Introduction
In Chinese philosophy, Yin-Yang correlates with the duality and complementary nature of the universe. Yin marks the feminine, the passive, and the negative. The dark Yin half of the circle resonates with dark aspects of the universe. In contrast, Yang is characterized as a bright and active aspect. How can one not assume that these forces oppose each other when the circle highlights white and black extremes? Although they are opposing forces, they are mutually supportive, meaning their rival nature creates the world’s balance. This concept was highly impactful to the Chinese people since it can influence how they speak and view the world concerning politics and other aspects.
In this paper, we shall examine how the concepts of Yin and Yang in Chinese philosophy related to the worldviews of Western philosophers, including Descartes, Plato, and Nietzsche. In analyzing the differences, one can learn more about the similarities and contrasts between the Yin-Yang in Chinese and Western philosophy and how they tackle the fundamental problems of existence. Thus, the recurrent themes similar to the Chinese philosophy of Yin-Yang and Western philosophy are the constant transformation, balance, and interconnectedness of all elements in the universe.
Overview of Yin-Yang in Chinese Philosophy
From Yin-Yang’s creation, Chinese philosophers have considered this idea to explain everything from the cosmos’ existence to the balance between opposites. No wonder it first appeared in Daoism as it studied harmonious relationships with the natural world in ancient Chinese philosophy (Bunnag, 2019). Chinese people always seemed to seek the world’s balance and harmony, creating two forces to sustain the equilibrium. Later, Yin-Yang permeated Confucianism, from spirituality to the arts and daily life.
We believe everybody strives for harmony; hence, everybody embraces Yin-Yang in various manifestations. As an illustration, Feng Shui, which seems distant from Yin-Yang, reflects its balance principles in spatial arrangement for happiness and better health (Chin et al., 2018). Moy (2021) argues that much traditional Chinese medicine is predicted to treat and maintain the state of Ying-Yang to achieve balance in their health. The Yin-Yang theory plays a significant role in Chinese culture and philosophy, influencing how Chinese people see themselves and the world (Duke, 2019). Many individuals outside of China have embraced the idea of making sense of the tangled web of forces in their lives and the natural world.
People’s thoughts around Yin and Yang reflect their perception of two extremes in every aspect of life. According to the philosophy, Yin and Yang are opposing but complementary forces (Lin, Li, and Roelfsema, 2018). The feminine qualities of Yin include coolness, passivity, and receptivity; the male qualities of Yang-Yang include heat, activity, and originality (Bartsch, 2020). Those who might suppose these qualities are in constant battle with each other are wrong, and even those who do not suppose these are also wrong. As well as, those who suppose that one of them should dominate over another are wrong, and their opponents are also wrong. The idea is that no matter how we push to support either the male or female side, they constantly transform into one another. When one becomes extremely dominant, the world cannot survive. It seeks balance, but not inertia caused by our actions.
Descartes’ Meditations and the Separation of Mind and Body
The Meditations of René Descartes is a collection of musings on life, reality, and the nature of knowledge. Let us highlight that the separation of mind and body is crucial in Descartes’ philosophy. He believed that the mind is the driving force behind human existence, even though it was not physically present (Cellamare, 2019). One of his now-famous declarations is, “I think, therefore I am” (Ariew, 2019, p.205). In this quote, Descartes argued that the mind, rather than the body, is the seat of human awareness and consciousness.
It must be apparent to some of us how such a meditation based on art recollections might connect to old Chinese beliefs. To understand it, we shall ignore the idea that humans are just physical bodies. Descartes believes that body and mind are separated from each other. If we draw a parallel to Yin-Yang, we see that feminine and masculine aspects are also separated. However, some misunderstand Descartes’s duality, pointing out that it is an enemy of interoception (De Vignemont, 2018).
Indeed, the same happens to Yin-Yang with its speculations that black opposes white. Descartes addresses this critique, stating that mind and body are united despite being separated: all are “confused modes of thinking, arising from the union and apparent fusion of mind and body” (De Vignemont, 2018, p. 259). His duality is similar to Yin and Yang’s, where both forces are not opposing but mutually supportive, where one cannot arise without another.
Some superficial thoughts are insufficient to connect Descartes to Yin-Yang, as making a solid statement requires a gentle examination of the Third Meditation. Instead of considering the physiological or introspective level of this mediation, consider the phenomenological one: how do humans experience consciousness, and how do they perceive themselves? Descartes argues that we are imperfect, while everything perfect comes from something divine and sacred as God (Sepetyi, 2021). We all have the objective reality of God in the forms of thoughts and feelings in our minds, while his ultimate subjective reality is God Himself (Kosman, 2023). Curiously, objective reality is less perfect compared to flawless subjective reality.
The idea of comparing God and humans links to duality when two sides are entirely different but not mutually exclusive. Descartes genuinely juxtaposes God’s perfect nature with the source of true knowledge and expertise with the human’s mistaken ideas, fallacies, and errors in reasoning (Sepetyi, 2021). However, neither can establish balance without the other, as they constantly need one another in every aspect.
God’s will corrects human errors, and God’s divinity is dedicated to human misconceptions (McBrayer, 2018). It is similar to Yin and Yang; when one force complements another, both are necessary for maintaining equilibrium. In this context, a Yin-Yang perspective can provide a valuable lens for understanding and reconciling seemingly opposing forces, such as the existence of a perfect God and the problem of evil in the world.
Plato’s Theory of Forms and the Search for Universal Truth
Another possible way to approach the interrelatedness of Western and Eastern philosophy is to consider Plato’s Forms and its reflection of Yin-Yang. The necessity of reason and contemplation in the pursuit of knowledge, as well as the search for universal truth, were major themes in Plato’s Theory of Forms, which significantly impacted the growth of Western philosophy (Anirudh, 2023). The Theory of Forms is foundational to Plato’s philosophy, which holds that the fundamental reality beneath the world of sensory experience consists of abstract, eternal, and unchanging substances (Slote, 2019). In Plato’s view, the Forms, not the imperfect physical objects people experience in the world, are the most real things there are.
Plato considered the Forms to be more substantial than the material world and more accessible to human knowledge. In his perspective, the senses provide erroneous and subjective information about the world outside of control (Xie and Carspecken, 2019). The Forms, on the other hand, are immutable and serve as a rock-solid basis for building objective knowledge and truth.
For Plato, one must look beyond the material world and into the world of the Forms if they are serious about discovering the truth. The intellect should engage in philosophical investigation and contemplation to directly perceive the Forms and acquire knowledge not dependent on immediate sensory input (Anirudh, 2023). In light of these ideas, all true knowledge originates from a consideration of the Forms.
Plato’s Dualism and the World of Forms
According to Plato’s concept of the Forms, there is a world of eternal, immaterial abstractions called the Forms. The physical world is a shadow of these Forms, an imperfect duplicate of the real thing (Lin, Li, and Roelfsema, 2018). Due to his dualism, Plato views the material world as an imperfect and transient reflection of the ideal realm of the Forms (Gracie, 2022). Hence, whether or not Plato’s Forms resembles Yin-Yang hinges on our understanding of Yin-Yang. It seems that Plato’s division between the material world and the world of the Forms is an example of Yin-Yang disharmony (Slote, 2019). In Yin-Yang thought, physical and spiritual realms are seen as two facets of a broader whole, emphasizing the interconnection or monism of all things (Gracie, 2022). It somehow contradicts Plato’s perception of duality.
On the one hand, some evidence suggests that Plato supports Yin-Yang. It comes from the important implications of his Form of Beautiful and Form of Ugly (Sertdemir, 2021). They are two opposing extremes, just like Yin-Yang, which is complementary and interdependent. Although there are some compelling reasons to believe that Plato supports Yin-Yang, it is untenable since his Forms are constant and always stay the same. It directly contradicts the Eastern philosophy of sameness, where Yin becomes Yang and vice versa.
One force can never remain the same for a long time as it naturally transforms and changes into another. A further complication arises when we consider how Plato differentiates between sexes, which contradicts Yin-Yang’s view (He et al., 2021). The key insight here is that the theories that differ in the most fundamental terms of perceiving the nature of reality will never be similar.
Plato’s form theory, on the other hand, might be seen as an auxiliary tenet of Yin-Yang thought. Yin and Yang are represented by dots, one within the other in the Yin-Yang symbol (Duke, 2019). The ideal essence that underlies and informs the material universe can be thought of in the same way as Plato’s Forms (Sertdemir, 2021; Zhang et al., 2020). One interpretation of Plato’s dualism is that it acknowledges the mutually beneficial relationship between the material and immaterial worlds (He et al., 2021). While Plato’s dualism differs from Yin-Yang’s view in some respects, it can also be seen as a symbiotic part of the whole (Lin, Li, and Roelfsema, 2018). The essence of reality can be better understood if individuals consider the relationship between the physical and spiritual worlds and appreciate the interconnectedness of all things.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s Concept of the Eternal Recurrence
Lastly, the idea of Yin-Yang can be compared to the notions of the famous philosopher Nietzsche. The concept of eternal return, or the final acceptance of responsibility that results from embracing the good or terrible results of one’s purposeful activity, is at the core of Nietzsche’s theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022). It contains an urgent call to action to plan people’s activities to make the results acceptable or make it possible to live within an imaginary eternity (Olney, 2020). A philosophical idea known as eternal return, or recurrence, holds that history repeats itself endlessly, meaning that the same actions will continue to take place in precisely the same manner for all of eternity.
Nietzsche’s everlasting repetition tests the ability to uphold life. According to him, the human response to reliving every single event of their life in order is a critical indicator of their readiness to become who they are (Jenkins, 2020). In light of such repetitiveness, we shall focus on Chinese philosophical inconsistency. After a close analysis of the idea of Yin and Yang, it can be seen that the dynamics of this idea are comparable to those of Nietzsche. Like Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory of the endless recurring, which holds that everything in the cosmos will repeat eternally, Yin-Yang’s notion of continuous change and alteration reflects the world (Chin et al., 2018). Both theories contend that life is a constant cycle of change and development rather than having a clear beginning or finish.
At the level of causation, a fixed state does not exist. Natural law states that everything humans see and understand constantly changes (Culham, T., and Lin, 2020). While gases like oxygen (Yin) alter swiftly, solids like stone (Yang) change considerably more slowly (Carley, 2019). One way to express change’s constancy is that Yin constantly transforms into Yang and back again. This position seems to reflect Nietzsche’s recurrence when all processes repeat themselves, similar to Yin-Yang’s cyclical nature (Loeb, 2021). The Yin-Yang concept provides a framework for contemplating the ever-expanding boundaries of the human predicament (Rayman, 2022). As a result, it may be said that the idea of Yin and Yang’s everlasting transformation is similar to Nietzsche’s concept of eternal repetition.
Conclusion
Hence, the continual transformation, balance, and connectivity of all components in the cosmos are recurring concepts shared by Western philosophy and the Chinese Yin-Yang philosophy. This paper examines Western philosophers and their theories through the Yin-Yang, two opposing but mutually supportive forces that maintain balance and harmony. By doing so, we gained a deeper understanding of the contributions of these thinkers.
In particular, it is seen how the Yin-Yang principle can illuminate several philosophical positions, including Descartes’ dualism of mind and body, Plato’s Forms, Aristotle’s soul, Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence, and Hegel’s dialectical approach. The paper has also examined how the Yin-Yang theory of Taoism might shed light on the significance of recognizing the interconnection of all things and living in harmony with nature. The paper concludes by emphasizing the significance of the Yin-Yang relationship from both the Chinese and Western philosophical perspectives.
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