Work · East Asian Philosophy
Analects (Lunyu)
The Master's sayings on humaneness, ritual and good government.
Introduction
The Lunyu (“Selected Sayings”) is a collection of about five hundred short passages in twenty books: sayings of Confucius, brief exchanges with disciples and remarks by the disciples themselves. It was compiled after his death by his disciples and their students, probably in several layers over a long period, so it presents no system but a portrait of a teacher. Recurring terms are ren (humaneness), li (ritual propriety), xiao (filial piety) and the junzi, the exemplary person. Zhu Xi made it one of the Four Books, and for centuries Chinese, Korean and Japanese students learned it by heart.
Connections
Taken up in
- Mengzic. 300 BCE · Mengzi (Mencius)
- Xunzic. 240 BCE · Xunzi
- Commentaries on the Four Books1190 · Zhu Xi
- The Meanings of Terms in the Analects and Mencius (Gomō jigi)1683 · Itō Jinsai
- Discourse on the Practical Philosophy of the Chinese1721 · Christian Wolff
- The Book of Great Unity (Datong shu)1902 · Kang Youwei
- Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation1985 · Tu Weiming
Criticized in
- Mozic. 400 BCE · Mozi
- Balanced Inquiries (Lunheng)c. 80 · Wang Chong
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