Good Confucianism book (pdf) - Department of Physics

13IssuesWhat is Confucianism?By now you should have enough information to answer the question “ Whatis Confucianism? ” with another question, “ Which Confucianism? ” TheConfucianism of the Warring States? of the Han dynasty? of the Neo -Confucians? of the May 4th movement? of the New Confucians? or of thepresent - day Chinese government? So, when we come to try to answer somebroader questions about Confucianism, the first thing we need to do is tobe clear that there is more than one Confucianism. Confucianism, as LeeSeung - hwan says, is a “ discourse with a thousand faces. ” 1You also know by now that there is really no such thing as “ Confucianism. ”The Ru Confucians follow Ruxue , the Confucian school that is not understoodas based on a founder, Confucius (Kongzi), but is a tradition thatbegan before Confucius. Confucius is the revered sage who articulated thetradition best. Confucian ideas began to gel around Confucius ’ teachingsand around a set of texts. These ideas have been interpreted in all sorts ofways by all sorts of people in all sorts of times.These interpretations depend a great deal on the time: the things peoplewere talking about, the ideas floating around, the problems people in theConfucian tradition found themselves facing.To take one example, Zhu Xi, the great systematizer of the Confuciantradition, set up a system under the impetus of Chinese Buddhism, drawingon Confucian texts and ideas, and using the Han dynasty yin - yang andfive elements systems. He was educated for, and passed, the government -sponsored civil service examinations. He expressed his Neo - Confucian ideasby writing commentaries on the Confucian classics, selecting some classicsas more important than others, writing ritual textbooks for people, andassigning a lower status to women. His interpretation went on to becomethe orthodox understanding of Confucian ideas, was mandatory study for