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Basic Concepts in the Analects of Confucianism

  • Guy S. Alitto

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The lecturer presents an expert analysis of different concepts in The Analects. These include Li, Ren, Junzi, Xiao, and Dao. The lecture explains that while these concepts have specific applications, there is no one set definition. At the hand of examples and practical usages, the lecture gives an insight into what these concepts mean in different contexts and how they can be understood. Referring to moral and civilizational norms, the concepts help to frame the ethics system through morals and self-improvement. The concepts are relative, which makes them connect to the whole of Chinese civilization and its constant flux and cosmos.

Introduction

The lecturer presents an expert analysis of different concepts in The Analects which include Li, Ren, Junzi, Xiao, and Dao.

About The Author

Guy S. Alitto

Guy S. Alitto one of the best sinologists of modern times, Guy Alitto is an American academic in the History and East Asian Languages and Civilization Departments at the University of Chicago. He is known in China for revitalizing the scholarship on Chinese Confucian scholar Liang Shuming. He is best known in America for his scholarship and for his role as translator for the first official Chinese delegations to the United States after Richard Nixon’s first visits to China.

 

About this video

Author(s)
Guy S. Alitto
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7203-6
Online ISBN
978-981-99-7203-6
Total duration
35 min
Publisher
Springer, Singapore
Copyright information
© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 2023

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Video Transcript

One way of approaching The Analects and understanding the thought of Confucius is to talk about the fundamental concepts within. One of the foremost is the concept of Li, and the word Li is extremely interesting. It’s this character here (礼). It has many meanings, many layers of meanings. It has been translated in innumerable ways, sometimes as “ceremony” or “rites,” referring to the actual ceremonies that are performed in certain occasions. It has been referred to as “social propriety according to status,” which of course has nothing to do with rites or ceremony.