loading patterns diverge significantly from the interpretive system produced by the WJ IV ACH. Only the academic fluency and academic knowledge clusters emerged following the use of EBFA. Implications for clinical interpretation of the WJ IV ACH are offered.

Framing Resistance: Identifying Frames That Guide Resistance Interpretations at Work

Programs aimed at implementing change in organizations regularly experience high failure rates. Exploring resistance to change is one promising way to better understand what might be done to improve these rates. Resistance to change has often been envisioned as employee noncompliance with one-way change messages. This study instead conceptualizes resistance as an interpretive system between implementers and employees. The project developed a grounded typology of the interpretive structures that employees and implementers used to interpret others’ behaviors as resistance or not. Four frames (or cognitive schema) that guide resistance interpretations were identified: (a) disagreeability, (b) protecting role performance, (c) conflicting stakes, and (d) habitual environment. Analyses examined patterns in these frames. This work develops a map of resistance frames that researchers studying resistance to change, communication campaigns, and implementation communication will find useful.

Oaths, Taxes and Tithes: Organising an Imminent Utopia

This chapter illustrates the ways in which the revolutionary dimension of the early Fatimid interpretive system was organized on the realm of terrestrial history. Preparations for the arrival of a utopian existence were carried out through the secret development of an extensive system of networks called the daʿwa, the summons or call, a hierarchical network that was responsible for recruitment to the Fatimid cause. In the Fatimid vision, the entire world became divided into regions that were headed by or were to be headed by significant members of the daʿwa. Those who wished to join the Fatimid cause were required to pledge an oath of allegiance in anticipation of the mahdi’s imminent arrival. This chapter discusses the nature of this oath at length, paying particular attention to how pledging it became central to the salvific paradigm, bestowing upon the believer a spiritually exalted lineage, one shared by prophets and other sacred personnel throughout history. In exchange for pledging the oath and working on behalf of the awaited mahdi, initiates became acquainted with the hidden meanings of revelation, and thus access to the tools of salvation.

Pragmatics and Semantics

A cognitive-scientific approach to the pragmatic interpretive ability is presented, according to which it is seen as a specific cognitive system dedicated to the interpretation of ostensive stimuli, that is, verbal utterances and other overtly communicative acts. This approach calls for a dual construal of semantics. The semantics which interfaces with the pragmatic interpretive system is not a matter of truth-conditional content, but of whatever components of meaning (lexical and syntactic) are encoded by the language system (independent of any particular use of the system by speakers in specific contexts). This linguistically provided meaning functions as evidence that guides and constrains the addressee’s pragmatic inferential processes whose goal is the recovery of the speaker’s intended meaning. Speakers communicate thoughts (explicatures and implicatures)—that is, fully propositional (truth-evaluable) entities—and it is these that are the proper domain of a truth-conditional (referential) semantics.

The Cosmogonic Word in al-Shahrastānī’s Exegesis ofSūrat al-Baqara

The higher thought of al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153) is revealed in all its idiosyncrasy and richness in his last work, the incomplete Qur'an commentary, Mafātīḥ al-asrār. Despite his fame as a neo-Ashʿarī thinker, his commentary's interpretive system strongly incorporates Ismāʿīlī features, along with vital Ashʿarī and Avicennan influences. This article focuses on discussions within his commentary on Sūrat al-Baqara, which are related to the theme of God's Command (al-amr) – simultaneously the author's cosmological and epistemological linchpin. Initially, his response to the key questions in the ‘theology of the Qur'an’ is presented, namely, (1) how might the scripture's inimitability for human beings be established, thus its transcendental origin, and (2) what is the scripture's precise relation with that transcendental origin, i.e., the problem of ‘inlibration’, and whether the Qur'anic text is to be viewed as a historical entity or as above time? It emerges that, notwithstanding his keen interest in historical inquiries into the text's canonisation and language, he takes it to be a substantial portal to the entire Realm of the Command (ʿālam al-amr), which is a kind of ‘pre-geometry’ for the cosmos (ʿālam al-khalq). With this premise, al-Shahrastānī invokes a highly systematic ‘lettric’ cosmogonic theory. In this theory, the instrument by which the universe enters existence is taken to be a kind of hyper-language, thought of on the model of the 28 Arabic letters. The details of this system are demonstrably Ismāʿīlī, such as its allusion to a heptadic paradigm of hiero-history. Lastly, the vital cosmological function of translating the graphemic and verbal realities of the Realm of the Command into creational entities and events is attributed to the angelic hierarchies.

The Christian Environmental Ethic of the Russian Pomor

This article revisits Lynn White's famous 1967 article that placed the blame for environmental problems in the Western world on the Judeo-Christian belief system, and discusses the case of the Pomor, a Russian sub-ethnicity who settled on the shores of the White Sea in the twelfth century. Although maintaining their Orthodox faith after migrating to the edge of the Slavic cultural zone, the Pomor adopted an entirely new way of life suited to the climate of the far north. Rather than concentrating on agriculture, which proved unreliable at the extreme northern latitude, they turned their attention to the exploitation of marine resources: fishing, sealing, and whaling. Contending with the harsh elements on a daily basis, the Pomor developed a worldview called "sacral geography," which fused animism with Christian eschatology. Sacral geography, in addition to providing an interpretive system for the natural world, also obligated the Pomor to observe and respect the natural world by limiting their economic strategies. The result was a unique environmental ethic. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the Pomor environmental ethic came under direct criticism from larger social forces-first the local business community and then the Soviet state-because of its low productivity. Ultimately, Stalin's aggressive economic and political policies succeeded in eliminating the Pomor environmental ethic as an effective curb on resource exploitation. Este artículo se propone revisar el famoso artículo de Lynn White de 1967, en el que culpa al sistema de creencias judeocristiano de los problemas medioambientales en el mundo occidental, y analizar el caso de los Pomor, una sub-etnia rusa asentada a orillas del Mar Blanco en el siglo XII. A pesar de mantener su fe ortodoxa después de migrar a la orilla de la zona cultural eslava, los Pomor adoptaron una nueva forma de vida adaptada al clima nórdico. En vez de concentrarse en la agricultura, que resultó ser poco fiable a tal latitud, centraron su atención en la explotación de los recursos marinos: la pesca, la caza de focas y la caza de ballenas. Al lidiar con unos elementos tan duros diariamente, los Pomor desarrollaron una visión del mundo llamada "geografía sagrada," que aunaba el animismo con las creencias cristianas. La geografía sacra, además de proporcionar un sistema de interpretación de la naturaleza, también obligaba a los Pomor a observar y respetar el mundo natural mediante la limitación de sus estrategias económicas. El resultado fue una ética del medio ambiente única. A finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, la ética del medio ambiente de los Pomor fue criticada por fuerzas sociales más grandes, primero por la comunidad empresarial local y luego por el estado soviético, debido a su baja productividad. En última instancia, los agresivos principios económicos y políticos de Stalin lograron acabar con la ética medioambiental Pomor como freno eficaz a la explotación de los recursos.