Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed by Yong Huang (review)

Abstract

YONG HUANG, Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. xiii, 175 pp. £16.99 (pb). ISBN 978-1-4411-9653-8 Yong Huang’s Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed is a unique introduction to early Confucian thought from the perspective of comparative analytic philosophy. Instead of attempting a broad summary of the main themes and ideas attributed to Confucius, Huang focuses on four philosophical issues summarized in the titles of chapters 2–5: (2) ‘‘Morality: Why you should not turn the other cheek;’’ (3) ‘‘Virtue: How to love virtue as you love sex;’’ (4) ‘‘Moral education: How to teach what can only be learned by oneself;’’ and (5) ‘‘Filial piety: Why an upright son does not disclose his father stealing a sheep.’’ The first chapter is a historical introduction: ‘‘The life of Confucius: A ‘homeless dog.’’’ Throughout the book Huang draws freely not just from the Analects (Lunyu 論 語) of Confucius but from nearly the entire body of texts containing statements attributed to Confucius and details of his life. These include the Shiji 史記 [Historical records] of Sima Qian 司馬遷, the Guoyu 國語 [Sayings of the states], the Liji 禮記 [Record of ritual], the Da Dai Liji 大戴禮記 [The elder Dai’s Liji], the Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 [Mr. Lü’s Spring and Autumn (annals)], the Xiaojing 孝經 [Scripture of filiality], the Kongzi jiayu 孔子家語 [Statements of Confucius’ family], and the other three of the ‘‘Four Books’’ (Mengzi 孟子, Daxue 大學, and Zhongyong 中庸). This method has both advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, it enables Huang to flesh out with much greater clarity many of the fragmentary and obscure ideas in the Analects. But since the historical accuracy of these later texts is highly contested, it should be incumbent upon the author to justify their usage. One way to do this would be to distinguish explicitly between the ‘‘historical Confucius’’1 and the figure of Confucius accepted by the later tradition—what some have called the ‘‘canonical Confucius.’’ Yet the only mention of the problem is in the publisher’s blurb: [T]his book also brings into discussion those sayings of Confucius that are recorded in other texts, greatly expanding our perspective of the original Confucius. Scholars in the past, unsure about the authenticity of such sayings, have been reluctant to use them in discussing Confucius’ view. However, recent archaeological findings have shown that at least some of them are reliable. Some, to be sure, but certainly not all. For example, in chapter 1 Huang summarizes at face value Sima Qian’s story about Confucius meeting Laozi 老子. There is no hint whatsoever that the scholarly world for nearly a century has acknowledged that ‘‘Laozi’’ is a purely mythic figure personifying the multiple authors of the Daodejing 道德經, or that ‘‘Laozi’’ is not even a name: it means 1 This is not to imply that the Analects is entirely trustworthy; it was compiled over a period of more than one-hundred years after Confucius’ death. But, especially in its earlier chapters, it is much closer to the historical Confucius than texts like the Kongzi jiayu, which many scholars believe to be a third-century CE forgery. See, for example, Paul R. Goldin, Rituals of the Way: The Philosophy of Xunzi (Chicago: Open Court, 1999), 135, n. 53. 158 BOOK REVIEWS ‘‘Old Master(s),’’ not ‘‘Master Lao.’’ This is the most egregious example of what could be considered an ahistorical perspective. The rest of this biographical chapter is highly entertaining, as it contains much more detail about Confucius’ comings and goings than we usually encounter in studies of the historical Confucius. But it is marred by the absence of authorial assistance in sorting out what might and might not be historical. The chapter also contains an inordinate number of errors in English usage; it appears not to have been copy-edited at all. Once the caveat is borne in mind that we are really discussing Confucius as represented in the later tradition, not necessarily the historical Confucius, and also that we are focusing strictly on moral philosophy, this book is definitely worth reading. Chapter 2 focuses on two quite different answers to the question: ‘‘What is the appropriate attitude towards wrongdoers?’’ (p. 37). According to the Gospel of Matthew (5...