The 2009-2010 seminar, conducted jointly with Mr. Stéphane Feuillas, lecturer at the University of Paris 7, was devoted to an introduction to reading the Classic of Change (Zhouyi 周易). The first sessions attempted, based on the " Grand commentaire sur les formules attachées "(Xici dazhuan 繋辤大傳) dating from the late 3rd century BC, to highlight the scope of the work : the anticipation of situations through divination, the understanding of natural transformation, the adjustment to situations that characterizes the conduct of the good man, and the role of hexagrams in the organization and creation of Chinese social, political and cultural space.
These four points suggest that the book, in its arrangement, is perfectly homologous with the cosmos(tiandi 天地) and that what is said about a hexagram refers to primary philosophy, morality or politics.
As this premise has been corroborated by various readings of the " Great Commentary " from the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) to the Song (960-1279), a hypothesis has been formulated : any hermeneutic procedure concerning the book's structure, the composition of hexagrams and their transformation into other signs induces a general philosophy of change. In other words, the interpretative choices and inventiveness displayed by commentators in explaining the various oracular formulas or the mutation of figures not only serve to translate cryptic and sibylline sentences into a more intelligible language, but also determine an original conception of transformation.
Based on this hypothesis, we have introduced a procedure: hexagrammatic modification(guabian 卦變), a technique that posits that any sign of six lines is derived from the transformation of another sign, chosen because of the debates it has sparked in the commentarial history of the Classic of Change. To approach this notion, we began by reading a long text by Zhu Zhen朱震 (1072-1138) from his commentary, the Hanshang Yizhuan 漢上易傳, which reviews the different meanings that should be given to this term.