Liao Mingchun | whether we have misread Confucius

Is Confucius surnamed Kong? "The people can make it, not let it know" reflects the foolish people's thinking? Does "Only women and villains are difficult to raise" show that Confucius despised women? On April 11, 2015, Liao Mingchun, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of History and Institute of Thought and Culture of Tsinghua University, visited Nishan College and had extensive and in-depth exchanges with students on the misreading of Confucius and his books by historians.

One

The topic of the lecture of the day was "Confucius and His Book: Centered on the Misreading of the Analects". Liao Mingchun interpreted several questions about Confucius's life based on his own research.

First of all, Confucius's surname is "Son". "We know that Confucius was a remnant of Yin, and it comes from Confucius saying that 'and Qiu Ye, Yin people also'." Liao Mingchun said that because Confucius's ancestor Kong Father Jia was the song dynasty, the descendants took Kong as their clan because of Kong Father Jia. After Kong's father Jia was killed by the Powerful Minister Hua Father of the Song Dynasty, his descendant Fang Shu ran to the State of Lu and gave birth to Bo Xia, who gave birth to his uncle Liang Qi, who was Confucius's father, and Confucius became a Lu.

Based on this, Liao Mingchun believes that Confucius is not surnamed Kong, but kong is The surname of Confucius. "Now the surname is the surname, and the surname is the surname." But in the pre-Qin Dynasty, surnames were different from surnames. Liao Mingchun explained that youshi were a very status symbol in the pre-Qin. Therefore, Confucius, because Confucius's father Jia was the patriarch of the Song Dynasty, he named Kong's "Kong". But in fact, Confucius's surname is "Zi", because the Song Dynasty is a sub-surname, and King Wen of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou are surnamed Ji.

Second, Confucius was not an aristocrat. "When we talk about the life of Confucius, many people portray him as an aristocrat, and in its practical modern words, Confucius is the 'grassroots'." Liao Mingchun said that Confucius said that he himself was "a little lowly, so I can despise things", that is, when he was born, he actually lived at the bottom of society, so he did a lot of lowly work. Why did Confucius have such a great influence? Liao Mingchun believes that it is mainly his thoughts. He believes that the core of Confucius thought should be benevolence, but etiquette is also very important, and it boils down to "benevolence and etiquette", taking benevolence as the basis and using etiquette as the use, which is the characteristic of Confucius thought.

Two

Modern people have made it clear that the Analects record the words and deeds of Confucius and his disciples, so the author should be Kong Qiu and so on, not Confucius alone. So how should the name of the Analects be interpreted? Liao Mingchun gave the answer from the perspective of hermeneutics.

He said that the "language" of the "Analects" is a style of writing -- a type of writing; "Discourse" can be trained as "Lun"; "Analects" is "Lun Language", which is specifically about human morality, talking about the cultivation of the mind and the cultivation of self-governance, and most of the cultivation of self-governance is human morality.

Who were the main writers of the Analects? Liao Mingchun agreed with the Tang Dynasty literary scholar Liu Zongyuan's examination.

Liu Zongyuan believes that the Analects record many of Confucius's students, and Confucius in the book generally calls him by his first name, but there are two students who are very special, one is a son, and the other is a son. There are sons called "sons", Zengzi is also called "sons", and "sons" are teachers.

It is easier to explain that there are sons who call them "sons", because after the death of Confucius, at the beginning everyone was ready to let Youzi be the heir, so the status of Youzi was higher than that of ordinary students. Zeng Zi is not easy to explain, because Zeng Zi's age is relatively young among Confucius students, why is he called "Zi"? Liu Zongyuan speculated that the Analects were compiled by Zengzi's students, so the students were more special to their teachers, calling Zengzi "Zi".

Three

Liao Mingchun believes that due to the early writing of the Analects, it is inevitable that there will be errors in the process of circulation, which will have an impact on the correct understanding of Confucius Thought.

The first is that it hinders understanding. The Analects of Wei Zheng records: "The Son knows: 'I have five out of ten and am determined to learn, thirty and standing, forty without confusion, fifty and knowing the Mandate of Heaven, sixty and obedient, seventy and obedient to the heart, not exceeding the rules.' Academics have not properly interpreted "ear shun". Liao Mingchun believes that the "ear" of "sixty and smooth ears" should be read as "聏". The word "聏" derives from "ear" and sounds exactly the same as the word "ear". "So from a musical point of view, it is very likely to be universal with 'ears'." Liao Mingchun said that the early mainland dictionary "Class Chapter" said that "聏又人切, 和也, 調也." "Zhuangzi Tianxia" chapter "to the harmony, to adjust the sea". Lu Deming's "Interpretation": "聏, Cui, Guo, Wang Yun: 'Heye'. And all things are harmonious, and things are happy. "'Sixty and smooth' means 'sixty and harmonious.'" The word 'Heshun' appears a lot in pre-Qin literature. ”

Second, a misunderstanding of the Analects can easily lead to misunderstandings about Confucius's thought.

The Analects tabernaise records: "The Son knows: 'The people may make it by it, but they cannot make it know.' This sentence has led many people to mistakenly believe that it is Confucius's foolish thought. But Liao Mingchun believes that there is a logical error in this understanding: "If Confucius believes that the 'people' are 'unknowable', then Confucius's education and Confucian indoctrination will be impossible to talk about." He believes that two words in "the people can make it by it, but cannot make it know" are pseudo-borrowed words: the first is "by", "by" is not the original word, it is the enlightening "Di" pseudo-loan word, "by" and "Di" are both from the form of the word, so their sounds are the same. Therefore, "the people can make it" is "the people can make it", that is, the people can only enlighten them and inspire them. The "knowing" of "unknowable" should be read as "folding", and "not making a fold" means that they cannot be subdued by violence.

The Thirteenth Analects of the Zilu records that "the Father is hidden for the Son, and the Son is hidden by the Father", which is misunderstood in modern times as the theory of judicial corruption. Liao Mingchun believes that the "hidden" here should be a false loan word for "櫽栝", which means correction and correction. From the perspective of exegesis, he explained that "櫽" was originally "the wood of the right curve wood" and "the instrument of the right and evil curve", it is wooden, so the word is from wood. The famous verb, "櫽" has the meaning of correcting, correcting, and correcting. In this sense of "櫽", the ancients often wrote "hidden", removed this wooden side, and trained it as "degree". The so-called "degree" is also the norm.

The Analects of Yang Goods records that "only women and villains are difficult to raise", which is misunderstood by people as Confucius's contempt for women. Liao Mingchun believes that "woman and villain" is a partial positive structure, "woman" is the central word, and "and villain" is a postposition, which is to modify and define "woman". Therefore, the "woman" here cannot be a full name, it cannot refer to all women, but only a special name, specifically referring to those "women" who are "like villains" and "women" who are "like villains". The essence of this "woman" "like a villain" is the "villain" in "woman", that is, the "immoral person" in "woman". In Liao Mingchun's view, "only women and villains are difficult to raise" should be translated as "only women like villains are difficult to get along with."