What Are the Qualities That an Ideal Person Should Cultivate, Possess, and Practice According to Confucius?
What are the qualities that an ideal person should cultivate, possess, and practice according to Confucius?
1. Introduction
In this paper, I will discuss what qualities should be cultivated, possessed, and practiced for an ideal person according to Confucius. Although Confucius regards humanness, wisdom, and courage as the basic threefold towards being a junzi (superior man/ideal person, 君子), there has been an ongoing disagreement among scholars regarding the qualities that are needed to become an ideal person or a junzi. I shall accomplish my purpose by first providing a basic background of information on the topic, then identifying two conflicting interpretations of the qualities that are required by Hosung Ahn and Ha Poong Kim, adding my own critical response, and lastly offering my resolution using Antonio S. Cua’s interpretation on the topic. I will use Confucian Analects (1895) by James Legge as my primary source, along with “Junzi as a Tragic Person: A Self Psychological Interpretation of the Analects” (Ahn, 2008), “Confucius’s Aesthetic Concept of Noble Man: Beyond Moralism” (Ha, 2006), and “Virtues of Junzi” (Cua, 2007) as my secondary sources.
2. Background Information According to Chinese tradition, Confucius is one of the most outstanding thinker, political figure, educator, philosopher, and the founder of the Ru (儒) School of Chinese thought. Our textbook “The Eastern Paths to Philosophic Self-Enlightenment: An introduction to Eastern Philosophies” (2002) written by Professor Phan points out that Confucius’s thoughts are preserved in the Lunyu (论语) or the Analects, which is one of the Four Books. It is worth noting that the Analects was not written by Master Kong Zi (Confucius, 孔子) himself, but complied by his close disciples when they recollected his “sayings” after Confucius’s death. Defined by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Confucius’s teachings create the foundation on most of subsequent Chinese speculation on the education and
1. Introduction
In this paper, I will discuss what qualities should be cultivated, possessed, and practiced for an ideal person according to Confucius. Although Confucius regards humanness, wisdom, and courage as the basic threefold towards being a junzi (superior man/ideal person, 君子), there has been an ongoing disagreement among scholars regarding the qualities that are needed to become an ideal person or a junzi. I shall accomplish my purpose by first providing a basic background of information on the topic, then identifying two conflicting interpretations of the qualities that are required by Hosung Ahn and Ha Poong Kim, adding my own critical response, and lastly offering my resolution using Antonio S. Cua’s interpretation on the topic. I will use Confucian Analects (1895) by James Legge as my primary source, along with “Junzi as a Tragic Person: A Self Psychological Interpretation of the Analects” (Ahn, 2008), “Confucius’s Aesthetic Concept of Noble Man: Beyond Moralism” (Ha, 2006), and “Virtues of Junzi” (Cua, 2007) as my secondary sources.
2. Background Information According to Chinese tradition, Confucius is one of the most outstanding thinker, political figure, educator, philosopher, and the founder of the Ru (儒) School of Chinese thought. Our textbook “The Eastern Paths to Philosophic Self-Enlightenment: An introduction to Eastern Philosophies” (2002) written by Professor Phan points out that Confucius’s thoughts are preserved in the Lunyu (论语) or the Analects, which is one of the Four Books. It is worth noting that the Analects was not written by Master Kong Zi (Confucius, 孔子) himself, but complied by his close disciples when they recollected his “sayings” after Confucius’s death. Defined by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Confucius’s teachings create the foundation on most of subsequent Chinese speculation on the education and
Cited: Cua, Antonio. "Virtues of Junzi."Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 34 (2007): 125. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 28 Mar. 2012 Kim, Ha Poong Kohut, H (1985). Self psychology and the science of man. In Humanities and self psychology: Reflections on a new psychoanalytic approach (pp. 73-94). New York: Norton. Legge, James. Confucian Analects. In Vol. I of Chinese Classics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895. Print. Phan, Chánh Công. The Eastern paths to philosophic self-enlightenment: an introduction to Eastern philosophies. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co., 2002. Print. Shun, K.-L. (2002). Ren 仁 and li 礼 in the Analects. In B. W. Van Norden (Ed.), Confucius and the Analects: New essays (pp. 53-72). New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, M