Consulting the Elder: Intertextuality in the “Lord Ai Asked” Confucian Dialogues

Those working in Confucian ethics will notice that Ing tends to view Confucian ethics solely in terms of rituals and to interpret Confucian texts as being primarily focused on ritual behavior. At times he seems to present all ethical actions as ritual actions, and while there are relationships between the two in early Confucian texts and they sometimes overlap, an important distinction remains. Indeed, early Confucian texts raise many issues in ethics that are not primarily focused on ritual behavior. Scholars in Confucian ethics also may wonder how the view of vulnerability that Ing describes compares with prominent accounts that have been given by philosophers like Martha Nussbaum and Alasdair MacIntyre, and whether those working in Confucian ethics (even those using virtue-ethical approaches) have as much in common as Ing argues they do. It also seems to me that some contemporary interpreters describe the doubts and vulnerabilities of early Confucians to a greater extent than Ing suggests (and in works he does not discuss).1 Ing’s effort to highlight the importance of the Liji and his claim that Confucian views of ritual can make significant contributions to ritual theory are most laudable, although he departs from the Liji partly in order to argue against the interpretations of scholars working on other early Confucian texts. At one point he says these interpretations ‘‘are not necessarily misreadings of the texts—I am, of course, speaking about the Liji, whereas most other contemporary scholars are writing about the Analects, Mencius, or Xunzi, and as such I remain open to the possibility that there are significant differences between these texts’’ (p. 77). But Ing’s critique suggests that he thinks these early texts all present the same view of ritual failure— something that I doubt the scholars he criticizes, or others working in Confucian ethics, would easily accept. Given that one of Ing’s central aims is to show how the Liji presents a distinctive view of ritual and is therefore worth studying, one cannot help but wonder: if the Liji offers a novel theory of ritual and if a concern with unpreventable failures of ritual is one of the central features of that theory, is it possible that contemporary scholars of early Confucianism have not addressed this matter because other early Confucian texts are not as concerned with it? ERIN M. CLINE Georgetown University MARIA JASCHOK and SHUI JINGJUN, Women, Religion, and Space in China: Islamic Mosques & Daoist Temples, Catholic Convents & Chinese Virgins. New York and London: Routledge, 2011. xx, 276 pp. US$125/£80 (hb). ISBN 978-0-41587485 -4 Following their pioneering study of women and Islam, Maria Jaschok and Shui Jingjun’s new book makes another major contribution to the study of women and 1 For example, Ing criticizes the interpretations of Edward Slingerland and Philip J. Ivanhoe, but does not discuss or cite Slingerland’s major work, Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), or works by Ivanhoe such as Confucian Moral Self Cultivation (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000) and ‘‘Heaven as a Source for Ethical Warrant in Early Confucianism,’’ Dao 6 (2007): 211–220. All of these works seem to problematize Ing’s view. BOOK REVIEWS 163 gender in the history of Chinese religions. So far this is the only book-length study on women and religion through the twentieth-century and contemporary China. As the title makes clear, it offers wide coverage of women’s experiences within three different religious institutions—Daoist, Catholic, and Islamic—and its local focus is in Kaifeng 開封, Zhengzhou 鄭州, and Jin’gang 靳崗, in both urban and rural Henan 河南 province, a part of north-central China that still remains understudied by scholars of Chinese religions. The effective collaboration of the two authors also brings out the best in combining theoretical sophistication with an in-depth exploration of historical texts, archival materials, and ethnographic data. Jaschok and Shui claim to follow in the footsteps of feminist historians like Dorothy Ko and Susan Mann in dispelling the ‘‘victim narratives’’ that defined the ‘‘traditional Chinese woman’’ as ‘‘victimized, passive, and vulnerable to abuse outside her allocated sphere of respectable female place and conduct’’ (p. 13...

This guide accompanies the following article(s): Sor‐hoon Tan, “Democracy in Confucianism,” Philosophy Compass 7.5 (May 2012): 293–303, DOI: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2012.00481.x Author’s Introduction Debates about the relation between democracy and Confucianism have seen views that range from attempts to show that some form, or at least the seeds, of democracy could be found in Confucianism, or that it is compatible with liberal or other forms of democracy, to the other extreme of labelling “Confucian democracy” an oxymoron and using Confucianism to criticize the excesses of Western liberal democracies or resist democratization based on Western liberal models and argue for alternative forms of good government. Has there been and can there be democracy in Confucianism? Do East Asian societies with a cultural legacy of Confucianism have to choose between their cultural heritage, and perhaps identity, on the one hand and democratic values associated with modernity on the other, and if so, how should they choose? These questions are highly relevant for today’s East Asian societies, and also important for other societies interacting with East Asian societies. They help us understand the influence of Confucianism on East Asian thinking about politics and government and may influence the political development of those societies. Exploring the question may be enlightening by raising questions for contemporary political philosophies and offering alternative views about democracy and good government. Author Recommends Angle, Stephen. Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross‐Cultural Inquiry . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. This book examines the Chinese discourse about human rights, and argues for a way to take human rights seriously without riding rough shod over Chinese intellectual tradition. Bell, Daniel A. Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. This work argues for an alternative to liberal democracy, based on key values and institutions the author identifies with Confucianism, that he believes would be more suitable for East Asian societies. See also criticisms and Bell’s response in Philosophy East and West 59 (Oct 2009). Chan, Joseph, “Moral Autonomy, Civil Liberties, and Confucianism.” Philosophy East and West 52 (Jul 2002): 281–310. This article identifies four elements in Western concepts of moral autonomy, and argues that only two can be found in early Confucian texts. It constructs a case for civil rights based on the “thin” moral autonomy found in Confucianism. de Bary, Wm. Theodore. The Liberal Tradition in China . Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1983. The author argues that, despite China’s reputation for despotism, there is a limited kind of liberal tradition to be found in Confucian philosophy of personal cultivation, conscientious dissent, and pursuit of sagehood. de Bary, Wm. Theodore and Tu Wei‐ming, eds. Confucianism and Human Rights . New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Contributions to the debate about human rights and Confucianism by important scholars, including Irene Bloom, Julia Ching, Henry Rosemont, Chung‐ying Cheng, and Peter Zarrow. Elstein, David. ‘Why Early Confucianism Cannot Generate Democracy.’ Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 9 (Dec 2010): 427–43. This article argues against proponents of “Confucian democracy” with a detailed analysis of the Pre‐Qin Confucian texts, and concedes only the possibility of “Confucian‐inspired democracy.” Hall, David L. and Roger T. Ames. Democracy of the Dead: Dewey, Confucius, and the Hope for Democracy in China . La Salle: Open Court, 1999. With the context of significant cultural and historical differences between China and the West, this book argues that liberal democracy does not suit China, but an alternative democratic future might be found for China in John Dewey’s conception of democracy. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 34 (June 2007), special issue on Democracy and Chinese Philosophy. Rosemont, Henry, Jr. ‘Which Rights? Whose Democracy? A Confucian Critique of Western Liberal Tradition.’ Confucian Ethics. Eds Kwong‐loi Shun and David Wong. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. One of the strongest critics of attempts to “import” rights concepts into Confucianism, in view of the many inadequacies of liberal democracy itself. Tan, Sor‐hoon. Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction . Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. This book argues that Confucianism and Deweyan democracy, which emphasizes community without sacrificing individual freedom, provide a way of reconciling Confucianism with democracy. It approaches the issue through comparative philosophical analysis of key concepts of community, freedom, equality, and authority, and the relationship between ethics and politics in western philosophical discourses and in early Confucian texts. Online Materials “On the Compatibility between Confucian Principles and Democracy.” [Online]. Retrieved from: http://www.confucius2000.com/confucius/otcbcpad.htm Xu Keqian maintains that the direction of China’s political development is democratic and attempts to contribute to the effort to find indigenous cultural resources for “a democratic Chinese system with Chinese characteristics.” The China Beat: “China, Democracy, or Confucianism?” [Online]. Retrieved from: http://thechinabeat.blogspot.com/2008/06/china‐democracy‐or‐confucianism.html A post by Xujun Eberlein discussing the work of Jiang Qing, a contemporary Chinese thinker advocating a conservative institutional Confucianism that challenges Western liberal democracy. Manyul Im’s Chinese Philosophy blog: “Confucius: Democracy’s Advocate.” [Online]. Retrieved from: http://manyulim.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/confucius‐democracy‐advocate/ A string of discussions with several contributors sceptical about democratic interpretations of Confucianism, and some arguing for non insidious authoritarian regimes with Confucian virtues. “Democracy, Human Rights, and Confucian Values: Reconstructing Confucian Political Thought for China’s Development.” [Online]. Retrieved from: http://www.cornell.edu/video/?videoID=1957 Video Recording of a lecture given by Joseph Chan, Professor of Politics at the University of Hong Kong, in the Cornell Program on Ethics and Public Life (Mar

The introduction to this special issue describes the emergence of the virtue ethics approach within the study of Confucian virtues in recent decades. It will first examine scholarly contributions to the discussion of Confucian virtue ethics and then raises questions concerning whether or not de 德 in early Confucian texts is identical with arête or virtue. It will then investigate the meaning and implication of de in Confucian contexts and make an argument for a new type of Confucian de ethics. It will finally come to the project on de and virtue ethics in early Confucian texts and define its purpose and boundaries.

Modern Western convictions that freedom, equality, and personal autonomy are all crucial human goods structure both our thinking and our practice in deep and pervasive ways. Even when these values do not thoroughly shape our politics, we tend to judge this as a failing. While there is much to celebrate about these ideals and even their imperfect realization in various spheres of modern life, they also cast long shadows that confuse our self-understanding and muddle our interpretation of alien cultures and the possibilities they present. These shadows also obscure crucial ethical and political issues, notably regarding interpersonal authority and hierarchical social relations.1For instance, a dominant modern Western tendency, especially among intellectuals, is to exalt individual autonomy and to be suspicious of hierarchical relations, which are often conceived in terms of domination that is either direct and forceful or subtle and soul-crippling. This tendency to interpret hierarchy in terms of domination echoes and reinforces the attention given to justifying coercive authority in political theory. In other words, much contemporary political theory concerns the question of who might be justified in ruling, and thereby controlling the state's power to compel obedience (e.g., through military, legal, and penal systems). These tendencies, however, easily trick social critics into reading any sort of hierarchy as by definition an exercise in domination that is at best a necessary evil—something that needs to be tolerated but limited as much as possible. But certain sorts of hierarchy are not only necessary in the negative sense that we have not figured out how to live communally without coercive force; they are also necessary in a more positive sense, because human flourishing relies on certain forms of hierarchy. It would help contemporary Westerners to better understand these issues, both so that we are not tempted to attack one of the conditions of our own happiness, and so that we may also avoid the reactive temptation to defend too many kinds of hierarchical authority as good.The larger project from which this essay derives aims to explore the pursuit of mastery as a potentially compelling justification for hierarchical relationships, one that avoids certain pitfalls familiar from Western justifications and critiques of various kinds of social authority, including slavery and the subordination of women. Reflecting upon what it might mean to master an activity, art, or mode of being can show what sorts of hierarchical relations are necessary and constructive for creatures like us, with relatively adaptable instincts that are inevitably and dramatically shaped by culture, language, and practice.2 Human flourishing, it would seem, requires investment in the practice of mastery, both of self and of various activities.3Despite this, liberal political theory, which represents the mainstream of American political philosophy, has little interest in or sympathy with attempts to cultivate human potentials in any organized, public way. Such efforts are often seen as smacking of "perfectionism," the supposedly futile and destructive effort by government to demand a heroic level of virtue from the general populace.4 The fear behind these criticisms is of tyrannical government, a fear nurtured over centuries in the modern West through struggles against oppressive kings, religious leaders, and other elites, against slavery as a paradigm of unjust domination, and finally against totalitarianism. There are very real dangers here that should not be overlooked.In this essay I explore these issues by moving through a sequence of steps. First, I briefly expand and nuance the claims made above about "the modern West" and our suspicion of hierarchy, through historical arguments about the development of a view of people as free makers of contracts rather than as holders of birth-related statuses. The point of this first section is to make plausible the idea that contemporary Westerners need to rethink our understanding of authority and hierarchy. In the second section I argue, perhaps surprisingly, that ancient Chinese thought, especially a number of implicit and explicit early accounts of salutary teacher–student relations, offers important and underutilized resources for reexamining these issues. In the third section, I consider one influential early Chinese text, the "Inner Chapters" of the Zhuāngzǐ. This text might at first seem to fit poorly with the account of teaching relations discussed in the second section, but I argue that we should be suspicious of anachronistic readings of this text as advocating freedom and even liberation. Instead, the Inner Chapters seem to suggest that human beings need teachers to attain crucial insights into life, and that we should conform to at least some powers, forces, and authorities, but reject others as counterfeit.Needless to say, the history of the development of the modern world is so complicated that it is far beyond the scope of this essay to grapple with it adequately. Instead, I propose to briefly discuss the ideal of autonomy as a central feature of modern consciousness, one that is probably the most important cause of our difficulties in comprehending and properly evaluating relations of authority and dependence. Let us begin with a landmark in intellectual history, Sir Henry Maine's (1866) Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society, and Its Relation to Modern Ideas.5Maine's book established the historical study of law as a worthwhile intellectual endeavor, and it was a classic and extremely influential version of world-spanning, evolutionarily inclined, nineteenth-century European comparative argument. Maine's central thesis was that human social history could be summarized as the move "from status to contract," with the invention of contractual relations and their attendant legal and institutional support system being a distinctively modern development. In contrast, ancient law, which mostly enumerated custom from time immemorial, reflected a society based on the status of various persons, such as wives, children, and slaves, within patriarchal households. Only the father could enter into legal contracts; all others were unfree dependents without the legal and property rights of the father. Maine's key motif is gradual emancipation: over time more social relations are conceived on the model of a contract entered into freely by equal citizens under the rule of law, and fewer relationships are defined by the status, with associated duties and prerogatives, of the parties involved.In this account, autonomous agents who can own property, control their own activity, and freely enter into binding contracts regarding, for example, their own labor, become the modern norm. Other relations, such as slavery or the dependence of wives on husbands, are marked as archaic. Maine thereby demarcates the modern liberal realm of the public and contrasts it with a private realm where ancient survivals lingered on, perhaps out of biological necessity. This mapping of social life continues to capture central features of the modern cultural imagination. A crucial consequence of these developments is a sense that hierarchical relations are somehow strange and questionable because they deviate from the model of autonomously chosen agreements between equals.6The political and moral appeal of autonomy as an ideal is found in the thought that domination of other human beings is wrong and should be prohibited to the greatest extent possible; protecting individual autonomy has seemed to many to be an essential, defining component of struggles against oppression. Suspicion of domination, even in seemingly benign forms, has very deep roots in the West, which are discernible in two large and complex historical trends: the repeated debates over the practice of slavery and the gradual growth of the "social contract" tradition of political theorizing, which takes the autonomous household head as its basic unit.The central place of slavery in classical Greek and Roman culture, including the formative era of Christianity, is historically indisputable; this heritage was the backdrop for both the growth and gradual dismantling of the transatlantic slave-based economy. Both the defense of slavery as natural (drawing primarily on Aristotle) and/or divinely ordained (drawing on Paul's epistles and other New Testament texts), and the criticisms of it as inhuman and evil, have shaped much Western thinking about subordination, authority, and obedience.7The social contract tradition served historically as a counterweight to conservative efforts to support slavery and other status-centered conceptions of social life, and helps to explain the broad appeal of Maine's narration of modern history. The social contract tradition is quite rich and complex in its own right.8 This variety matters because only some conceptions of autonomy, such as Kant's, make strong contrasts between autonomy and "heteronomy," designed to call into question any kind of obedience and submission as intrinsically degrading. Kant also roots this insistence on autonomy in equally strong assumptions about human nature as defined and constituted by rational agency, seen as true regardless of culture, history, individual effort, or any other empirical factor. However, some sophisticated liberal theorists, particularly in the philosophy of education, have recognized that liberal democracy itself constitutes a cultural tradition, with a set of norms and practices, which shape people and actively cultivate citizens' habits of autonomy, understood in various ways.9The basic idea of this work, with which I concur, is that becoming free and autonomous is not spontaneous or necessary, but a project of human training and formation that requires amazing investments of time, practice, energy, and resources.10 Autonomy is, in other words, a project of self-mastery, which partakes of a long tradition of practices of personal formation. Such projects are almost invariably social, relying on teachers, guides, and a community of aspirants. Thus, a defensible conception of autonomy will recognize the crucial importance of formation and even what might seem to be "paternalism" in the care and training of aspiring autonomous agents.At a deeper level, however, one can question whether a commitment to individual autonomy, whether nuanced and socially informed or uncompromising and Kantian, provides the best basis for thinking about relationships of authority, or even human relationships in general. Henry Rosemont in particular has argued that relationship-centered conceptions of the person in early China, especially in early Confucianism, provide a strong, helpful contrast to modern Western assumptions about "autonomous individuals."11 Though suggestive, Rosemont's work unfortunately oversimplifies and even caricatures Western advocacy of autonomy, and furthermore, it neither recognizes nor considers the subtle similarities between early Confucian accounts of self-cultivation and more nuanced conceptions of autonomy as a human achievement. A sufficiently sophisticated comparative engagement between modern Western accounts of autonomy and alternative traditions of ethics would be a book-length project, but we can pursue a preliminary exploration here.A number of strategies might suggest themselves to people trying to imagine other ways of thinking about hierarchy and authority. One could start from an abstract model of proper authority, a direct dialectical engagement with current ideas, or a historical retrieval of some past Western theory or tradition. However, I propose a careful engagement with early Chinese ideas about hierarchy, particularly as manifest in writings about teacher–student relationships. This might seem bizarre. Since at least the nineteenth century, many Westerners have seen China as a paradigm case of "oriental despotism," purportedly marked by a widespread culture of authoritarian leadership and alarming subservience among the populace. However, simple Western portraits of China often have more to do with observers' anxieties than any deep insight into the complex realities of East Asia.12 And while there are certainly authoritarian strands in Chinese culture, they hardly serve as the timeless essence of China; there are other aspects of Chinese civilization that can help us escape from dichotomies like authoritarian/liberating.For several reasons, reflecting on ancient China provides a particularly suitable opportunity for reevaluating these issues. First, the social order was in considerable flux for hundreds of years, and basic questions about ethics and politics were being actively debated, with numerous possibilities explored and tried. Second, one of the most objectionable justifications for hierarchy in the West was never used: no text suggests, as Aristotle does in the Politics, that different classes of humans possess different "natures," which justify their social roles, infamously including those apparent humans who are supposedly "natural slaves."13 Instead, justifications for social hierarchy were made on other grounds. Kingship, for example, was often based on familial lineage or divine favor (grounded in a positive but reversible judgment about a leader's moral character and ritual responsibility). Most notably, early Chinese thinkers invented the idea of meritocracy, a theory of government suggesting that those who are most talented and perform the most effectively should be systematically given greater power and responsibility, and various thinkers debated different versions of such a system as ideas of merit came into conflict. Not surprisingly, various hierarchical relationships, such as the lord–minister and teacher–student relationships, were socially problematic and contested, and hence widely debated.Teaching relationships are particularly relevant for comparative ethical analysis. Unlike in famously tense and dangerous lord–minister relations, teachers were not primarily concerned with a need to control the behavior of their subordinates. In lieu of the quest for control, such relationships could rely on other modes of interaction and seek other ends. The primary explicit end of such relationships was frequently the cultivation of dé 德, which is usually translated as "virtue," but which also has strong connotations of leadership and charisma. However, before examining depictions of teaching relationships in one such text, the Zhuāngzǐ, in greater detail, we should first introduce its social and intellectual context more fully.The most fertile period in early Chinese intellectual history is aptly characterized as the Warring States period (481–221 BCE). The previous era, known as the Spring and Autumn period (780–481 BCE), was characterized by the gradual collapse of efforts to defend a centralized Zhou empire, and the social system of familial, "feudal" methods of government. Old loyalties to the Zhou king were gradually replaced by self-interested efforts to gain power by a host of smaller states that engaged in increasingly fierce warfare in a contest for dominance. These problems were replicated within states as ministers, supposedly loyal to their local lord, would plot rebellion and seize states for themselves and their families. By the Warring States period, seven large states had emerged and were engaged in nearly continuous wars for territory and influence. Intense interstate competition on all fronts led to a market for educated men who could staff growing state bureaucracies, for skilled military strategists and diplomats, and for intellectuals who could provide compelling visions of good or at least effective government.14Relations between rulers and their ministers were quite fraught, and opportunities for treachery abounded. From blood oaths of fealty to careful specification of job requirements and performance that would yield either ample salary or harsh punishment, numerous novel arrangements to recruit, retain, and control loyal, hard-working subordinates were tried in order to replace older methods of enfeoffing relatives. In this context educated talent was in demand, and this stimulated a market in educational services, arguably started by Confucius himself (i.e., Kǒngzǐ, c. 551–479 BCE).Warring States texts appear to have developed in tandem with various teaching groups, and these writings provide ample evidence that "masters," shī 師, of quite various "arts" or "techniques," shù 術, trained students and consulted with leaders. Historian Mark Edward Lewis (1999, 53–97) sees the whole phenomenon of early Chinese extra-governmental writing as centered on "master" figures, whom he thinks are largely constituted by their respective textual traditions. Lewis focuses on the "teaching scene" that characterizes texts like the Analects and Mèngzǐ as the defining formal feature of such texts; he thinks these dramatic encounters between wise masters and aspiring learners expose deep commitments in these traditions about the character of true wisdom and sageliness, the limited adequacy of language, and proper methods of teaching and leadership.15Lewis overstates the sense in which famous masters like Mèngzǐ were constituted as characters in and through the texts that bear their names, which were written by their disciples and perhaps others. He also understates the power of particular theories, ideas, and practices in and the various early Chinese textual traditions. he is to point to the widespread formal especially in of the being as of the some this to a social in which older men set themselves as teachers and men as Early Confucian for example, relationships between a master and who seem to have or at least in for many textual traditions reflected different social and there is a crucial between textual traditions that or "virtue," dé 德, and those that such efforts with suspicion or dé texts written by the or as as texts such as the and the Zhuāngzǐ. of their that humans should possess one could call these texts the better the Other textual traditions show little interest in or are about its or These texts the and two have different hierarchical The texts that dé the ideal of and seem to to seek a realization of human the these texts the of the often hierarchical relationships within teaching as characterized by the of and and the of and for the or in these texts tend to with authority, relying on the and of their only thinkers also political would in the by of they recognized the between their ideals and the of their social contrast, the dé and methods of control that they are to political and military view human beings more often as to be than as agents to be A in these regardless of their is to attain effective and control of subordinates. this end these texts explore and various methods for including rule by of law, the of and and about and These in other words, care more about in the sense of the to compel others to a than they do about authority, and which they view as questionable that will under with most have written at on aspects of early texts that are relevant to these Most of the early seem to have personal of which they as not only good character but also skilled and moral The Analects and Mèngzǐ both their respective masters questions and and to most of whom are as loyal and even also relationships between masters and their and celebrate the of and personal formation as a of these will be often in the early text Zhuāngzǐ, to which I is a text usually as on the basis of tradition, in the It has and influential in East particularly in and traditions. The of the text is known as the "Inner Chapters" and to be mostly the work of one the historical BCE), the whole of the text, probably including the Inner I on this early other in the book is relevant to this central large number of in the Inner Chapters to the and of the are various sorts of "teaching which characters cast as masters and as as a of traditions about Confucius and It is to the number of such in the text, but probably at least of the Inner Chapters of these teaching These in an of with many sorts of people teaching in quite various ways. of master to are as the social in which much of life in the text to a about this and a but exploration of its And what is often characterized as the about in the second the Inner Chapters seem to be by questions of and questions about which characters from the past are and which in the should be and which to how thought about the possibilities of teaching various hierarchical relations, first discuss some of the the text to The most concerns what to make of the of of the of teaching relationships in by or such as Confucius and other historical whom for own In contrast to most other early where there is no question who the master questions is, one of the defining features of the is the variety of characters who some as or The do not seem to be but the do rely on of these characters and their example, Confucius and disciples seem to in different and most talented what appear to be about how to and with power holders but also as a when in he about and attempts to this into a for disciples in the in where to is cast as to the who it in some sense, but who has by to within the we are not here with an like one in the writings of where is to a certain sort of on life, or on Instead, different seek to make different in this sense the Inner Chapters are of the of Kǒngzǐ, the master of the who would to particular disciples on what they to at any given in judgment (e.g., it is perhaps a more version of that Thus, as we should not to by different or key or to into a The text is more like a than a and any at a reading will need to account of textual important consequence of this is a sense of about what to make of any given especially given the that the master might out to be more to the of as is, for example, in to or the is not by the of some or some he or is into a of the of insight a given character to this state of at least when to in one of the out for in as those of the and their the need to that the about teachers and students are above all rather than of behavior and even some can show what would have a account of behavior at the The nature of most of the in the Inner Chapters that the of particular may not be and given the of the with modern is often quite but it is in the of the time, especially in the of which the and as as several some are and many are quite but not all of The between and is a feature of the in the text seem to work on at about alternative while also various positive can begin to explore the various and in the about hierarchy, authority, and teaching relationships. In terms of general I suspicious of modern readings of the text as advocating freedom and from all Such seem to to be our own into a very different does suggest that certain people can beyond various this is of attack on various or of life, that were actively by others in and on the habits of and that he thinks they all But there is a more positive to the text as advocating what is often in as the or that from as a in with and its own I to provide however, is not a interpretation of the and of the Inner but rather an of the of various of and for authority, as as the repeated within the text of teaching relationships of various In I that humans need real teachers, who can help us the true nature of life and our place in the but that such teachers often in In the I the text as itself as a to and even for such teachers, should wise to I also argue that does not rebellion

In this article, I show that women are depicted in the early Confucian texts not primarily as undertaking household duties or nurturing children but rather as partaking in rituals of mourning and ancestor worship. To make the argument, I analyze, besides the more philosophical texts like the Analects and the Mencius, texts known as the “Five Classics,” which describe women in their social roles in much more detail than the former. What women’s participation in rituals reveals, I contend, is that the domestic-political distinction does little to illuminate the philosophical vision offered by the early Confucian texts. Relatedly, while women’s involvement in communal religious rituals has also been noted about early Greece, the political import of such participation is even more pronounced in the Confucian case. Specifically, I show that, by embodying intergenerational continuity, the mourning and ancestor rituals that women partake in are foundational to the Confucian state.

This study investigates the roles of wang (忘, forgetting) and buwang (不忘, non-forgetting) in early Confucian texts, emphasizing their interdependence within a yin–yang framework. Rather than signifying total erasure, for the purposes of the mnemic process, wang functions as a selective and creative mode, aiding cognitive refinement by withdrawing content considered secondary or extraneous. Primarily through close textual analysis of the Analects (Lunyu 論語), Mengzi (孟子), and Xunzi (荀子), this study shows how wang and buwang operate relationally, avoiding polar extremes in favor of a dynamic equilibrium. Conceptually, I argue that these terms are more accurately aligned with suspended and attentive modes of awareness, respectively. Tracing their pattern across these sources reveals the affirmative role of wang in optimizing memory, distancing the Confucian tradition from the notion of oblivion and offering a foundational perspective for future explorations of early Chinese memory-related discussions.

Contributors to the debates about the compatibility of Confucianism and democracy and its implications for China’s democratization often adopt definitions of democracy that theories of deliberative democracy are critical of. Attention to deliberative democracy is timely given its importance in democratic discourses and recent experiments in “deliberative” or “consultative” democracy in China. Would Confucian understanding of political deliberation help or hinder deliberative democracy? This essay compares the concept of yi in the early Confucian texts with a contemporary concept of democratic deliberation. The differences between the concept of yi in early Confucian texts and the concept of democratic deliberation show that the presence of deliberation, even when they meet stringent norms, does not guarantee that the politics would be democratic. Rather, the political environment and processes must be democratized for deliberation to be democratic. This comparative study considers how the similarities between two concepts, and other aspects of Confucian philosophy might be deployed to close the gap between early Confucian view of ideal government and deliberative democracy. At the same time, it does not simply embrace all aspects of the chosen democratic theory, but argues that Confucian deliberative democracy may differ significantly, for example, in approaching politics from the perspective of a comprehensive ethical theory. In doing so, it offers a different conception of deliberative democracy and shows how the chosen theory is limited by certain assumptions specific to its own context and that the understanding of deliberative democracy needs to be expanded and modified to approach genuine universalism.

This paper is intended to construct a particular Confucian paradigm of the good life as ascribed in the early Confucian texts. To fully appreciate this paradigm, we will investigate how virtue and wisdom converge at the joyfulness of life, what kind of roles wealth and friendship play in the good life, and why joy is said to be derived from virtue and wisdom and yet able to make full of them.

The subject of this research is a critical analysis of the Confucian canon "Li Ji" from a feminist perspective, grounded in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. The study focuses on the ethical status of women within the Confucian ritual-moral system and reveals how female subjectivity is structurally excluded from the realm of ethical expression. Attention is given to both the textual mechanisms that reinforce gender otherness and the forms of female response, which are simultaneously imbued with emotionality and normative discipline. Using Levinas's concept of the Other, the work aims to show that women in "Li Ji" function as ethical carriers but not as recognized subjects capable of calling to account. Thus, the research contributes to understanding the possibility of the female voice as the beginning of ethical relations within the patriarchal canon. The study employs a comparative philosophical method, combining a critical reading of the Confucian text with feminist analysis and the conceptual apparatus of Levinas's ethics to reveal gender asymmetries in the structure of moral recognition. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the interdisciplinary interpretation of the Confucian canon "Li Ji" at the intersection of feminist critique and the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. The main methods used include hermeneutic analysis, intertextual approaches, and critical-discursive readings of key concepts such as "ritual," "obedience," and "difference." The study shows that despite women's active participation in ritual-ethical practice, their status as a Person remains invisible and unrecognized within the moral structure. The work demonstrates how the normative logic of the text generates an effect of ethical silence, structurally placing women in the position of the responding subject while excluding them from the possibility of being initiators of moral calls. This gender bias in the Confucian model necessitates philosophical deconstruction. In conclusion, the necessity to rethink the very foundation of ethical relations and affirm the female voice as an equal and autonomous source of ethical subjectivity and moral expression is emphasized.

This chapter explores irresolvable value conflicts with regard to sages. It begins with portrayals of early sages such as Yao and Shun as compromised figures in a broad array of early Chinese texts. This serves as a context for understanding how early Confucians stressed the virtuous nature of sages on the one hand and accepted portions of the broader discourse of compromise on the other. To illustrate this the chapter looks more closely at the case of Wu Wang 武王‎ and shows that early Confucian texts were ambivalent about his violent overthrow of the Shang dynasty. This chapter also looks at Kongzi and builds off the notion of transgression discussed in chapter 4 to show that he was also understood as a conflicted figure.

Since the 80’s of the last century a trend has emerged in the English language literature on Chinese thought that suggests reading early Confucian texts as a form of virtue ethics. However, Alasdair MacIntyre has presented early Confucian and Aristotle’s thoughts as incommensurable thought systems and doubted that notions and statements of one incommensurable thought system can be adequately expressed and addressed within the framework of another. This article discusses MacIntyre’s position and two strategies - employed by the proponents of virtue ethics interpretation of early Confucian texts - of meeting MacIntyre’s challenge. The article attempts to show that none of the responses were successful, thus leaving the quest for the most adequate philosophical framework to interpret early Confucian ethical thought open.

What is the metaphysical background to early Confucian ethics? Is there a distinctive picture of reality that informs texts such as theAnalects,Mencius, andXunzi? Contemporary interpreters disagree on the answer to these questions, a division reflected not just in scholarly debates but in how early Confucian texts are introduced to larger audiences. This article will begin with a discussion of some general methodological issues involved in applying the term “metaphysics” to classical Chinese thought, and then examine a couple of prominent reconstructions of the metaphysical background to early Confucian texts.

Archery Metaphor and Ritual in Early Confucian Texts explores the significance of archery as ritual practice and image source in classical Confucian texts. Archery was one of the six traditional arts of China, the foremost military skill, a tool for education, and above all, an important custom of the rulers and aristocrats of the early dynasties. Rina Marie Camus analyzes passages inspired by archery in the texts of the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi in relation to the shifting social and historical conditions of the late Zhou dynasty, the troubled times of early followers of the ruist master Confucius. Camus posits that archery imagery is recurrent and touches on fundamental themes of literature; ritual archers in the Analects, sharp shooters in Mencius, and the fashioning of exquisite bows and arrows in Xunzi represent the gentleman, pursuit of ren, and self-cultivation. Furthermore, Camus argues that not only is archery an important Confucian metaphor, it also proves the cognitive value of literary metaphors—more than linguistic ornamentation, metaphoric utterances have features and resonances that disclose their speakers’ saliencies of thought.

Archery Metaphor and Ritual in Early Confucian Texts explores the significance of archery as ritual practice and image source in classical Confucian texts. Archery was one of the six traditional arts of China, the foremost military skill, a tool for education, and above all, an important custom of the rulers and aristocrats of the early dynasties. Rina Marie Camus analyzes passages inspired by archery in the texts of the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi in relation to the shifting social and historical conditions of the late Zhou dynasty, the troubled times of early followers of the ruist master Confucius. Camus posits that archery imagery is recurrent and touches on fundamental themes of literature; ritual archers in the Analects, sharp shooters in Mencius, and the fashioning of exquisite bows and arrows in Xunzi represent the gentleman, pursuit of ren, and self-cultivation. Furthermore, Camus argues that not only is archery an important Confucian metaphor, it also proves the cognitive value of literary metaphors—more than linguistic ornamentation, metaphoric utterances have features and resonances that disclose their speakers’ saliencies of thought.

This book describes how early Confucians coped with situations where their rituals failed to achieve their intended aims. In contrast to most contemporary interpreters of Confucianism, the book demonstrates that early Confucian texts can be read as arguments for ambiguity in ritual failure. If, as discussed in one text, Confucius builds a tomb for his parents unlike the tombs of antiquity, and rains fall causing the tomb to collapse, it is not immediately clear whether this failure was the result of random misfortune or the result of Confucius straying from the ritual script by building a tomb incongruent with those of antiquity. The Liji (Record of Ritual)—one of the most significant, yet least studied, texts of Confucianism—poses many of these situations and suggests that the line between preventable and unpreventable failures of ritual is not always clear. Ritual performance, in this view, is a performance of risk. It entails rendering oneself vulnerable to the agency of others; and resigning oneself to the need to vary from the successful rituals of past, thereby moving into untested and uncertain territory. This book challenges some common assumptions of contemporary interpreters of Confucian ethics, in particular the assumption that a cultivated ritual agent is able to recognize which failures are within his sphere of control to prevent and thereby render his happiness invulnerable to ritual failure.