Yin and Yang
The Chinese cosmological pair denoting complementary, opposing forces whose interplay constitutes all natural and social phenomena.
Yin and yang are the two complementary principles of classical Chinese cosmology. The original Chinese characters refer to the shaded and sunlit sides of a hill, and the philosophical use generalizes from this contrast: yin names the receptive, dark, soft, cold, female, and earthly; yang names the active, bright, hard, hot, male, and heavenly. The two are not moral opposites of good and evil but ontological complements whose continuous interplay constitutes the natural and social world.
The yin-yang framework is foundational to the Yijing (Book of Changes) and to the cosmological speculation of the Han period, where it is integrated with the doctrine of the five phases (wuxing). It informs Daoist alchemy, classical Chinese medicine, and the cosmological background assumptions of Neo-Confucianism. Zhu Xi and the Neo-Confucians drew on yin-yang theory to articulate the relation between the underlying principle (li) and the material force (qi) through which it is realized.
The yin-yang framework is older than its philosophical systematization. The Yijing (Book of Changes), one of the oldest Chinese texts, organizes its sixty-four hexagrams from combinations of the broken yin line and the unbroken yang line. The philosophical use generalizes from this divinatory framework to a comprehensive cosmological account in which the interplay of yin and yang underlies natural cycles, social order, and individual psychology.
Neo-Confucian metaphysics integrated yin-yang with the doctrine of the supreme ultimate (taiji) and the five phases (wuxing) into a comprehensive cosmology. Zhou Dunyi's Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate presents the cosmos as the dynamic differentiation of taiji into yin and yang, then into the five phases, then into the ten thousand things. Zhu Xi systematized this account into the orthodox Neo-Confucian metaphysics that dominated East Asian thought from the twelfth century into the modern period.
How philosophers have framed yin and yang
| Philosopher | Position |
|---|---|
| Lao Tzu | The complementary forces whose interplay constitutes the natural and social world. |
| Zhuangzi | Used to dissolve apparent oppositions into their underlying unity. |
| Confucius | Less central; the Analects work in ritual rather than cosmological vocabulary. |
| Zhu Xi | Integrated with taiji and wuxing into orthodox Neo-Confucian cosmology. |
| Wang Yangming | Treated as a framework for the dynamics of the cultivated mind. |
Representative quotes
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Lao Tzu
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“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64
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Zhuangzi
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“The great bird rises on the wind to a height of a thousand miles. What does it see from on high there in the blue? Is it droves of wild horses galloping? Is it primeval matter whirling in atomic dust? Is it the exhalations that give birth to all things? Is it the blue of the sky itself, or is it only the colour of infinite distance?”
Ch. 1 (tr. Anthony Watson-Gandy and Terence Gordon, from the French of René Grousset, 1952)
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Confucius
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“He that in his studies wholly applies himself to labour and exercise, and neglects meditation, loses his time, and he that only applies himself to meditation, and neglects labour and exercise, only wanders and loses himself.”
The Morals of Confucius , 2nd edition (London, 1724), Maxim X, p. 114
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Zhu Xi
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Attributed to Zhu Xi:
“The investigation of things is the foundation of learning.”
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Wang Yangming
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Attributed to Wang Yangming:
“There are no flowers and trees outside the mind.”
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