Series on the History of Chinese Philosophy, Pt. 6
The Wisdom of Confucius
A Model Teacher for the Ages
--
This is Part 6 in a series on the history of Chinese philosophy. If you’ve only just arrived, you can check out the rest of the series by clicking below:
Here we’ll be turning our attention to the most influential philosopher in all of Chinese history — Kongfuzi, also known as Confucius.
Let’s begin this multi-part tour of Confucianism with some general points.
Up until now, I’ve been using terms like “classical Chinese philosophy” or “classical Chinese thought” as general catchall terms for the intellectual traditions that developed before the Han dynasty (202BCE- 220CE). But, the ideas that sprang up during this time were anything but homogenous or monolithic. If we wished to be more specific, we might instead say “classical Chinese PHILOSOPHIES,” since there were numerous philosophical traditions that formed along their own trajectories.
By the time the historians of the Han dynasty were writing about those various traditions, they had consolidated into what became known as “schools” of thought, or jiā [家]. Over the centuries, the Confucian “school” became closely connected to the class of imperial advisors who kept the royal courts in order, this might help explain why they became known as the rújiā [儒家], or the literati school.
Confucianism wasn’t the only school of thought rising in popularity during this period — an era those Han historians would come to call zhū zǐ bǎi jiā (the Hundred Schools of Thought). According to the 20th-century Chinese philosopher Feng Yuolan, the appearance of these schools increased as the feudal system of the Zhou dynasty slowly disintegrated into numerous warring states.
As the power of local princes began to exceed that of the Zhou emperor, his status as “Common Lord” became threatened. Each court had intellectual advisors under its employ and, as fighting increased, defeated nobles and their advisors would often be dispersed among the common people — or xiao ren. In order to make a living for themselves, these highly educated former aristocrats turned to teaching. As Confucius was quoted as saying: “When ceremonies are lost at court, it is necessary to search for them in the countryside.” [Attributed to Confucius by the Han historian Liu Xin]
Feng Youlan thus distinguished the following major schools of thought:
- Members of the Ru [Confucian] School had their origin in the literati [specialists in ceremonies and music].
- Members of the Mohist School had their origin in the knights [specialists in warfare and military arts].
- Members of the Daoist School had their origin among the hermits [embittered by political disorder and retired from public life].
- Members of the School of Names had their origin in the debaters [specialists in the art of speaking].
- Members of the Yin-Yang School had their origin in practitioners of the esoteric arts [magic, divination, astrology, and numerology].
- Members of the Legalist School had their origin among the “men of methods” [those who advised the feudal rulers in practical politics].
Whether or not Feng’s account is based entirely on historical fact, this kind of classification has been common since the Han dynasty. In any case, over the next two millennia, the honorary titles bestowed on Confucius continued to pile up, which underscores how philosophical ideas were absorbed and consolidated into a formal intellectual canon predominated by Confucianism.
The Life of Confucius
Before getting too deep into his philosophy, something should probably be said about Confucius himself. As you might have expected, ‘Confucius’ was not his Chinese name, but rather a Latin translation of the honorary title used by Ming dynasty imperial scholars when Latin-writing Jesuit missionaries arrived in China. Kong was his family name and the practice in Chinese naming is to always lead with that surname. Fū [夫] and zĭ [子] are both honorary titles that are roughly equivalent to Mister and Master in English, and when they’re combined yield something like ‘Grand Master.’ So, Kongfuzi is effectively a way of saying: Grand Master Kong. The Jesuits needed a way to transliterate, or Romanize, this Chinese title, so they landed on the spelling Confuci. But, since names in Latin change depending on their case (nominative, genitive, accusative, etc.) the most common type of reference (the nominative) added the –us ending. It’s the same kind of explanation as the one for how the Hebrew name Yeshua became known to us as Jesus.
Confucius’ familiar name was Qiu, but once someone reached adulthood it was considered rude for anyone other than older relatives or those of superior rank to call someone by their familiar name. Upon reaching adulthood, a second “capping” name would be chosen, and the one chosen by Confucius was Zhongni (which means second brother). The reason I’m telling you this is because if you ever see someone referring to Confucius as “Qiu,” it means either they’re his older relative, they outrank him politically, or they’re trying to insult him.
Confucius was born into a petty noble house. Although not wealthy, Confucius was provided with a formal education, at which he excelled, and this enabled him to climb the ranks of court advisors in his home state of Lu.
He tried to use his influence to steer the Lu rulers in a more ethical direction and eventually was banished for his efforts. He spent the next several decades traveling from state to state teaching his moral philosophy to various rulers. A passage from the Analects (the Sayings of Confucius) depicts a meeting between Confucius and a border official in the Western city of Yi. After the meeting, the official tells Confucius’ students not to fret over his dismissal from the Lu court and presciently states:
“Our land has long lost its way. Nature will use your master as the wooden tongue to the bell.” [Analects 3:24]
Although he was eventually permitted to return to his home and open a school, Confucius died believing his efforts to rectify the moral course of Chinese culture had all been in vain. However, his widespread travels and large following of students helped to vouchsafe his legacy and bring about that border official’s prediction… the example Confucius set for education and ethics has had a global influence.
Reading the Sayings of Confucius
When reading the Analects, which is the Latin name for “The Collected Sayings” of Confucius (and his students), one can sometimes get lost in the sea of names that are referenced. Many of these names refer to the 73 students who comprised the inner circle of Confucius’ school — which was comprised of 72 “worthies,” plus Yan Hui, Confucius’ most honored student. Many of these students went on to become officials in various ruling courts or opened schools of their own. So, the ideas of Confucius were carried on in various places throughout the various states of the Zhou dynasty.
This had a lasting effect on the legacy of Confucian philosophy. To help readers make sense of these textual references, Robert Eno (Emeritus Professor of East Asian Languages and Culture at IU Bloomington) has put together a reference guide to the major Confucian disciples featured in the Analects. If you’re interested in learning who’s who you can find it appended to his translation of the Analects.
The Confucian Canon
That canonization ultimately led to the codifying of what are known as the sì shū (four books) of Confucianism by a Song dynasty neo-Confucian named Zhu Xi. These books, along with the wŭjīng (the Five Classics — Shijing, Yijing, Shujing, Chunqiu, and Liji) became the core of public education and the basis of imperial service entrance exams for hundreds of years.
The Four Books consisted of:
- Lún Yu: The Analects (collected sayings) of Confucius
- Dà Xué: The Great Learning (Originally part of Lijì)
- Zhōng Yōng: The Doctrine of the Mean (Also part of the Lijì)
- Mèngzĭ: The Book of Mencius
For now, let’s just focus on the Analects.
There are lots of off-color memes and jokes that poke fun at the phrase: “Confucius says.” And although these jokes do NOT reflect the philosophy of Confucius (and often depend on some pretty troubling cultural prejudices) their structure DOES reflect the way the Analects were written, since many of the passages begin with the words, “Zĭ yuē” [子曰], or “The master said.”
This shows how the text was compiled as the sayings of Confucius’ were recorded by his disciples over his numerous years of travel and teaching. In fact, modern scholars believe that, of the twenty books making up extant versions of the Analects, only Books III-VII represent the original “core text,” most likely composed during (or shortly after) the life of Confucius. The other books appear to be later additions from various groups of successors. Books I and II offer a kind of introduction to what follows and — like many other Chinese classical works— the opening passage of Book I offers something of a “decryption primer” for the rest of the text. It indicates what we can expect to learn from reading the Analects as it states:
Confucius said: “Isn’t it a pleasure to study something and practice it regularly? Isn’t it a joy to receive friends visiting from afar? Isn’t it gentlemanly to not take offense when others fail to recognize one’s talents?” [Analects 1:1]
Like a thesis statement in a college essay, the three parts of this passage help set up everything that’s to come.
Of course, it may not exactly be earth-shattering to find a teacher like Confucius equating pleasure with study. But, notice he also places emphasis on putting the lessons one has learned into regular PRACTICE. When it comes to moral education, it’s not enough to talk the talk… you have to walk the walk, too. Neither is it enough to know WHAT the right way to live is… one has to learn the WHY and the HOW, as well. Contemporary research actually supports this point by showing how even professional ethicists, with years of training in normative theory, can be just as confounded by complex moral decisions as everyone else.
The second point may be a little less obvious, though. Why would Confucius mention receiving friends from afar specifically? Can’t receiving one’s next door neighbor be just as joyful?
Yes, of course!
But, I doubt it would be much of an occasion for the sorts of values Confucius prized most. I’m reminded of the family visits we made to my great-grandmother’s house when I was a boy. Her tiny Georgia farmhouse was a little more than 3 hours from the city, so we could only visit on holidays when we all had days off from work and school. The welcome we’d receive always went WELL beyond the bounds of typical “southern hospitality.”
And the meals…
Oh wow, THE MEALS!
I still don’t know how a woman her age, all alone in that tiny, antique kitchen, was able to pull off those feasts!
The point is this: great-grandmother went WELL out of her way to show us what was in her heart, and such a hearty welcome isn’t the sort of thing one would do for just anybody, especially those one encounters on a daily basis, like a neighbor or best-friend. Those kinds of close relationships may be an occasion for some sort of joy, but Confucius probably thought receiving far-away guests was PARTICULARLY joyful… because it created an opportunity for ceremony, the kind that stems from a sincere desire to show one’s affection and appreciation for others.
This leads directly to the third point of Analects 1:1 — i.e. not taking offense when others fail to recognize you. Doing something because it’s the right thing to do, and NOT for any potential praise or reward, is the hallmark of Confucian sincerity. It’s distilled in a moral principle the Confucians called shèndú [慎獨], which basically means being mindful of right and wrong even when alone. It’s a concept we’ll revisit when we discuss another text from the “Four Books” known as the Doctrine of the Mean, but suffice it to say that the morally upright person does the right thing, even when nobody is watching.
It seems Confucius may have been just as worried about ‘moral grandstanding’ and ‘virtue signaling’ as our own modern Twittersphere!
That’s why the sayings of Confucius focused on moral education and social harmony. It could be said that the most general virtue for Confucius is an idea known as rén [仁], or ‘benevolence.’ For Confucius, the jūnzi (gentleman/ “son of the prince”) would be one who could embody rén. The etymology of the word, which is written by combining the elements of “person” and “two”, supports the idea that Confucius, in most cases, meant a general virtue of caring for others and could be expressed in three ways: through the love of study, family values, and ritual ceremony.
Love of study (to take it back to Analects 1:1) might seem like an odd place to look for such a virtue, but for Confucius and his followers, virtue and knowledge were intimately connected. The term for study, or learning, is xué [學]. The character used to represent this idea depicts two hands reaching down through a horizontal line toward the symbol for child. Although the reasoning behind this etymology had been lost to the annals of history, it’s likely this ambiguity was intentional, since the concept itself included both the idea of handing down knowledge to the young and reaching out to help them achieve maturity. In this way, xué was similar to the Greek concept of paideia — each denoted a fostering of development in the young, each connoted a transmission of culture.
This involves a cluster of terms that David Hall and Roger Ames have shown round out the concept of xué and demonstrate the Confucian emphasis of thinking through tradition rather than thinking about it. On Hall and Ames’ account, xué is best understood as the type of learning that involves the “unmediated process of becoming aware.” In this way, we might say that xué involves experience… not meaning raw sensory perception, though, but meaning instead the having of an experience or of being an experienced person. We might think of this as “practical life-experience,” rather than antyhing going on in some abstract “theater of the mind.” The companion to this term in the Confucian system would have to be sì [思], which may be translated as “consideration.”
On Hall and Ames’ reading, xué and sì are equally essential components of Confucian education since the reflective side of consideration involves critical interpretation and adaptation of what one has already studied (in other words, putting it into PRACTICE). As Confucius put it in the Analects, “Learning without consideration leads to perplexity, consideration without learning leads to perilous circumstances.” [Analects 2:15] When these elements are realized in equal measure, the student comes to understand, or “realize.” This realization, which Confucius called zhī [知], carries with it both the intellectual sense of understanding and the normative sense of understanding others.
These three elements relate to the core Confucian virtue of sincerity through a view of affirmation (xìn) as “being true to one’s word” [信]. As one of Confucius’ disciples puts it:
Master Xià said, ‘If one can change lustful desire into desire for worthiness, if in the affairs of his parents, he will exhaust all his talent and strength, if in serving his lord he will devote himself, if in friendly chat with his associates he is trustworthy [xìn], even if they say he has not studied (xué) I would certainly say he is learned (xué) indeed.’ [Analects 1:7]
All of this culminates in the kind of sagely wisdom embodied by the best teachers. Or, as Confucius is quoted in the Doctrine of the Mean: “Love of learning is akin to wisdom.” [Doctrine of the Mean, section 20]
While rén is the most important quality one can possess, it is not a virtue that develops out of thin air. Confucius told of another, more primordial virtue, which could be considered the wellspring of rén. This wellspring is deep sense of kinship called “filial piety,” or xiào [孝], and could best be described as reverence towards one’s family. Confucius believed that xiào and rén were closely linked, as he put it,
A youth ought to be filial (xiào) when at home, and obedient when abroad. He ought to be earnest and truthful. He ought to overflow with love for all people and bind himself to benevolence (rén). Once he has performed these, if there is energy to spare, he should spend it in noble study (xué). [Analects 1:6]
And, in another passage, the importance of xiào for rén is likened to the importance of a root for a tree — securing the appropriate relationships of respect within the home comes prior to securing respect within a broader community.
However, xiào, despite its English translation, is not simply what a son or daughter owes to his or her parents. Rather, it involves both the idea that the parent will reciprocate what is due to the offspring and the notion that obligations are not merely material but must also include sincerity.
The first of these notions is connected with what is called “the rectification of names” and is illustrated when Confucius says, “Let a ruler rule, a servant serve, a father be a father, and a son be a son” [Analects 12:11]. This is a statement that ties the philosophical view (shared by the Plato) that a ruler is just only when ruling justly together with the modern saying, “Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.”
The latter notion (regarding sincerity) is shown in the passage, “Being filial nowadays means being able to provide support; but even dogs and horses receive support. In each case there is support without respect.” [Analects 2:7]
If reverence for family is the source of rén, then it’s important it be practiced even after one’s parents have passed. Therefore, Confucius claimed,
When they [one’s parents] are alive, treat them according to the rites; when they die, bury them according to the rites, and when you sacrifice to them do so according to the rites. [Analects 2:5]
This passage not only illustrates how Confucius believed that xiào could provide an uninterrupted source for rén, but also ties these two virtues in with the third major concept in the Confucian system — lĭ 禮, or ritual ceremony. This virtue is perhaps best understood as the observance, appreciation, and implementation of all conventions having to do with the interaction between two or more individuals, often of differing social status.
Through his teaching, Confucius broadened the term lĭ — which had previously referred to simple sacrificial ceremony — to encompass manners, etiquette, customs, and the rules of propriety. As he stressed in book 3, chapter 4, “in mourning it is better to be sorrowful rather than unmoved,” which is to say, he believed that lĭ shouldn’t just be the practice of empty observances, but should always carry with it a sincere representation of rén. In this way, it could make manifest the loyalty and righteousness within one’s heart. That’s why lĭ is often paired with the concept of yì [義], which means something like “righteousness” or “appropriateness” and was the virtue exercised in social situations like gift giving and funerals, whereas lĭ was more often used in the context of politics and government. According to Confucius, “The superior man in everything considers righteousness [yì] to be essential. He performs it according to the rules of propriety [lĭ].” [Analects 15:18]
Those already familiar with ancient Greek philosophy might’ve noticed we’re building a list of virtues in a manner similar to how Aristotle does it in his Ethics. And, like Aristotle, Confucius saw the political benefits of helping his homeland find its way back from moral turpitude… to act as the wooden tongue to the bell and ring in a new moral order.
In the coming installments we’ll talk about the pros and cons of reading Confucius as a sort of virtue ethicist. For now, here’s a rundown of the concepts/virtues we’ve covered so far:
慎獨 (shèndú) mindfulness even when alone
仁 (rén) benevolence; humaneness
孝 (xiào) filial piety; family reverence
禮 (lĭ) ritual ceremony/propriety
義 (yì) righteousness; justice
智 (zhì) wisdom; intelligence
信 (xìn) true; to believe
學 (xué) learning; study
思 (sī) thinking; consideration
知 (zhī) knowledge; awareness
正名 (zhèngmíng) the rectification of names
君子 (jūnzi) gentleman; son of the prince
In Part 7 we’ll begin putting some of these ideas together to explore the Confucian view of self-cultivation.
See you there!
