Confucius was a fifth-century BCE Chinese thinker whose influence upon
East Asian intellectual and social history is immeasurable. As a
culturally symbolic figure, he has been alternately idealized,
deified, dismissed, vilified, and rehabilitated over the millennia by
both Asian and non-Asian thinkers and regimes. Given his extraordinary
impact on Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought, it is
ironic that so little can be known about Confucius. The tradition that
bears his name – "Confucianism" (Chinese: Rujia) – ultimately traces
itself to the sayings and biographical fragments recorded in the text
known as the Analects (Chinese: Lunyu). As with the person of
Confucius himself, scholars disagree about the origins and character
of the Analects, but it remains the traditional source for information
about Confucius' life and teaching. Most scholars remain confident
that it is possible to extract from the Analects several philosophical
themes and views that may be safely attributed to this ancient Chinese
sage. These are primarily ethical, rather than analytical-logical or
metaphysical in nature, and include Confucius' claim that Tian
("Heaven") is aligned with moral order but dependent upon human agents
to actualize its will; his concern for li (ritual propriety) as the
instrument through which the family, the state, and the world may be
aligned with Tian's moral order; and his belief in the "contagious"
nature of moral force (de), by which moral rulers diffuse morality to
their subjects, moral parents raise moral children, and so forth.
1. The Confucius of History
Sources for the historical recovery of Confucius' life and thought are
limited to texts that postdate his traditional lifetime (551-479 BCE)
by a few decades at least and several centuries at most. Confucius'
appearances in Chinese texts are a sign of his popularity and utility
among literate elites during the Warring States (403-221 BCE), Qin
(221-206 BCE), and Han (206 BCE-220 CE) periods. These texts vary in
character and function, from collections of biographical and
pedagogical fragments such as the Analects to dynastic histories and
works by later Confucian thinkers.
The historical Confucius, born in the small state of Lu on the
Shandong peninsula in northeastern China, was a product of the "Spring
and Autumn Period" (770-481 BCE). We know him mostly from texts that
date to the "Warring States Period" (403-221 BCE). During these eras,
China enjoyed no political unity and suffered from the internecine
warfare of small states, remnants of the once-great Zhou polity that
collapsed after "barbarian" invasions in 771 BCE. For more than three
hundred years after the alleged year of Confucius' birth, the Chinese
would fight each other for mastery of the empire lost by the Zhou. In
the process, life became difficult, especially for the shi ("retainer"
or "knight") class, from which Confucius himself arose. As feudal
lords were defeated and disenfranchised in battle and the kings of the
various warring states began to rely on appointed administrators
rather than vassals to govern their territories, these shi became
lordless anachronisms and fell into genteel poverty and itinerancy.
Their knowledge of aristocratic traditions, however, helped them
remain valuable to competing kings, who wished to learn how to regain
the unity imposed by the Zhou and who sought to emulate the Zhou by
patterning court rituals and other institutions after those of the
fallen dynasty.
Thus, a new role for shi as itinerant antiquarians emerged. In such
roles, shi found themselves in and out of office as the fortunes of
various patron states ebbed and flowed. Confucius is said to have held
office for only a short time before withdrawing into scholarly
retirement. While out of office, veteran shi might gather small
circles of disciples – young men from shi backgrounds who wished to
succeed in public life. It is precisely such master-and-disciple
exchanges between Confucius and his students that the Analects claims
to record.
2. The Confucius of the Analects
Above all else, the Analects depicts Confucius as someone who
"transmits, but does not innovate" (7.1). What Confucius claimed to
transmit was the Dao (Way) of the sages of Zhou antiquity; in the
Analects, he is the erudite guardian of tradition who challenges his
disciples to emulate the sages of the past and restore the moral
integrity of the state. Although readers of the Analects often assume
that Confucius' views are presented as a coherent and consistent
system within the text, a careful reading reveals several different
sets of philosophical concerns which do not conflict so much as they
complement one another. These complimentary sets of concerns can be
categorized into four groups:
# Theodicy
# Harmonious order
# Moral force
# Self-cultivation 3. TheodicyThose familiar with
Enlightenment-influenced presentations of Confucius as an austere
humanist who did not discuss the supernatural may be surprised to
encounter the term "theodicy" as a framework for understanding
Confucius' philosophical concerns. Confucius' record of silence on the
subject of the divine is attested by the Analects (5.3, 7.21, 11.12).
In fact, as a child of the late Zhou world, Confucius inherited a
great many religious sensibilities, including theistic ones. For the
early Chinese (c. 16th century BCE), the world was controlled by an
all-powerful deity, "The Lord on High" (Shangdi), to whom entreaties
were made in the first known Chinese texts, inscriptions found on
animal bones offered in divinatory sacrifice. As the Zhou polity
emerged and triumphed over the previous Shang tribal rule, Zhou
apologists began to regard their deity, Tian ("Sky" or "Heaven") as
synonymous with Shangdi, the deity of the deposed Shang kings, and
explained the decline of Shang and the rise of Zhou as a consequence
of a change in Tianming ("the mandate of Heaven"). Thus, theistic
justifications for conquest and rulership were present very early in
Chinese history.
By the time of Confucius, the concept of Tian appears to have changed
slightly. For one thing, the ritual complex of Zhou diviners, which
served to ascertain the will of Tian for the benefit of the king, had
collapsed with Zhou rule itself. At the same time, the network of
religious obligations to manifold divinities, local spirits, and
ancestors does not seem to have ceased with the fall of the Zhou, and
Confucius appears to uphold sacrifices to "gods and ghosts" as
consistent with "transmitting" noble tradition. Yet, in the Analects,
a new aspect of Tian emerges. For the Confucius of the Analects,
discerning the will of Tian and reconciling it with his own moral
compass sometimes proves to be a troubling exercise:
If Heaven is about to abandon this culture, those who die
afterwards will not get to share in it; if Heaven has not yet
abandoned this culture, what can the men of Guang [Confucius'
adversaries in this instance] do to me? (9.5)
There is no one who recognizes me…. I neither resent Heaven nor
blame humanity. In learning about the lower I have understood the
higher. The one who recognizes me – wouldn't that be Heaven? (14.35)
Heaven has abandoned me! Heaven has abandoned me! (11.9)
As A. C. Graham has noted, Confucius seems to be of two minds about
Tian. At times, he is convinced that he enjoys the personal protection
and sanction of Tian, and thus defies his mortal opponents as he wages
his campaign of moral instruction and reform. At other moments,
however, he seems caught in the throes of existential despair,
wondering if he has lost his divine backer at last. Tian seems to
participate in functions of "fate" and "nature" as well as those of
"deity." What remains consistent throughout Confucius' discourses on
Tian is his threefold assumption about this extrahuman, absolute power
in the universe: (1) its alignment with moral goodness, (2) its
dependence on human agents to actualize its will, and (3) the
variable, unpredictable nature of its associations with mortal actors.
Thus, to the extent that the Confucius of the Analects is concerned
with justifying the ways of Tian to humanity, he tends to do so
without questioning these three assumptions about the nature of Tian,
which are rooted deeply in the Chinese past.
4. Harmonious order
The dependence of Tian upon human agents to put its will into practice
helps account for Confucius' insistence on moral, political, social,
and even religious activism. In one passage (17.19), Confucius seems
to believe that, just as Tian does not speak but yet accomplishes its
will for the cosmos, so too can he remain "silent" (in the sense of
being out of office, perhaps) and yet effective in promoting his
principles, possibly through the many disciples he trained for
government service. At any rate, much of Confucius' teaching is
directed toward the maintenance of three interlocking kinds of order:
(1) aesthetic, (2) moral, and (3) social. The instrument for effecting
and emulating all three is li (ritual propriety).
Do not look at, do not listen to, do not speak of, do not do
whatever is contrary to ritual propriety. (12.1)
In this passage, Confucius underscores the crucial importance of
rigorous attention to li as a kind of self-replicating blueprint for
good manners and taste, morality, and social order. In his view, the
appropriate use of a quotation from the Classic of Poetry (Shijing),
the perfect execution of guest-host etiquette, and the correct
performance of court ritual all serve a common end: they regulate and
maintain order. The nature of this order is, as mentioned above,
threefold. It is aesthetic — quoting the Shijing upholds the cultural
hegemony of Zhou literature and the conventions of elite good taste.
Moreover, it is moral — good manners demonstrate both concern for
others and a sense of one's place. Finally, it is social — rituals
properly performed duplicate ideal hierarchies of power, whether
between ruler and subject, parent and child, or husband and wife. For
Confucius, the paramount example of harmonious social order seems to
be xiao (filial piety), of which jing (reverence) is the key quality:
Observe what a person has in mind to do when his father is alive,
and then observe what he does when his father is dead. If, for three
years, he makes no changes to his father's ways, he can be said to be
a good son. (1.11)
[The disciple] Ziyu asked about filial piety. The Master said,
"Nowadays, for a person to be filial means no more than that he is
able to provide his parents with food. Even dogs and horses are
provided with food. If a person shows no reverence, where is the
difference?" (2.7)
In serving your father and mother, you ought to dissuade them from
doing wrong in the gentlest way. If you see your advice being ignored,
you should not become disobedient but should remain reverent. You
should not complain even if you are distressed. (4.18)
The character of this threefold order is deeper than mere conventions
such as taste and decorum, as the above quotations demonstrate.
Labeling it "aesthetic" might appear to demean or trivialize it, but
to draw this conclusion is to fail to reflect on the peculiar way in
which many Western thinkers tend to devalue the aesthetic. As David
Hall and Roger Ames have argued, this "aesthetic" Confucian order is
understood to be both intrinsically moral and profoundly harmonious,
whether for a shi household, the court of a Warring States king, or
the cosmos at large. When persons and things are in their proper
places – and here tradition is the measure of propriety – relations
are smooth, operations are effortless, and the good is sought and done
voluntarily. In the hierarchical political and social conception of
Confucius (and all of his Chinese contemporaries), what is below takes
its cues from what is above. A moral ruler will diffuse morality to
those under his sway; a moral parent will raise a moral child:
Let the ruler be a ruler, the subject a subject, a father a
father, and a son a son. (12.11)
Direct the people with moral force and regulate them with ritual,
and they will possess shame, and moreover, they will be righteous.
(2.3)
5. Moral force
The last quotation from the Analects introduces a term perhaps most
famously associated with a very different early Chinese text, the
Laozi (Lao-tzu) or Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) – de (te), "moral force."
Like Tian, de is heavily freighted with a long train of cultural and
religious baggage, extending far back into the mists of early Chinese
history. During the early Zhou period, de seems to have been a kind of
amoral, almost magical power attributed to various persons – seductive
women, charismatic leaders, etc. For Confucius, de seems to be just as
magically efficacious, but stringently moral. It is both a quality,
and a virtue of, the successful ruler:
One who rules by moral force may be compared to the North Star –
it occupies its place and all the stars pay homage to it. (2.1)
De is a quality of the successful ruler, because he rules at the
pleasure of Tian, which for Confucius is resolutely allied with
morality, and to which he attributes his own inner de (7.23). De is
the virtue of the successful ruler, without which he could not rule at
all.
Confucius' vision of order unites aesthetic concerns for harmony and
symmetry (li) with moral force (de) in pursuit of social goals: a
well-ordered family, a well-ordered state, and a well-ordered world.
Such an aesthetic, moral, and social program begins at home, with the
cultivation of the individual.
6. Self-cultivation
In the Analects, two types of persons are opposed to one another – not
in terms of basic potential (for, in 17.2, Confucius says all human
beings are alike at birth), but in terms of developed potential. These
are the junzi (literally, "lord's son" or "gentleman"; Tu Wei-ming has
originated the useful translation "profound person," which will be
used here) and the xiaoren ("small person"):
The profound person understands what is moral. The small person
understands what is profitable. (4.16)
The junzi is the person who always manifests the quality of ren (jen)
in his person and the displays the quality of yi (i) in his actions
(4.5). The character for ren is composed of two graphic elements, one
representing a human being and the other representing the number two.
Based on this, one often hears that ren means "how two people should
treat one another." While such folk etymologies are common in
discussions of Chinese characters, they often are as misleading as
they are entertaining. In the case of ren – usually translated as
"benevolence" or "humaneness" – the graphic elements of a human being
and the number two really are instructive, so much so that Peter
Boodberg suggested an evocative translation of ren as "co-humanity."
The way in which the junzi relates to his fellow human beings,
however, highlights Confucius' fundamentally hierarchical model of
relations:
The moral force of the profound person is like the wind; the moral
force of the small person is like the grass. Let the wind blow over
the grass and it is sure to bend. (12.19)
D. C. Lau has pointed out that ren is an attribute of agents, while yi
(literally, "what is fitting" — "rightness," "righteousness") is an
attribute of actions. This helps to make clear the conceptual links
between li, de, and the junzi. The junzi qua junzi exerts de, moral
force, according to what is yi, fitting (that is, what is
aesthetically, morally, and socially proper), and thus manifests ren,
or the virtue of co-humanity in an interdependent, hierarchical
universe over which Tian presides.
Two passages from the Analects go a long way in indicating the path
toward self-cultivation that Confucius taught would-be junzi in fifth
century BCE China:
From the age of fifteen on, I have been intent upon learning; from
thirty on, I have established myself; from forty on, I have not been
confused; from fifty on, I have known the mandate of Heaven; from
sixty on, my ear has been attuned; from seventy on, I have followed my
heart's desire without transgressing what is right. (2.4)
The Master's Way is nothing but other-regard and self-reflection. (4.15)
The first passage illustrates the gradual and long-term scale of the
process of self-cultivation. It begins during one's teenaged years,
and extends well into old age; it proceeds incrementally from
intention (zhi) to learning (xue), from knowing the mandate of Heaven
(Tianming) to doing both what is desired (yu) and what is right (yi).
In his disciple Zengzi (Tseng-tzu)'s summary of his "Way" (Dao),
Confucius teaches only "other-regard" (zhong) and "self-reflection"
(shu). These terms merit their own discussion.
The conventional meaning of "other-regard" (zhong) in classical
Chinese is "loyalty," especially loyalty to a ruler on the part of a
minister. In the Analects, Confucius extends the meaning of the term
to include exercising oneself to the fullest in all relationships,
including relationships with those below oneself as well as with one's
betters. "Self-reflection" (shu) is explained by Confucius as a
negatively-phrased version of the "Golden Rule": "What you do not
desire for yourself, do not do to others." (15.24) When one reflects
upon oneself, one realizes the necessity of concern for others. The
self as conceptualized by Confucius is a deeply relational self that
responds to inner reflection with outer virtue.
Similarly, the self that Confucius wishes to cultivate in his own
person and in his disciples is one that looks within and compares
itself with the aesthetic, moral, and social canons of tradition.
Aware of its source in Tian, it seeks to maximize ren through
apprenticeship to li so as to exercise de in a manner befitting a
junzi. Because Confucius (and early Chinese thought in general) does
not suffer from the Cartesian "mind-body problem" (as Herbert
Fingarette has demonstrated), there is no dichotomy between inner and
outer, self and whole, and thus the cumulative effect of Confucian
self-cultivation is not merely personal, but collectively social and
even cosmic.
7. The Confucius of Myth
While the Analects is valuable, albeit not infallible, as a source for
the reconstruction of Confucius' thought, it is far from being the
only text to which Chinese readers have turned in their quest for
discovering his identity. During the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE),
numerous hagiographical accounts of Confucius' origins and deeds were
produced, many of which would startle readers familiar only with the
Analects. According to various texts, Confucius was a superhuman
figure destined to rule as the "uncrowned king" of pre-imperial China.
At birth, his body was said to have displayed special markings
indicating his exemplary status. After his death, he was alleged to
have revealed himself in a glorified state to his living disciples,
who then received further esoteric teachings from their apotheosized
master. Eventually, and perhaps inevitably, he was recognized as a
deity and a cult organized itself around his worship. Feng Youlan has
suggested that, had these Han images of Confucius prevailed, Confucius
would have become a figure comparable to Jesus Christ in the history
of China, and there would have been no arguments among scholars about
whether or not Confucianism was a religion like Christianity.
To both ancient modern eyes, fantastic and improbable myths of
Confucius should be added more recent myths about the sage that date
from the earliest sustained contact between China and the West during
the early modern period. The Latinization of Kong(fu)zi to "Confucius"
originates with the interpretation of Chinese culture and thought by
Jesuit missionaries for their Western audiences, supporters, and
critics. Jesuits steeped in Renaissance humanism saw in Confucius a
Renaissance humanist; German thinkers such as Leibniz or Wolff
recognized in him an Enlightenment sage. Hegel condemned Confucius for
exemplifying those whom he saw as "the people without history"; Mao
castigated Confucius for imprisoning China in a cage of feudal
archaism and oppression. Each remade Confucius in his own image for
his own ends – a process that continues throughout the modern era,
creating great heat and little light where the historical Confucius
himself is concerned. Each mythologizer has seen Confucius as a symbol
of whatever s/he loves or hates about China. As H. G. Creel once put
it, once a figure like Confucius has become a cultural hero, stories
about him tell us more about the values of the storytellers than about
Confucius himself.
8. The Confucius of the State
Such mythmaking was very important to the emerging imperial Chinese
state, however, as it struggled to impose cultural unity on a vast and
fractious territory during the final few centuries BCE and beyond into
the Common Era. After the initial persecution of Confucians during the
short-lived Qin dynasty (221-202 BCE), the succeeding Han emperors and
their ministers seized upon Confucius as a vehicle for the
legitimation of their rule and the social control of their subjects.
The "Five Classics" – five ancient texts associated with Confucius –
were established as the basis for the imperial civil service
examinations in 136 BCE, making memorization of these texts and their
orthodox Confucian interpretations mandatory for all who wished to
obtain official positions in the Han government. The state's love
affair with Confucius carried on through the end of the Han in 220 CE,
after which Confucius fell out of official favor as a series of
warring factions struggled for control of China during the "Period of
Disunity" (220-589 CE) and foreign and indigenous religious traditions
such as Buddhism and Daoism rivaled Confucianism for the attentions of
the elite.
After the restoration of unified imperial government with the Tang
dynasty (618-907 CE), however, the future of Confucius as a symbol of
the Chinese cultural and political establishment became increasingly
secure. State-sponsored sacrifices to him formed part of the official
religious complex of temple rituals, from the national to the local
level, and orthodox hagiography and history cemented his reputation as
cultural hero among the masses. The Song dynasty (969-1279 CE)
Confucian scholar Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi, 1130-1200 CE) institutionalized the
study of the Analects as one of "Four Books" required for the
redesigned imperial civil service examinations, and aspiring officials
continued to memorize the text and orthodox commentaries on it until
the early twentieth century.
With the fall of the last Chinese imperial government in 1911,
Confucius also fell from his position of state-imposed grandeur – but
not for long. Within a short time of the abdication of the last
emperor, monarchists were plotting to restore a Confucian ruler to the
throne. Although these plans did not materialize, the Nationalist
regime in mainland China and later in Taiwan has promoted Confucius
and Confucianism in a variety of ways in order to distinguish itself
from the iconoclastic Communists who followed Mao to victory and
control over most of China in 1949. Even the Communist regime in China
has bowed reverentially to Confucius on occasion, although not without
vilifying him first, especially during the anti-traditional "Cultural
Revolution" campaigns of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Today, the Communist government of China spends a great deal of money
on the reconstruction and restoration of old imperial temples to
Confucius across the country, and has even erected many new statues of
Confucius in areas likely to be frequented by tourists from overseas.
Predictably, Confucius, as a philosopher, has been rehabilitated by
culturally Chinese regimes across Asia, from Singapore to Beijing, as
what Wm. Th. de Bary has called "the East Asian challenge for human
rights" has prompted attempts to ground "human rights with Chinese
characteristics" in an authentically traditional source. In short,
Confucius seems far from dead, although one wonders if the authentic
spirit of his fifth century BCE thought ever will live again.
9. Key Interpreters of Confucius
Detailed discussion of Confucius' key interpreters is best reserved
for an article on Confucian philosophy. Nonetheless, an outline of the
most important commentators and their philosophical trajectories is
worth including here.
The two best known early interpreters of Confucius' thought – besides
the compilers of the Analects themselves, who worked gradually from
the time of Confucius' death until sometime during the former Han
dynasty – are the Warring States philosophers "Mencius" or Mengzi
(Meng-tzu, 372-289 BCE) and Xunzi (Hsun-tzu, 310-220 BCE). Neither
knew Confucius personally, nor did they know one another, except
retrospectively, as in the case of Xunzi commenting on Mencius. The
two usually are cast as being opposed to one another because of their
disagreement over human nature – a subject on which Confucius was
notably silent (Analects 5.13).
Mencius illustrates a pattern typical of Confucius' interpreters in
that he claims to be doing nothing more than "transmitting" Confucius'
thought while introducing new ideas of his own. For Mencius, renxing
(human nature) is congenitally disposed toward ren, but requires
cultivation through li as well as yogic disciplines related to one's
qi (vital energy), and may be stunted (although never destroyed)
through neglect or negative environmental influence. Confucius does
not use the term renxing in the Analects, nor does he describe qi in
Mencius' sense, and nowhere does he provide an account of the basic
goodness of human beings. Nonetheless, it is Mencius' interpretation
of Confucius' thought – especially after the ascendancy of Zhu Xi's
brand of Confucianism in the twelfth century CE – that became regarded
as orthodox by most Chinese thinkers.
Like Mencius, Xunzi claims to interpret Confucius' thought
authentically, but leavens it with his own contributions. Whereas
Mencius claims that human beings are originally good but argues for
the necessity of self-cultivation, Xunzi claims that human beings are
originally bad but argues that they can be reformed, even perfected,
through self-cultivation. Also like Mencius, Xunzi sees li as the key
to the cultivation of renxing. Although Xunzi condemns Mencius'
arguments in no uncertain terms, when one has risen above the smoke
and din of the fray, one may see that the two thinkers share many
assumptions, including one that links each to Confucius: the
assumption that human beings can be transformed by participation in
traditional aesthetic, moral, and social disciplines.
Later interpreters of Confucius' thought between the Tang and Ming
dynasties are often grouped together under the label of
"Neo-Confucianism." This term has no cognate in classical Chinese, but
is useful insofar as it unites several thinkers from disparate eras
who share common themes and concerns. Thinkers such as Zhang Zai
(Chang Tsai, 1020-1077 CE), Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi, 1130-1200 CE), and Wang
Yangming (1472-1529 CE), while distinct from one another, agree on the
primacy of Confucius as the fountainhead of the Confucian tradition,
share Mencius' understanding of human beings as innately good, and
revere the "Five Classics" and "Four Books" associated with Confucius
as authoritative sources for standards of ritual, moral, and social
propriety. These thinkers also display a bent toward the cosmological
and metaphysical which isolates them from the Confucius of the
Analects, and betrays the influence of Buddhism and Daoism – two
movements with little or no popular following in Confucius' China — on
their thought.
This cursory review of some seminal interpreters of Confucius' thought
illustrates a principle that ought to be followed by all who seek to
understanding Confucius' philosophical views: suspicion of the
sources. All sources for reconstructing Confucius' views, from the
Analects on down, postdate the master and come from a hand other than
his own, and thus all should be used with caution and with an eye
toward possible influences from outside of fifth century BCE China.
10. References and Further Reading
Allan, Sarah. The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1997.
Allinson, Robert E. "The Golden Rule as the Core Value in Confucianism
and Christianity: Ethical Similarities and Differences." Asian
Philosophy 2/2 (1992): 173-185.
Ames, Roger T., and Henry Rosemont, Jr., trans. The Analects of
Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballatine, 1998.
Ames, Roger T. "The Focus-Field Self in Classical Confucianism," in
Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice, ed. Roger T. Ames
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 187-212.
Berthrong, John. "Trends in the Interpretation of Confucian
Religiosity," in The Confucian-Christian Encounter in Historical and
Contemporary Perspective, ed. Peter K. H. Lee (Lewiston, ME: Edwin
Mellen Press, 1991), 226-254.
Boodberg, Peter A. "The Semasiology of Some Primary Confucian
Concepts," in Selected Works of Peter A. Boodberg, ed. Alvin P. Cohen
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 26-40.
Brooks, E. Bruce and A. Taeko, trans. The Original Analects: Sayings
of Confucius and His Successors. New York: Columbia University Press,
1998.
Chan, Wing-tsit, ed. A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1963.
Cheng, Anne. "Lun-yü," in Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical
Guide, ed. Michael Loewe (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early
China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of
California, Berkeley, 1993), 313-323.
Creel, Herrlee G. Confucius and the Chinese Way. New York: Harper and Row, 1949.
_____. "Was Confucius Agnostic?" T'oung Pao 29 (1935): 55-99.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. "Confucius and the Analects in the Hàn," in
Confucius and the Analects: New Essays, ed. Bryan W. Van Norden
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 134-162.
Eno, Robert. The Confucian Creation of Heaven. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1990.
Fingarette, Herbert. Confucius — The Secular as Sacred. New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1972.
Graham, A. C. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient
China. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989.
Hall, David L., and Roger T. Ames. Thinking Through Confucius. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1987.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. "Whose Confucius? Which Analects?" in Confucius and
the Analects: New Essays, ed. Bryan W. Van Norden (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 119-133.
Lau, D.C., trans. Confucius — The Analects. 2nd ed. Hong Kong: Chinese
University Press, 1992.
Legge, James, trans. Confucius — Confucian Analects, The Great
Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean. New York: Dover Publications,
1971.
Munro, Donald J. The Concept of Man In Early China. Stanford, CA:
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