This paper is published in the first issue of Jianghai academic journal in 2020
About the author: Luo Dongqing, professor and doctoral supervisor, School of Arts, Nanjing Normal University.
As a key word in Chinese culture, the word "Xiang" was born from the word "Yi". Creating the image of "one" has laid the foundation of Chinese characters. The multiple meanings of image in Chinese characters are related to "thing" at first; "image object" indicates the evolution of "image" from noun to verb and from object to heart. Its evolution has different levels, and can be divided into four birth of "image". From "shape" to "image", the perceptual richness embodied in "shape" in Chinese characters is contained and transcended in "image"; the words "image" and "figure", "painting", "book" and "writing" are reflected in the development from "shape" to "image". "View" image means the relationship between "image" and the eyes of observation, which has the meaning of phenomenology. In the six books of Chinese characters, "Xiang" as the meta category reveals four intuitions. As an abstract "Xiang" and "Xiang", the relationship between the two makes the pattern of "Xiang" in "Xiang" appear and become the expression of Chinese character modularization. The "form" of "one" opened up in chaos, which reaches "phase" through the "view" of meaning, is contained in "image", and becomes the most important "Tao" of "image". As an image of showing the "Tao" phase, image has aesthetic implication.
Key words: phenomenology of iconography
Image plays an important role both in Chinese itself and in translating important concepts and categories in other languages. As an important category, image is closely related to a series of concepts and categories, which constitute the core of Chinese thought. Accordingly, although there are similar concepts in western culture, it is difficult to translate them simply. This is not only related to the differences of their own cultural accumulation, but also related to the differences between Chinese characters with "pictographic" meaning and Western Pinyin characters, especially. In philosophy, such as abstract and concrete; especially in terms of literature and art, such as image and imagination, are different from their original implication. In Chinese culture, just as Wang Fuzhi said in the book of changes, "it's like the world is full of wealth, the comparison of poems, the politics of books, the name of spring and autumn, the instrument of rites, and the law of music." Indeed, in Chinese culture, there are plenty of "images", such as celestial bodies, celestial bodies, human bodies, and pulse phenomena. In thinking, there are imagination, images, and omens of divination, as well as smelting, prospecting and so on, all of which need to rely on "image" thinking. Some people have raised this word to the height of "image thinking", which also shows its importance in Chinese thought. In this paper, from the perspective of Chinese characters, the word "philosophy - Aesthetics" thinking.
"One" and "image" in "Shuowen Jiezi", the interpretation of "one" said: "only at the beginning of Taishi, the Tao stands in one, creating heaven and earth, turning into everything. Every one belongs to one. " This is a philosophical way to "understand" the word. The author's interpretation breaks through the principle of "six books" set by himself, and observes the generation and significance of the word from the perspective of "Taishi". Xu Shen's theory of character creation seems to have been challenged at the very beginning. Why is that?
According to Godel's theorem, there are always problems in a system that cannot be solved by the system itself. For example, the dynamic mechanism and internal cause of economics can only be explained by non economics. The same is true of the six Chinese characters. Because "one" itself, "all one belongs to one" is to determine the radical of this word with "shape", and its shape has a certain significance, but this "one", like the straight line and line segment of geometry, has already belonged to the category of "essential intuition", which is difficult to be explained in terms of writing, and more difficult to be explained in terms of "six books" theory. We need to go beyond the hypothesis of Chinese character creation and go back to "Taichu" to find a way of saying it. It is related to "Tao", "heaven and earth", "everything", and more importantly, to the position of "human" in the "development" of heaven and earth and everything.
Therefore, Zheng Qiao's "a written picture" in Song Dynasty and "a painting" chapter in Shi Tao's "painting quotations" in Qing Dynasty are all related to the saying of "Shuowen Jiezi", which all come down to the original strokes. Of course, this theory has a far-reaching source. Laozi's "two in life, three in two, three in all" is the source of his philosophical thinking. The opening up of the universe and the origin of characters have established a fundamental relationship in philosophy.
"Play a written" is from the fundamental role of "one" in the formation of Chinese characters. "One" begins "Wen". This "one" is not a geometric line or line, but has a shape. All strokes of Chinese characters, such as point, horizontal, vertical, apostrophe, Na, fold, bend, hook, etc., can be changed from "one". And "starting a written map" emphasizes the final "map", which deserves our special attention. The "map" of "Hetu Luoshu" is also the "map" that regards the abstract eight trigrams as a whole. Therefore, Zheng Qiaozhi's so-called "starting a writing" is the basic strokes of Chinese characters based on the change of the original "one painting" - topological deformation, thus "painting". From this point of view, "one" is the "meta strokes" of Chinese characters, which has the fundamental status of forming Chinese characters. "The image of Yin Wen" is the development of its logic. What Zheng Qiao said contains the important connotation of "one painting theory" of Shi Tao. Shi Tao said that "it's too old to be separated, too simple to be separated, too simple to be separated and established.". Where does law stand? Stand in a picture. "Go far, climb high, and see your skin. This painting is not only a collection of great achievements, but also a collection of hundreds of millions of strokes and ink It is Zheng Qiao's theory of "starting a written document".
"One", as the largest and highest category, is the abstract principle of "creating and dividing heaven and earth". From the "one" to the "two", that is, the division of heaven and earth, the "three", that is, the original "one" and the current "two", are combined. Then, "three living things" is Xu Shen's so-called "turn into all things". Here, the concept of "thing" appears. "Things," Shuowen Jiezi "said:" things, everything is also. Cattle are big things. The number of heaven and earth comes from petunias, so it comes from cattle. " Zhang Taiyan said, "all of them take things as pictures, and their original meaning should refer to the hair of cattle." all shapes and colors are called things. "It is said that all things are of the same kind, and all things are of the same kind." The object refers to the world thing, has the kind meaning, but the most fundamental is refers to the human object world. Therefore, it is necessary to describe people's "view" of things, so there is an "image".
Is the original meaning of "image" the original "image" of "thing itself"? In the creation of this word, the ancients implied but transcended this meaning: (1) what was expressed by the "image" of this animal was the "image" of all things, and the "image" was conceptualized; the conceptualized "image" no longer refers to the original "image" of a certain kind of animal, but can stick to any object. (2) Is it the original "image" of things, or the inner "image" formed after human observation? (3) The conceptualized "image" has the characteristics of Nominalization and Intentionalization; (4) the word has symbolic and abstract meanings; (5) the "image" is also different from the derived "image".
"Zuo Zhuan · Xuangong three years": "in the past, there was virtue in the area of Xia Dynasty. There were pictures and objects in the distance, nine herdsmen were paid tribute, tripod was made, and hundreds of objects were prepared for it, so that the people could know about God and treachery." "It's like the picture. It's written in the tripod," Du said That is to say, taking the method from the image and describing the image. "Zuo Zhuan · Xuangong 12 years": "hundreds of officials move like things, and the military and government do not stop but prepare." Du Pre note: "things, even the class." Kong Yingda said: "class is also called the class of banners and paintings. Different officials have different dignity and inferiority. Each of them has its own things. They act like what they have built. " Yang Bojun's note: "it means that all officials build their own flags, which indicate their status and duties, and act accordingly." "Moving like things" refers to a kind of mental activity closely related to "things". However, we should go back to how, as a huge animal, it has become a representation related to the mind and even the mind intention? This big thing should have been common at first, but with the change of the world, it has become a rare thing. "ShuoWenJieZi" said: "the great beast of South Vietnam. Long nose teeth, three years a milk. It's like an ear, a tooth, a four foot tail. " This explanation seems to be based on the theory that Chinese characters are pictographs. Some of the "Xiang" glyphs in Jinwen reinforce this impression by depicting the silhouette of long nose, long teeth and big ears. "Xiang" has both pictorial inscriptions (can it also be regarded as a form of writing? It is believed that in the context of Jinwen, it is a kind of image text used to show special attention), and it also has graphic text; and it also exists in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which means a lot. I think that the image inscription is actually a kind of variant character, not the original form of the character. The principle of graphic characters is "pointing before pictograph". Among them, the "one" or "one painting" plays a key role in "writing".
From "one" to "image", there are not only philosophical basis, but also things and mind basis. Duan Yucai noted: "according to ancient books, many false images are" images ". The Ministry of human resources said: 'like, like. Like, like. " Like from the human elephant sound. Xu Shu once said to instruct. "Pictograph" is used as "pictograph". In the book, the words "like a certain shape" are regarded as "like". However, scholars can't get through the fact that they are all from the province. "The book of changes, the Genealogy" said: "the image is also, like also." This is called the ancient book of changes, that is, the loan of Xiangzi. "Han Fei" said: "people want to see the image of life, and the plan to think about its life, so all people want to think about it, are called the image." It's like ancient times. However, before Xiangzi was made, the meaning of imagination had already begun. Therefore, in Zhouyi, image was used as the meaning of imagination. "Han Fei" said the same slang, rather than the purpose of "there is no word, according to the sound of things." Duan Zhu's treatment of "image" and "image", on the one hand, blurs the difference between them, but he reveals the correlation between "image" and "like"; on the other hand, he points out the psychological characteristics of "image", that is, "image" is an imagination of similarity of "things" entering the psychological level. "Image" was originally the "image" of the "thing" itself, but it was transformed into the "image" born for the second time in the mind.
However, there is a third birth of "Xiang" (Zhang Xuecheng). This is two layers away from the original "elephant". However, there are two kinds of "images" of human mind construction, one is abstract, the other is concrete. Only the concrete can be represented by the image, but the abstract can never be. Zhang Xuecheng's theory of "Yixiang" belongs to this category.
Fourth the great form has no shape. It is the image of the imagination. It is constructed for the heart and the imagination in the same level because of the third birth. The fourth birth should be promoted by the HUAWEI transcendental image, the other shore image and the elephant invisible. There is nothing in the world, there is no structure in the human heart, and there is no image that can be described in literature and pictures, that is, the image of "inconceivable". That is, singularity, chaos, image of more than four dimensions. The infinite of change, the singularity of the universe, the wormhole or superstring of multidimensional space-time, the virtual number of mathematics, all in all, things that need to surpass human experience, may be called