GEH1015: Confucious

What do you think when you hear the name confucius.

• Old guy, moralistic,died a long time ago
• Humanist concerned with society
• Fortune cookies and racist jokes

Confucius dont speak well about women.

Think about it and criticise the infomation taught to us.

It seems like confucous is always the teacher and the students are always the teacher.

No human being can think outside the box and humans are very limited creatures.

But some people build a really big box by going to look at how people lived in the past. They dont think the same way as we do and we can use all these people’s life and culture to build a bigger box for ourselves

Origins of confucianism in the east asia

Rectification of names:

The name confucius is not the same name as it is called in japanese nor chinese.

It is a latin name and has no relationship with the spoken name in mandarin,korean or japanese

He was first introduce to europe by jesuit matteo ricci

• He was among the first westerners to master the chinese language
• Christian missionary
• Introduce western science to chinese administrators including the emperor
• Translated Confucian classics
• Latin name a sign of european respect for confucius

Latin is still being taught in europe.

Latin name is a sign of respect

Life of confucious

• Not much known for sure
• Born 551 BCE
• Family had been part of nobility but became impoverished
• Father died at age three
• Early education by moter
• Good student and heart set on learning by age 15
• Holds minor posts in government
• Married at 19
• Teaching career begins in his 30s
• Mastery of six arts:
• Ritual
• Music
• Archery
• Charioterring
• Calligraphy
• Math
• History and poetry
• Died 479 BCE

Teaching of confucious:

Big points:

• Well rounded human beings
• Via self cultivation, humans beings can become complete
• Human beings are teachable and perfectible
• Transmission of norms of ancient culture of sage kings
• These could regenerate indiviudals
• Student must have the willingness to learn
• Cult society
• Transmit the tradition of the past
• The analects of confucious
• Seems like a bunch of unrelated conversation on pragmatuc topics
• But its a form of communal memory wofs of a master
• Can be piece together into a profound philosiphical statement
• It requires to be place together but doesnt tell u how to put it together
• Written down by second or third generation disciples
• Not by confucius himself
• Confucius always shown at the center of relationship
• Confucius knows the student as he knows the student personally.

perfoundly humanistics

We can change the world and continue to improve ourselve

Seem to hvae reach out to all classesmof people unlike normal aristocratic teaching.

Historicla background:

• Zhou kings were intitially powerfl but decline over the centuries
• 771BCE for to move to ned captital an
• Force to movre to new capital
• Sense of society in decline
• Confucioud concerned this decline and how to reserve i
• How do we restore stability?

Recification name:

Confusuanism -> Is the english name for what we are talking boutthe \today.but it is a problem

Confucuanism in china:

• Many schools of confucnism
• One of the many school of thought
• Becomes dominant school during Han dynasty: entrenched in govenment
• Confucian classics become core of education
• Threatened by Daoism,Buddhism
• Song Dynasty revival: neo - confucianism
• Many great philosophers foremost is zhu xi
• Reconfigures confucianism
• Creates metaphysics that can compete with buddhism and daoism
• Emphaisises a new classics
• Zhu xi metaphysics : abstract concepts dealing with fundamental componenets of realitiy
• Li and qi
• Li is supreme law or pattern of the universe , pure qi is energy that animates the patterns can introduce impurities

Zhu Xi:

The four books:

Analects,mencius, doctrine of the mean, the greater learning

Confucianism in japan

• Always present
• Arrives in the early histrorical
• May have arrived in the early 16th century
• But not influential till tokugawa period

Tokuhawa confucianism

• The first ruler of the shogunate could claim military legitimacu so could his son
• Grandson cannot claim legitimacy in many ways
• Support of neo confuciamsism is one
• Neo confucianism supports hierarchies
• This is what attract the shogunate
• The shogunate adopt this as confucianism have hierarchies that put the the shogunate as the top
• The money lenders and the buisness people merchant are the lower class compared to the peasant (they feel like they dont provide much to the country)

Confucian academy

• Founded in early 17th century
• Run by hayashi family
• Neo-confucianism over time becomes the ideology of the tokygawa shogunate
• By end of 17th century,educated people knows the four books (Education = confucianism)

Ogyu sorai

• High level shogunal official
• Devises own confucianism
• Study the six classics
• Read in chinese not via parsing methods
• School of ancient learning.
• The japanese have one dynasty of emperor, where the emperors are decendants of the sun goddess.
• Japan picks and chooses the parts of confucianism and leaves out the part that is not good.
• Sorai’s idea influence others in japan
• Study ancient japanese texts
• Discover the ancient japanese spirit before the arrival of chinese ideas
• Sorai, confucianism as universal
• Nativist as particularistic
• Racists ideas and great ideas
• Great things
• Wrote attrocious things about china even he have never been there

Confucianism today

• Still very much alive in east asia partiualrly in japan
• Influential outside east asia as well
• China is also being brought back by the govenement
• Inoue yasushi best selling japanese novel about confucius