Confucius and the Analects New Essays

by Van Norden, Bryan W.

• ISBN13: 9780195133967
• ISBN10: 019513396X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Confucius is one of the most influential figures--as historical individual and as symbol--in world history; and the Analects , the sayings attributed to Confucius and his disciples, is a classic of world literature. Nonetheless, how to understand both figure and text is constantly under dispute. Surprisingly, this volume is the first and only anthology on these topics in English. Here, contributors apply a variety of different methodologies (including philosophical, phililogical, and religious) and address a number of important topics, from Confucius and Western "virtue ethics" to Confucius' attitude toward women to the historical composition of the text of the Analects . Scholars will appreciate the rigor of these essays, while students and beginners will find them accessible and engaging.

Table of Contents

Contributors
Introduction	p. 3
Keeping Warm the Old
Naturalness Revisited: Why Western Philosophers Should Study Confucius	p. 39
Ren [actual symbol not reproducible] and [actual symbol not reproducible] in the Analects	p. 53
"What Does Heaven Say?": Christian Wolff and Western Interpretations of Confucian Ethics	p. 73
Conformity, Individuality, and the Nature of Virtue: A Classical Confucian Contribution to Contemporary Ethical Reflection	p. 94
Appreciating the New
Whose Confucius? Which Analects?	p. 119
Confucius and the Analects in the Han	p. 134
Word Philology and Text Philology in Analects 9:1	p. 163
Unweaving the "One Thread" of Analects 4:15	p. 216
An Existentialist Reading of Book 4 of the Analects	p. 237
A Woman Who Understood the Rites	p. 275
An Annotated Bibliography of Works on Confucius and the Analects	p. 303
Conversion Charts	p. 321
Index Locorum	p. 327
General Index	p. 333
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