As the iconic concept of the I Ching, the “image” (xiang 象) is the linchpin for understanding its philosophical ideas. In its reception by scholars in Europe and North America, many have explored the “image” from religious, psychological, historical, philological, and other perspectives. These studies, however, have largely centered on epistemological and consciousness-based analyses of the “image”, whereas the discourse on the “image” in the Great Commentaries on the I Ching (Yizhuan 易傳) carries inherent ontological implications. Deploying appropriate philosophical language to elaborate the ontological foundation of the “image” is therefore crucial for communicating the I Ching’s philosophical ideas to the English-speaking world. By clarifying the connotations of “visible image” (xingxiang 形象), “analogical image” (nixiang 擬象), and “manifest image” (xianxiang 見象) as articulated in the Great Commentaries on the I Ching, this study demonstrates that the Yi (易) exhibits absolute ontological identity with Spinoza’s Substance, while the “image” corresponds to Spinoza’s concept of “expression”. Rombach’s structural phenomenology reinterprets the ontology of “Substance” as the genesis of “the One”, enabling an elaboration of the emergent character of the Yi as “the Ultimate One” (Taiyi 太一). This further reveals that the ”image” is not only an expression of the existence of the “Yi/Substance/One” but also a marker of the Yi’s—or Substance’s—transformation. Drawing on Spinoza’s concept of “Substance” and Rombach’s structural phenomenology thus aids in clarifying the ontological foundation of the “image” and promotes the cross-cultural dissemination of I Ching thought in Europe and North America.
Jiao et al. (Sun,) studied this question.