Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Confucius Is Coming

On Saturday, we will come to the end of the Book of Lieh Tzu. One historical figure mentioned frequently by both Lieh Tzu and Chuang Tzu is Confucius. In fact, in many stories of the Zhuangzi, Confucius is the punchline of a joke or the butt of a philosophical point.

To this end, I thought it would be helpful to posit the philosophy of Confucius against that of philosophical Taoism. So, beginning on Sunday, September 11, we will begin reviewing post-by-post the Analects of Confucius. As with our previous readings of several of the classic Chinese books, the text will be offered without commentary.

This version of the Analects comes from The Internet Classics Archive maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Though it is not indicated whose translation they are offering, my suspicion is that it is the one from James Legge.

If you're interested in learning some background of Confucius, here's the link to the entry on Wikipedia.

1 comment:

  1. I have used Legge's translations in some of my work but find him occasionally lacking in insight. Do you enjoy his translations? Do you find them useful?


    Thanks,

    Joel, author
    http://lostgreatmusic.blogspot.com/

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