Puett, Foreword, Tsai Analects

Journal of Chinese Studies (HK) 2019

Journal of Chinese Philosophy , 2023

In his recent book on "Confucius: The Man and the Way of Gongfu," Peimin Ni argues that Confucius's teachings in the Analects should be interpreted aesthetically and artistically, rather than theoretically and moralistically. I argue NI's move faces two difficulties. First, Ni should take into account Confucius' theoretical and moralist teachings in other classics as far as Ni borrows from these texts. Second, even if we grant Ni's reading of the Analects as artistic and aesthetic instructions, his argument does not reach his general claim that Confucianism should be understood in such ways.

In this content-based Mandarin class we will do a close reading of selected texts from the Analects, in its original classical Chinese and modern Chinese translations. To cultivate students’ transcultural sensibilities, the class will also focus on how to best translate the Analects into English. We will discuss core Confucian concepts such as ren (仁, benevolence/humaneness), yi (义, righteousness), li (礼, ritual propriety), and xiao (孝, filial piety), and how the cultivation of these virtues can lead to good governance. Students will also learn how Confucius has shaped ethical and political theory and social conventions in East Asia for millennia. Readings and discussion in the course will be in Mandarin Chinese and English. Secondary materials about contemporary Confucian political theory will also be provided.

Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 2020

China Media Research

This paper engages the Analects from multiple perspectives. The Deleuzean read reveals its function as a cogwheel in the feudal social machine serving the purpose of overcoding. The Flusserian read brings into relief a meta-program that works to perpetuate the feudal social order, and a functionalism that has been revived in the post-historical era. From an interological perspective, Confucian ritual formalizes and normalizes interality. In terms of rhetorical and performance studies, the Analects has the gentleman as its second persona, inculcates a role aesthetics, and models a sense of decorum. From a Daoist viewpoint, the Analects contains an autobiography that documents Confucius's personal development as a spiritual adventurer and his becoming-Daoist later in life. From a Chan perspective, Confucius was a virtuosic performer of upaya, and the Analects feels like a precursor of the mondo or question-and-answer books that flourished in the Chan community in later historical periods. Moreover, a Chan-minded heterodox hermeneutics regarding the Analects has taken shape over time. The paper ends by pointing to Ouyi's Chan-spirited reinterpretation of the Analects as an exciting project to take on. Although the Buddha expounded the Dharma in a single voice, each of all living beings attained understanding according to its kind.-JIANG Qian 江 谦 (translated by Richard John Lynn) A Taoist hat, Confucian shoes, and a Buddhist robe combine the three houses into one. (Hori, 2003, p. 555) Three men gathered around a vat of vinegar. Each dipped a digit in and then touched it to his tongue. To Confucius, the taste was sour; to Gautama Buddha, the taste was bitter; to Laozi, the taste was sweet. All three different; all three one. This exploration approaches the Analects of Confucius with a nomadic sensibility. "Nomadic" invokes multiple strands of philosophical currents, including the treatise on nomadology developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus, the species of nomad thought Deleuze perceives in Friedrich Nietzsche, the kind of nomadism Vilém Flusser associates with post-history in The Freedom of the Migrant, the emerging philosophical paradigm that has coalesced around the term "interology," and Daoism and Chan Buddhism, which have had a long history of co-evolution, rivalry, complementarity,