The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation - Couverture souple

Ames, Roger T.; Rosemont Jr., Henry

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0345434072 ISBN 13 : 9780345434074

Editeur : Ballantine Books, 1999

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Book by Ames Roger T

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INTRODUCTION
 
HISTORICAL AND TEXTUAL BACKGROUND
 
Master Kong  (Confucius)
Confucius (551–479 BCE) is probably the most influential thinker in human history, if influence is determined by the sheer number of people who have lived their lives, and died, in accordance with the thinker’s vision of how people ought to live, and die. Like many other epochal figures of the ancient world—Socrates, Buddha, Jesus—Confucius does not seem to have written anything that is clearly attributable to him; all that we know of his vision directly must be pieced together from the several accounts of his teachings, and his life, found in the present text, the Analects, and other collateral but perhaps less reliable sources such as the Mencius and the Zuo Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals.
 
Recognized as China’s first great teacher both chronologically and in importance, Confucius’ ideas have been the fertile soil in which the Chinese cultural tradition has been cultivated and has flourished. In fact, whatever we might mean by “Chineseness” today, some two and a half millennia after his death, is inseparable from the example of personal character that Confucius provided for posterity. And his influence did not end with China. All of the sinitic cultures—especially Korea, Japan, and Vietnam—have evolved around ways of living and thinking derived in significant measure from his ideas as set down by his disciples and others after his death—ideas that are by no means irrelevant to contemporary social, political, moral, and religious concerns.
 
Confucius was born in the ancient state of Lu (in modern Shandong province) during one of the most formative periods of Chinese culture. Two centuries before his birth, scores of small city-states owing their allegiance to the imperial House of Zhou filled the Yellow River basin. This was the Zhou dynasty (traditionally, 1122–256 BCE) out of which the empire of China was later to emerge. By the time of Confucius’ birth only fourteen independent states remained, with seven of the strongest contending with each other militarily for hegemony over the central plains. It was a period of escalating internecine violence, driven by the knowledge that no state was exempt, and that all comers were competing in a zero-sum game—to fail to win was to perish. The accelerating ferocity of battle was like the increasing frequency and severity of labor pains, anticipating the eventual birth of the imperial Chinese state.
 
The landscape was diverse not only politically. Intellectually, Confucius set a pattern for the “Hundred Schools” that emerged during these centuries in their competition for doctrinal supremacy. He founded an academy in his own state of Lu and, later in his career, he began the practice of independent philosophers traveling from state to state to persuade political leaders that the particular teachings developed in their academies were a practicable formula for social and political success. In the decades that followed his death, intellectuals of every stripe—Confucians, Legalists, Mohists, Yinyang Theorists, Militarists—would take to the road, often attracted by court-sponsored academies which sprang up to host them. Within these seats of learning and at the courts themselves, the viability of their various strategies for political and social unity would be hotly debated.
 
Confucius said of himself that “Following the proper way, I do not forge new paths” (7.1),4 allowing that he was a transmitter rather than an innovator, a classicist rather than a philosopher. This autobiographical statement is not altogether accurate—Confucius was an original thinker by any standard—but the statement captures a basic characteristic of what came to be called Confucianism: a deep respect and affection for the rich cultural Chinese past, what in the Analects is called “the love of learning (haoxue ).” Confucius saw human flourishing as definitive of the reigns of the ancient sage kings, and he advocated a reauthorization of their ways of governing that had been passed on. According to Confucius—and the other two ancient texts he cites the Book of Documents and the Book of Songs5—the ancient sage kings who governed by observing ritual propriety and custom (the li ) rather than by law and force, were themselves reverent toward their past, were more concerned to insure the material and the spiritual well-being of the people than to accumulate personal wealth, and saw as their main task the maintenance of harmony between their community and the rest of the natural order. Confucius wished to reanimate this tradition, and pass it on to succeeding generations.
 
As a teacher, Confucius expected a high degree of commitment to learning from his students. On the one hand, he was tolerant and inclusive. He made no distinction among the economic classes in selecting his students, and would take whatever they could afford in payment for his services (7.7). His favorite student, Yan Hui, was desperately poor, a fact that simply added to Confucius’ admiration for him (6.11, 6.3). On the other hand, Confucius set high standards, and if students did not approach their lessons with seriousness and enthusiasm, Confucius would not suffer them (7.8).
 
Over his lifetime, Confucius attracted a fairly large group of such serious followers, and provided them not only with book learning, but with a curriculum that encouraged personal articulation and refinement on several fronts. His “six arts” included observing propriety and ceremony (li), performing music, and developing proficiency in archery, charioteering, writing, and calculation, all of which, in sum, were directed more at cultivating the moral character of his charges than at any set of practical skills. In the Chinese tradition broadly, proficiency in the “arts” has been seen as the medium through which one reveals the quality of one’s personhood.
 
Although Confucius enjoyed great popularity as a teacher and many of his students found their way into political office, his enduring frustration was that he personally achieved only marginal influence in the practical politics of the day. He was a philosophe rather than a theoretical philosopher; he wanted to be actively involved in intellectual and social trends, and to improve the quality of life that was dependent upon them. Although there were many occasions on which important political figures sought his advice and services during his years in the state of Lu, he held only minor offices at court. When finally Confucius was appointed as police commissioner late in his career, his advice was not heeded, and he was not treated by the Lu court with appropriate courtesy. Earlier, Confucius had made several brief trips to neighboring states, but, after being mistreated in the performance of court sacrifices at home, he determined to take his message on the road again, this time more broadly.
 
These were troubled times, and there was great adventure and much danger in offering counsel to the competing political centers of his day. In his early fifties, he traveled widely as an itinerant counselor, and several times came under the threat of death (9.5). He was not any more successful in securing preferment abroad than he had been at home, to which he eventually returned and lived out his last few years as a counselor of the lower rank and, according to later accounts, continued his compilation of the classics. He died in 479 BCE, almost surely believing his life had been, on the whole, politically and practically worthless.
 
 

Présentation de l'éditeur :

"To quietly persevere in storing up what is learned, to continue studying without respite, to instruct others without growing weary--is this not me?"
--Confucius

Confucius is recognized as China's first and greatest teacher, and his ideas have been the fertile soil in which the Chinese cultural tradition has flourished. Now, here is a translation of the recorded thoughts and deeds that best remember Confucius--informed for the first time by the manuscript version found at Dingzhou in 1973, a partial text dating to 55 BCE and only made available to the scholarly world in 1997. The earliest Analects yet discovered, this work provides us with a new perspective on the central canonical text that has defined Chinese culture--and clearly illuminates the spirit and values of Confucius.

Confucius (551-479 BCE) was born in the ancient state of Lu into an era of unrelenting, escalating violence as seven of the strongest states in the proto-Chinese world warred for supremacy. The landscape was not only fierce politically but also intellectually. Although Confucius enjoyed great popularity as a teacher, and many of his students found their way into political office, he personally had little influence in Lu. And so he began to travel from state to state as an itinerant philosopher to persuade political leaders that his teachings were a formula for social and political success. Eventually, his philosophies came to dictate the standard of behavior for all of society--including the emperor himself.

Based on the latest research and complete with both Chinese and English texts, this revealing translation serves both as an excellent introduction to Confucian thought and as an authoritative addition to sophisticated debate.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Ballantine Books
• Date d'édition: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0345434072
• ISBN 13: 9780345434074
• Reliure: Broché
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 352