The Analects of Confucius Make America Great Again
Imagination. That 1 word sums upward Confucius and the influence of his teachings. Confucius'southward critics dismissed him as a narrow-minded pedant, only he was anything only that.
He offers invaluable insights on how to alive your life.
Don't just earn your go on and rest on your days off – look, learn, imagine, teach. Live your piece of work (and certainly don't but work to alive, if yous can help information technology). Think almost it, ponder it, and find elements of lasting reflection even in the simplest of daily activities.
In this lecture, Professor LaFleur helps us navigate through the book's tangle of questions, answers, and observations by introducing usa to the world of Confucius's imaginative ideas nigh living in society.
An outline of the content in this lecture:
Imagination and Date
- Wright Mills'southward The Sociological Imagination is a classic of social thought. In this slender volume, Mills writes about his work not as if it were a task; for Mills, his work seemed to be an all-encompassing outlook on the world. In other words, existent imagination and creativity had to be a full-time occupation. It couldn't just exist turned on and off.
- Mills continues by underlining how essential this combining of ideas that he described really is—and how subjective (and sometimes even unacademic) it all feels. Mills says that truly, deeply imaginative social thinkers cannot, will not, and could never shut it downwardly. They are always thinking, always reflecting, and always learning new things about a irresolute world. Such imagination feeds on every experience that nosotros accept, and it goes then far beyond simply earning a living as to be in a different category of entrepreneurship altogether.
- "Go all in," Mills almost shouts at his readers. Risk having loose, sloppy, and offset-typhoon-style ideas. Sense that "this affair" over hither and "that thing" over there might be related. And then mull information technology over, talk about information technology, and dive into more analysis. Don't sit on the sidelines, and don't cheque out later a expert day'due south work. Alive your work, and so share information technology with others.
- Wright Mills was onto something, and Confucius probable would have agreed with him. People have a thirst for knowledge and for lessons they tin internalize—lessons that might make them amend individuals, improve family members, and meliorate members of larger communities.
- At least in the Due west, we as well frequently hear these lessons through the voice of individual grapheme. But what we are starved for—often without fully realizing it—is a different kind of lesson: Nosotros want to know how to alive with integrity with others. No amount of personal integrity alone tin can work if we don't know how to acquit out our lives with other people, in community, in guild.
- What we must learn is that living well in the world (and solving the large and small-scale challenges all effectually us) requires a remarkable combination of ethical and social imagination.
- From the University of Hawaii to Harvard, and from Montana to Texas—and all throughout North America, Europe, and the rest of the world—courses in Chinese philosophy take produced robust enrollment figures, even at a time when many people bemoan the sheer practicality of interests among students. Something is going on, and we would exercise best to listen to that hunger for agreement.
The Western Arroyo
- One of the best books nigh philosophy is Bryan Magee'due south memoir, Confessions of a Philosopher. Although Magee'southward book is squarely about the Western philosophical tradition, he raises an important point for all of united states of america early on.
- Magee feels that the profession of philosophy has failed u.s. and that it has done and then exactly when we need it nigh. He describes his own experience studying philosophy at Oxford in the 1950s and beingness disgusted with what he regarded as the tiny petty questions about how we use language favored by analytical philosophers of that era. Information technology wasn't until he undertook a year of study at Yale in the 1960s that, in reading Immanuel Kant's three critiques (The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Critique of Judgment), Magee plant a philosopher who asked large philosophical questions on what life in our world is all about.
- But here'south the problem: Westerners tend to think almost big questions through one of ii lenses. Sometimes we contemplate the nifty structures of the universe or the vast sweep of homo history, and other times we written report the tiny structures that shape our knowledge, from Dna to subatomic particles. Both lenses embody the Western emphasis on logic, rationality, and a highly individualistic view of the globe.
- Confucius certainly doesn't seem to be looking at the globe through those lenses, nor does he seem to be request the big questions of which Bryan Magee spoke. Immanuel Kant asked how we know what we think nosotros know. He asked about our artful standards. He argued for uncompromising ethical standards. How could Confucius ever compete with that?
- In fact, Confucius's Analects does deal with the large questions. Questions don't become whatsoever bigger than how we should live our lives with and among others.
The Confucian Approach
- In years past, the consensus amongst students and professors of Chinese studies was that Confucius was an impractical, rulemaking bore. The full general view was that he had footling to teach united states in mod gild and that the Analects was only of value for what it could tell u.s.a. about Red china's purple past. The idea that Confucius could exist the carrier of a vital message, of a way of knowing and acting in the world, struck many academics every bit nonsense.
- Confucian appointment differs radically from many Western ideals of disengaged report from the outside. To comprehend the Analects, yous must exist all in. You must enter the conversation, the complex exchange of questions and answers, assertions and observations, challenges and retorts that make upwardly the gentle pedagogical rhythms of the Analects.
- The Analects welcomes the reader who is willing to engage with it. But learning to do and then can absolutely be challenging. What follows is an example of this type of commutation, so that you can see how you might enter the conversation of the Analects
- A large number of entries in Confucius's Analects gear up a special kind of social scene. It is i in which someone (sometimes dukes and territorial governors, other times his own students) inquire him a question. His answers tin aid us to enter the growing dialogue. Be sure to mind for these social interactions.
17.8
The Principal said, "Zilu! Take you heard of the six negative qualities and the six positive qualities?" "No, I oasis't," replied Zilu. "Well, sit down down then," said the Chief. "I volition instruct you. Wanting to be complete in conduct but not wanting to study—that is a beginning flaw, and it will lead to fatuousness. Wanting knowledge but non wanting to study—that is a second flaw, and it will lead to rootlessness."
The Master continues:
"Wanting to be true to one's give-and-take, but not wanting to study—that is a third flaw, and it leads to harm. Wanting to be upright, just not wanting to report—that is a fourth flaw, and it leads to impudence. Wanting to exist dauntless without wanting to written report—that is a fifth flaw, and it leads to disorder. Finally, wanting to be solid and firm but not wanting to study—that is a 6th flaw, and it leads to foolhardiness."
- This kind of entry teaches the reader (or listener) how to enter the chat. In this passage, Confucius uses a series of ordinary words and contrasts them with studying or not studying. People who confronted Confucius's teachings during the master'southward lifetime, equally well as in the decades and centuries that followed, were hearing something different from the ways they used those words.
- Confucius used concepts in new and sometimes startling ways. Interactions like the one above are an example of Confucius teaching his listeners how to think creatively—imaginatively—and to continue to do then for themselves and for others.
- If you lot are still struggling to grasp how the text of the Analects works, don't despair. There will be many more opportunities in this course to understand it. Residue assured that you're non alone; enough of people who earnestly wish to understand Confucius's message accept tried (oftentimes repeatedly) to do so.
- The Analects is difficult to penetrate at the outset. Merely if you tin can main the essentials of reading it, you will find yourself profoundly rewarded and your life enriched, as many persistent readers have discovered. To practise so requires that you lot enter the world of the text in a way that is different from the ane in which most of us were trained.
- Imagine what it was like in a much before era, when information at the click of a button was a thing of utter fantasy. Imagine a world in which the gift of a volume could change your life forever. Imagine a world in which you didn't merely read, but read, reread, read once more, and lived a book. It is and then far from the way that we think today that we demand to remind ourselves of the power that a single book can incorporate.
- Confucius's Analects contains that kind of transformative power, and you can experience it for yourself if you approach the volume in the right way. It must be read, reread, and lived.
Questions to Consider
- The Western philosophical tradition places a heavy focus upon "rationality" in controlling. Confucius maintains that ane must be "all in." What are the implications of being personally invested in how and what one learns?
- Is it possible to be "Confucian" outside of China?
From the lecture serial Books That Thing: The Analects of Confucius
Taught past Professor Robert Andre LaFleur, Ph.D.
neighbourmanthaten.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/analects-confucius-birds-eye-view/