Mencius’ hermeneutics of classics

Abstract

The Eastern Zhou (東周 722-222 B.C.) period was a golden age in Chinese intellectual history, one in which the great masters emerged one after another and hundreds of schools competed with each other. Among them, the Confucians had the deepest historical consciousness and were most respectful of traditional culture. Confucius (551-479 B.C.) himself talked about Yao堯 and Shun舜, wrote about King Wen文 and King Wu武, and regarded the absence of Duke Zhou周公 in his dream as a signal of his getting old; Mencius (371-289 B.C.?), it was reported, “cannot avoid mentioning Yao and Shun whenever he talked” (Mencius: 3A5) and, as pointed out by Zhao Qi 趙岐 (?-A.D. 210) of the East Han Dynasty 東漢 (A.D.25220), was “thorough with the five classics, and particularly good at the Book of Odes《詩》and the Book of History《書》” (Zhao: 1a). In the whole book of Mencius, there are thirty-three uses of the Book of Odes, twenty-two of which are of Da Ya《大雅》, and fourteen uses of the Book of History. Particularly noticeable is that, more often than not, Mencius’ uses of these two classics were made in some particular context of his own discourses, which shows to some extent how Confucian thinkers were using classics. In addition to using classics to argue for his own points, Mencius also developed two methods of interpreting classics, which have been very influential in the Confucian hermeneutics of classics. This article aims to present the two contexts within which Mencius used classics, and to analyze the implications of Mencius’ hermeneutics of classics.