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- Title
Two Confucian Theories on Children and Childhood: Commentaries on the Analects and the Mengzi.
- Authors
Lee, Pauline
- Abstract
In this article I uncover, describe, and analyze two native Chinese theories by way of exploring the commentarial tradition through the centuries on two passages from Confucian classics: Mengzi 孟子 4B12 and Analects 論語 11.25. One view I explore is of the child as a cluster of role-specific duties, whereupon debates regard proper behavior for a junior in society; a second conception is of the child as an existential quality to be preserved or rediscovered, or a special stage in life to be honored, whereupon the debates within the commentaries regard effective methods for preserving or rediscovering one's human nature. In concluding, I compare this latter conception of children with the theories on childhood development articulated by the great 20th-century developmental psychologist Erik Erikson (1902-1994), whose views inform a number of seminal and important studies on children in China. I show how the latter Confucian view and Erikson's are substantively different and yet can be seen as complementary.
- Subjects
ANALECTS of Confucius (Chinese text); MENGZI (Book : Mencius); HUMAN behavior; CHILD development; ERIKSON, Erik, 1902-1994; CONFUCIANISM; CHINESE philosophy
- Publication
Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 2014, Vol 13, Issue 4, p525
- ISSN
1540-3009
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11712-014-9401-2