The Learn Tracker
...life-long learning: structured, organized, searchable...
924
Lectures Watched
Since January 1, 2014
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:
Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:

VIEW ARCHIVE

Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info
Notes on video lecture:
Confucius and the Analects
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on January 7, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
proper, conservative, East, dark, rigidity, Edited, technical, door, readopt, anachronistic, decay, state, Kong, honorific, Confucian, walk, written, usurped, true, narrative, discouraged, plans, East, bureaucracy, courtyard, gentlemanly, cultural, king, neglect, crown, Lu, bell, chaos, death, interacted, knight, need, clapper, ceremonies, ontological, clans, dancing, subordinate, wake, lifetime, tradition, afterwards, Chongzhi, Han, raw, dependent, heaven, job, real, random, border, normative, first, school, narrow
•
The Analects ("Lúnyǔ", or "             Conversations")
•
or "collected sayings" or "categorized sayings"
•
a record of Confucius' teachings as put together by disciples after his           
•
we don't have                texts directly from the pen of Confucius
•
we have an account of his teachings from people who know him and                      with him
•
tradition view is that the whole text was recorded during Confucius' lifetime or shortly thereafter
•
probably not true
•
20 books
•
books 1-10, the early core
•
recorded by            generation disciples
•
books 11-15: next generation of disciples
•
using different concepts
•
books 16-20: anyone's guess
•
uncommon and long,                    forms
•
more like later Warring States writings
•
late concepts
•
book 20 is a hodge podge
•
clearly just              passages that look like the Book of Documents
•
Confucius
•
the name Confucius
•
a Latinization of the Chinese "         Fu Zi"
•
Zi = master
•
Kong was his surname, or "Master Kong" or Kongzi
•
almost all master writers of this time have "zi" as a suffix in their name, e.g. Laozi,                  and Xunzi.
•
especially in the        Dynasty, there is this idea that they want to single out Confucius as special so they added another                    "fu" which means "supper" in the middle of his name so "Kongzi" became "Kongfuzi" or, Latinized, "Confucius".
•
the person Confucius
•
most probably a          person
•
probably not as is commonly thought now is that he was a massively revered person in his lifetime
•
member of the minor nobility in State of Lu
•
formerly a              class
•
a class of scholar-officials
•
were literate and worked in the                        in some capacity
•
kind of an "out of luck" nobility, not wealthy
•
professionally he wasn't terribly successful
•
traveled around China
•
one way to look at the Analects is that it was a record of Confucius trying to get a       
•
going from state to state trying to get kings to accept the                    way
•
while he was not very successful in his own                 , it is almost impossible to overstate the importance of his later on in history
•
Confucian thought, especially as formulated in the Analects became foundational throughout East Asia and still has a profound affect on modern         -Asian civilization
•
the State of     
•
one of the warring states
•
ruled by a Duke, the Duke of Lu
•
could trace his ancestry back to the Duke of Zhou
•
in practice during Confucius' lifetime, the state of Lu was ruled by three powerful           
•
ministerial families who should have been                        to the Duke
•
but in face had                his power
•
also usurping certain ritual prerogatives
•
this upset Confucius
•
Confucius is concerned about the state of ritual           
•
believes he's on a mission from             
•
the Analects is a record of a guy who thought it was his job to save the world
•
it's a religious mission from tian to revive the culture of the Zhou
•
his job is to get a ruler to                the way of the Zhou
•
he feels if this can happen, then by the power of "de", the entire kingdom will be ruled by one          again
•
Analects 3.24
•
Confucius going from one            to another
•
gets interviewed by a              official
•
Confucius failed to get a job in the state he was in
•
disciples are                       
•
border official says to them
•
don't worry that your master is unemployed, heaven has            for him
•
"The world has been without the Way for a long time now, and Heaven intends to use your Master like the wooden                for a bell."
•
officials would use the clapper and the          to get people's attention
•
so heaven wants to use Confucius as a clapper to "         up China"
•
Confucius and the Dao
•
a way or a path
•
also "the way to do something"
•
an                        framework that gives normative guidance
•
something that was revealed by heaven to the ancient Zhou kings
•
preserved in the state of Zhou
•
embodied in cultural forms of classics and rituals
•
passed down in the state of Lu
•
Confucius happens to be an expert in these                  forms
•
Confucius sees his job as returning people to these practices
•
Confucius was a "ru"
•
(not only a "shir")
•
not translated as "Confucian"
•
"ru-jah" is a Confucian             
•
this is obviously                           
•
some scholars don't use Confucian anymore, instead use "Ru-ist" or "erudite"
•
trained in rituals and classics
•
could recite the classics
•
masters in Zhou cultural arts
•
singing,               , music
•
they made their living by being hired by the aristocracy to perform                     
•
Analects 6.13
•
"Be a                        ru, not a petty ru."
•
let's reclaim this concept of ru
•
we're not just                    specialists, someone you can hire for a party
•
we are keepers of the sacred                    that was passed down from heaven
•
Confucius' Views on Culture
•
wen
•
culture
•
ordered patterns
•
everything that has been passed down from our ancestors
•
writings
•
practices
•
the way you          into a room
•
the way you are supposed to think
•
the way you dance and sing
•
for Confucius this culture that was inherited from the Western Zhou is the key to being a proper human being
•
culture in modern West today
•
culture is more of an add-on
•
we're human beings, we walk around, and then we get culture                     
•
for Confucius culture is what makes us who we are
•
until you get shaped by culture, you are a        human being
•
culture is not exclusively humans
•
song birds
•
primates
•
human beings are unique in the extent to which we use culture to think and act
•
humans are uniquely                    on culture
•
reliant on culture input to be who we are
•
we are born incomplete and are designed for receiving cultural input
•
we are born to acquire the bit that we still         , the culture that will form us
•
we are learning creatures
•
one culture fits all
•
the          underbelly to this idea
•
people who are not properly acculturated are not              human beings
•
can lead to              views of who is a proper human being and who is not
•
in the West we celebrate cultural diversity
•
Confucius was not very into diversity in that regard
•
thought there was one,          culture
•
when we are born, we need a culture, and there is one true culture to fill that need, and that is the culture of the Western Zhou
•
Analects 6.17
•
"Who is able to leave a room without going out through the         ? How is it, then, that no one follows this Way?"
•
most students read the Analects and are appalled by this kind of                 
•
seen historical, culture diversity is a freakishly anomalous view
•
but most religious communities are traditional                         
•
there is one proper way to be a human
•
there is one proper way to believe about the world
•
Confucius in context
•
political            of the warring states
•
was a direct result of a                of Zhou cultural forms
•
Analects 3.1
•
Confucius said of the Ji Family, "They have eight rows of dancers performing in their courtyard. If they can condone this, what are they not capable of?"
•
eight rows of dancers is what the Zhou king is allowed to have in his                   
•
a mere official has put on an event in which he has eight rows of dancers in his courtyard
•
he might as well be putting a            on his head and parading around with a scepter
•
for Confucius, this is a symptom of the broader degeneration of his age
•
the solution is: re-learn the rituals the proper way
•
Analects 17.5
•
"If I found someone to employ me, could I not establish a new Zhou in the         ?"
•
so Confucius' main aim is to restore the Dao, or the way, which is both
•
a concrete cultural way
•
a metaphysical,                    order
•
corrected:
•
ancestery
•
ancestry
•
aculturated
•
acculturated

Vocabulary:

honorific, n. a title or word implying or expressing high status, politeness, or respect ⇒ "Especially in the Han Dynasty, there is this idea that they want to single out Confucius as special so they added another honorific "fu" which means "supper" in the middle of his name so "Kongzi" became "Kongfuzi" or, Latinized, "Confucius"."

People:

######################### (313-238 BC)
A Chinese Confucian philosopher who lived during the Warring States period, believed man's inborn tendencies need to be curbed through education and ritual, a counter to Mencius and so did not believe that man is innately good, and had a pragmatic flavor compared to Confucian optimism
  • believed that ethical norms had been invented to rectify mankind
  • contributed to one of the Hundred Schools of Thought (philosophers and schools that flourished from the 6th century to the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC)
  • "I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place."

Ideas and Concepts:

Etymology of the day, via tonight's Ancient Chinese Thought class: "Almost all major thinkers during the Warring States period in China had the suffix "zi" at the end of their name which meant "master". So you had Laozi, Chongzhi, Xunzi, and Kongzi. Centuries later, the Han Dynasty found the latter of these masters particularly useful and so based their state philosophy on the teachings of "Kongzi" or "Master Kong". In order to differentiate him from the other masters, they added the honorific "fu" (or "super") to the middle of his name, and so hence forth he was known as "Super Master Kong" or "Kong fu zi", later Latinized as "Confucius"."
The Definition of Religion
Mind/Body Dualism and Cognitive Control
Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics
Wu-Wei, Dao, Tien and De
The Shang Dynasty (1554-1045 BC)
The Beginnings of Written Chinese History
Eastern Holistic Thinking and the Paradox of Virtue
The Golden Age of the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE)
Philosophical and Conceptual Innovations in Zhou Thought
Confucius and the Analects
Confucius: I Transmit, I Do Not Innovate
Confucius' Use of Ritual as a Tool
Confucius' View on Learning vs. The Enlightenment
Confucius and Holistic Education
Confucius and the Art of Self-Cultivation
At Home in Virtue
Non-Coercive Comportment, Virtue, and Charisma of the Zhou
The Transition to Becoming Sincere
The Primitivists in the Analects
Laozi and the Daodejing
Laozi: Stop the Journey and Return Home
Laozi and The Desires of the Eye
Laozi: He Who Speaks Does Not Know
The Concept of Reversion
Laozi on Shutting Down the Prefrontal Cortex
The Guodian Laozi
Mozi and Materialist State Consequentialism
Mozi's Idea of Ideological Unity
Mozi's Doctrine of Impartial Caring
Mozi's Anti-Confucian Chapters
Mozi's Religious Fundamentalism and Organized Activism
The Language Crisis in the Warring States Period
Yang Zhu and Mid-Warring States' Focus on the Body
The Guodian School of Confucianism
Qi and Self-Cultivation