Rectitude appears in the depth-psychology corpus primarily through two distinct but converging streams. In the Sinological materials — Wang Bi’s commentary on the I Ching, Liu I-ming’s Taoist I Ching, and the Wilhelm-Baynes translation — rectitude functions as a cosmological and psycho-ethical principle: the condition of being correctly aligned with the movement of Heaven and Earth, such that inner cultivation produces outer consequence. It is not a rigid moral code but a dynamic orientation, inseparable from constancy, centrality, and the Mean. Liu I-ming’s formulations are especially precise: ‘stability in rectitude’ designates that state in which the human mentality ceases and the mind of Tao arises — rectitude as the threshold of transformation rather than a static virtue. Wang Bi consistently glosses ‘constancy’ as ‘rectitude,’ implying that steadfastness without moral orientation is merely inertia. A secondary, implicit register appears in McGilchrist’s hemispheric phenomenology, where rectilinear form and linear progression carry the cognitive signature of the left hemisphere — rigid, sequential, closed — while curvature belongs to the right. This geometrical opposition shadows the ethical one: the straight line as a figure of mechanical imposture contrasted with the living arc of genuine understanding. The tension between rectitude as living alignment and rectitude as brittle rigidity is thus the central problem the corpus bequeaths to readers.
It is effectiveness in submission to what is right, most effective in abiding in faithfulness to rectitude. Only thus is it an auspicious path that is sound in the beginning and sound at the end.
Liu I-ming identifies rectitude as the governing criterion of efficacious action, defining it as faithful abiding within what is cosmologically right rather than as wilful moral assertion.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
“Stability in rectitude” means resting in what is right; one is at peace because of rectitude, and rests in what is appropriate. One aims for the submission of unruliness, the rectification of error, cultivating oneself and controlling the mind.
The Taoist commentary defines ‘stability in rectitude’ as the psychic peace that arises when self-cultivation has eliminated inner disorder, positioning rectitude as both end and method of inner alchemy.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
“Great Strength is such that it is fitting to practice constancy” means that the great behave with rectitude. In such rectitude and greatness the innate tendencies of Heaven and Earth can be seen.
Wang Bi equates constancy with rectitude and elevates it to a cosmological principle, asserting that Heaven and Earth’s own nature is disclosed only through rectitude combined with greatness.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994thesis
Constancy means “rectitude.” If one is able to practice rectitude through using the masses, he can rely on this to become a true sovereign.
Wang Bi’s gloss explicitly equates constancy with rectitude and makes sovereign legitimacy contingent on the ability to sustain rectitude in collective action.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994thesis
Pacifying the people depends on the practice of rectitude, and the promotion of rectitude depends on modesty. Although ‘one should tarry here,’ may his will be set on practicing rectitude.
Wang Bi establishes a causal chain linking modesty to rectitude to social order, showing that rectitude is simultaneously an inner disposition and a political force.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
Clinging to his sense of rectitude, he shall obtain the means to make himself secure.
Wang Bi presents rectitude as the resource that enables the Wanderer — the person displaced from ordinary dwelling — to attain existential security in conditions of dispersion.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
Changing the nature of your temperament to revert to the nature of celestial decree, from not resting in rectitude you change to resting in rectitude; then even though you
The Taoist I Ching frames the movement toward rectitude as a temperamental transformation that realigns the individual with celestial nature, connecting rectitude to the concept of return.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
If one preserves rectitude in spite of weakness, and is not deluded by false yin, one will not be aggrieved even if one does not progress. Therefore one is fortunate through rectitude.
Liu I-ming distinguishes rectitude from outward progress, arguing that maintaining correct inner orientation under conditions of weakness is itself the source of good fortune.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
Although Second Yin possesses the virtues of centrality and rectitude, it is unable to follow them. Whether Second Yin moves or stops is something controlled by the one who exercises rulership over it.
Wang Bi acknowledges the tragic gap between possessing the virtues of centrality and rectitude and being able to enact them, introducing a structural constraint on individual moral agency.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
We have often had reason to return to the difference between a curving motion and a rectilinear motion. Curvature, as I have suggested, is more characteristic of the intellectual world of the right hemisphere.
McGilchrist uses the geometrical opposition between rectilinear and curvilinear motion to map the hemispheric difference, implicitly casting rigid straightness as a cognitive and ontological deficiency.
, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021aside
We have often had reason to return to the difference between a curving motion and a rectilinear motion. Curvature, as I have suggested, is more characteristic of the intellectual world of the right hemisphere.
This parallel passage reinforces McGilchrist’s claim that rectilinearity belongs to the left hemisphere’s reductive cognitive style, providing an implicit phenomenological counterpoint to the I Ching’s positive valorisation of rectitude.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021aside