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- Title
Impoverished or Intermittently Empty? A New Interpretation of Analects 12.19.
- Authors
Lo Yuet Keung
- Abstract
Confucius is recorded in Analects 12.19 as having characterized his beloved disciple Yan Hui 顏回 using the well-known expression lükong 屢 空. In his Collected Commentaries on the Analects 論語集注, Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) took this expression to mean “was often reduced to destitution,” and this has been the standard reading ever since. To Zhu, Yan Hui was a virtual sage, as he was completely at ease with the Way in spite of his penury. Yet prior to the twelfth century, a competing interpretation of lükong as meaning “was empty within occasionally” was prevalent. According to this view, though Yan Hui was intellectually brilliant, he was nonetheless able to maintain an empty mind on occasion. Whether or not he was a virtual sage was not an issue in the passage. Zhu Xi, however, dismissed this alternative reading as he considered it characteristic of the Daoist doctrine of purity and tranquility. Endorsing Zhu’s dismissal, Chen Li 陳澧 (1810-1882) further attributed the competing interpretation to He Yan 何 晏 (190-249), the Xuanxue 玄學 thinker whom he famously accused of introducing Daoist interpretations of the Confucian classic. On the basis of textual criticism, this paper examines Analects 12.19 in connection with Analects 12.18 and attempts to unpack its original meaning on philological, philosophical, and literary grounds, while at the same time tracing evolving interpretations before the twelfth century. Further, it explains the philosophical and literary underpinnings of Zhu Xi’s influential interpretation and its inherent problems. Specifically, Zhu Xi failed to do justice to the perceived Xuanxue readings of Analects 12.19 suggested by He Yan and Wang Bi 王弼 (226-249), and allowed his own moral interpretation to overshadow the non-moral dimension of early Confucian self-cultivation.
- Subjects
ANALECTS of Confucius (Chinese text); CONFUCIAN philosophy; CONFUCIUS, 551 B.C.-479 B.C.; EMPTINESS (Philosophy); ZHU Xi, 1130-1200; CONFUCIAN literature; YAN Hui; HE, Yan, d. 249; HISTORY
- Publication
Chinese Studies / Hanxue Yanjiu, 2014, Vol 32, Issue 2, p265
- ISSN
0254-4466
- Publication type
Article