The Authentic Confucius: A Life of Thought and Politics

by Annping Chin

Book Overview

A thoughtful and authoritative biography of Confucious--a philosopher whose ongoing relevance is unparalleled and who is just as current in China today as he was one thousand years ago.

For more than two thousand years, Confucius has been an inseparable part of China's history. Yet despite this fame, Confucius the man has been elusive. Now, in The Authentic Confucius, Annping Chin has worked through the most reliable Chinese texts...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743246187
• ISBN13: 9780743246187
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A Superb Book for Western Readers Who Want to Understand a Major Thread in Asian Culture

Confucius' influence has endured for nearly 2,500 years at the heart of Chinese culture, even though his light occasionally has been eclipsed by various political and cultural movements. In China, Annping Chin points out, he is simply known as "the first teacher." Just as the figure of Jesus is reinterpreted in each new age -- and there's vigorous debate among Christians and non-Christians over Jesus' life and teachings to this very day -- Confucius also is the target of continual scholarly reinterpretation. Chin points out that two large caches of ancient manuscripts that relate to Confucius' legacy, which were discovered in 1993, are sparking readjustments in our modern understanding of that legacy. Plus, after a condemnation of Confucian thought as recent as the 1970s in China, his influence is rising again in his homeland. In her book, she points out that, once again, Chinese government funding is available for scholarly conferences on the Confucian tradition -- an official move with complex interconnections to the current cultural mix in China. Ping has been part of all of this unfolding reinterpretation, traveling widely in China, examining the new manuscripts, attending at least one of these major scholarly conferences. That's why it's so important to select a recent book like this, published in 2007, in exploring Confucius and his ongoing importance as a spiritual and cultural figure. Books published in other eras spoke to other historical windows into his life and significance. Chin's work is respected among scholars and she writes with one eye on this elite audience. But, if you're a general reader in this field, you're likely to find this a very helpful book in understanding the "real" Confucius. Ping works hard in this book to limit her overview of his life, work and influence to hard facts attributable to original sources. In other words, this isn't a fanciful "legends of Confucius" treatment. This means that opening chapters of the book are a little challenging for general readers. In those chapters, Ping works through some of the more complex political situations Confucius faced as a philosopher-for-hire in the service of powerful rulers in his era. But the middle of the book opens up as a fascinating look of his teachings. Plus, Ping's accounts of his followers' distinctive characters and adventures make for flat-out fun spiritual reading. Her closing chapters look at some of the ways Confucius' body of work was used -- and reinterpreted and sometimes even abused -- in other eras. That's also a very interesting section of her book, especially for Christian readers in the West who are familiar with the many ways that Jesus' teachings bounced through similar waves of reinterpretation down through the centuries. This tendency to human re-interpretation of spiritual sages seems to be a universal yearning. This is an all-around excellent book for Western readers -- a superb choice as a book to help Westerners understand a majo

Wisdom concerning how "the superior man" should live

Confucius, whose family name was Kong and given name was Qiu (551-479 B.C.) was a philosopher, humanist, teacher, and political theorist whose ideas were collected by his disciples in "The Analects of Confucius" and elsewhere. Annping Chin, who teaches in the History Department at Yale University, has done admirable and extensive research into the most reliable Chinese texts, seeking to make sense of the reconstructions and guesswork that has muddled Confucius' memory. But what can we really know about Confucius, who lived five centuries before the birth of Christ, aside from embellishments and conflicting stories concocted by his disciples? (Indeed, what can one know about Socrates other than what Plato (and a few scattered sources) reports concerning him, or of Jesus apart from what the Evangelists claim he said and did?). Did not Plato, the Gospel Writers, and the disciples of Confucius "put words into the mouth" of their heroes? Confucius often taught in baffling paradoxes that lead to various interpretations. Moreover, linguistic and cultural barriers may prove challenging for Western minds seeking to grasp the nuances and subtleties of his thought. In his essay, "On the Study of Latin," the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote, "A man's thought varies according To the language in which he speaks." One worries that "something is lost in translation" from the ancient Chinese dialect in which Confucius spoke, and wonders if the Western thinker is on the same wave length as "the inscrutable Oriental mind." A few of Confucius' aphorisms, however, ring true, as when he is reputed to have said, "Do not impose on others what you do not desire yourself" or, as it is sometimes translated (or paraphrased), "Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself." Some scholars assert that Confucius' "Silver Rule" is superior to Jesus' "Golden Rule" ("Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.") Their reason for such a judgment is that what one person might want done to himself, another person might not want done to him! Confucius' "negative" formulation seems akin to the Hippocratic oath: "First do no harm." Confucius also said, "The superior man practices virtue. To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue. [They are] gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness." Although, while serving briefly in the political arena, Confucius once ordered that a man be put to death (which, because of the man's criminal conduct, was probably deserved), the general tenor of Confucius' life and teachings is that of a caring and compassionate human being . . . and the world would be a much better place if there were more people in it like Confucius. On the subject of teachers, Confucius said, "Even when walking in the company of two men, I am bound to find my teachers there. Their good points, I try to emulate; their bad points, I try to correct in myself." No revolution

The Sage

A fine book on what is now reasonably thought to be known of the great teacher, Confucius. The author, Annping Chin, writes with clarity and authority on a still revered figure, whose actual life to most is lost in a mythical haze. People interested in China, ethical living, and governmental theory would profit from this biographical study.