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Reading group: the Analects, Books 1–4

Henrike Vogel Fellow
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Virtue & characterChineseConfucianismConfucius#confucian-ethics#junzi
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After a year with Kant I want to read an ethics built on something other than rules. The Analects (Lunyu) were compiled by Confucius's disciples and their students after his death, and they read more like a notebook of conversations than a treatise.

Books 1–4 contain many of the most famous passages: the pleasure of learning and practising what one has learned, governing by virtue like the pole star around which the other stars turn, Confucius's brief autobiography from setting his heart on learning at fifteen to following his heart's desire without overstepping at seventy, and the contrast in Book 4 between the exemplary person (junzi), who understands what is right, and the petty person, who understands what is profitable.

I'll use Edward Slingerland's translation (2003), which includes traditional commentaries. D. C. Lau's is also good. Two weeks. Question to start: is ren (humaneness) a feeling, a skill, or a relationship?

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  1. Javier Morales

    Fellow

    I'm in. I came to the Analects through debates about meritocracy, so I'm curious how much of the political Confucianism people cite today is actually in these early books.

    Helpful · 3
  2. Giulia Ferrante

    Fellow

    Joining as an outsider to the tradition. What strikes me already is how close junzi is to Aristotle's virtuous person: someone formed by habit and ritual until doing the right thing becomes natural. The seventy-year-old who follows his desire without overstepping sounds like Aristotle's description of virtue as second nature.

    1. Henrike Vogel

      Fellow

      Giulia, I had the same thought, and it worries my Kantian side. If the best person is the one who no longer has to struggle, what happens to duty? Confucius seems not to need the concept at all.

      Helpful · 1
  3. Meera Kulkarni

    Fellow

    In Indian terms, li (ritual propriety) reminds me of dharma: not just ceremony but the right form of every relationship. Both traditions see ethics as learning the shape of a role well, not deducing it from first principles.

    Helpful · 2