/lit/ - Literature

>Here the individuation of beings is a transformation of ch’i, from its formlessness to a concrete form— which can also be Qi. Song Yingxing reformulates Wu Xing into a new composition, in which only earth, metal, and wood are related to forms. Fire and water are the two most elementary forces situated in-between form and Qi. All individuated beings in the universe are phenomena of the transformation of ch’i into the forms of Wu Xing. These transformations also follow the cycle of movement: when wood is burnt, it returns to the soil. In Song’s analysis, not unlike Zhang Zai, he doesn’t see Wu Xing in terms of opposing forces, as in ancient philosophy (e.g. water is opposed to fire, metal is opposed to wood), but considers them in terms of intensities which can be combined to produce different compositions. One might say that there is no opposition here, but only different proportions or relations.

>But for these combinations to be possible demands human Intervention, and this is where Qi comes in. Qi or technics is what brings ch’i into forms which may not spontaneouslyoccur in themselves. This is a dimension of ch'i which the New Confucians and the Neo-Confucians disregard when they see the heart as the sole ‘primary mover’ of the causality of phenomena. Song is very precise on this point in ‘On ch’i'. His argument can be summarised in two points: firstly, ch'i can take on forms such as water and fire, and although these elements are opposed to each other, they actually share a common attraction to one another. He uses the metaphor that, when they don’t see each other, they miss each other like wife and husband, mother and son. However, they can ‘see each other’ through human interventions— more precisely, technical activities. Secondly, if we consider a glass of water and a chariot made of wood, when the wood is set on fire, the glass of water cannot produce any effect and will be vaporised by the fire: however, if there is a huge container of water, then the fire will easily be extinguished. Hence it is the question of intensity rather than that of substance that is essential to technological thinking.

>Thus ch’i, according to the principles of Dao, is actualised in different elementary movements: and through human intervention, they are reactualised so as to yield individuated beings— for example in forging, and more generally in the production and reproduction of Qi. Qi thus enters into the circle and enlarges the possibility of combinations of the elementary forms. We might say that the dominant philosophy of nature guided technological thinking in such a way that the artificial had always to be subsumed not only under the principles of movement that we would call physics today, but also under an organic model of combination, a mediation of the relations between different individuated beings.

notice YH’s use of ‘individuation’ here, which i think is part of simondon’s influence.