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Thought I would do a short response to a statement made by Confucius, since I haven't really touched any Eastern philosophy here yet. My response is based only on this translation of Confucius' statement. Other translations of this statement might produce something with a different flavor to which my response does not apply. Nothing really formal here. Just thinking out loud mostly.
On the Value of Natural Talent in Confucian Philosophy
"Confucius said, 'Those who are born with knowledge are the highest type of people. Those who learn through study are the next. Those who learn through hard work are still the next. Those who work hard and still do not learn are really the lowest type.'" (Confucius. Wing-Tsit Chan. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University Press. 1963. Pg. 45, 16: 9.)
The above quote from the Analects of Confucius, as translated by Wing-Tsit Chan, seems to reveal a sort of reverence for natural talent in Confucian thinking. What I intend to show is that, based on an analysis of this particular quote, it would seem that Confucius valued natural talent over ability gained through hard work. In addition to analyzing and interpreting the words of Confucius, I will also comment on some philosophical differences that I have from Confucian thinking on this subject, since it is my position that natural talent has no moral worth if left uncultivated, and that hard work and diligence are what truly exemplifies a person of great character and virtue, regardless of what level of ability such a person begins with.
The structure of this statement by Confucius seems to set up a hierarchy from "the highest type of people" to the lowest. This isn't really objectionable on its own, since one might say that murderers and rapists are the lowest type of people, while virtuous and upright people are the highest. The problem, though, is that Confucius is basing his hierarchy on people's natural ability to gain knowledge or to learn. It is a bit unfair to base judgment of one's character on his natural talents, as this is something over which he/she has no control. Do we say that one who is born happy is bound to be a happy person, while one who is born crying will live a life of pain? Of course not! That would be ridiculous. No matter what a person is born with, he/she will always have the opportunity to find happiness in some form (except perhaps in the case of those born with terrible birth defects which prevent them from finding any kind of happiness).
The same could be said about virtue. Nobody is born a bad person or a good person. Even those who are born into a family of bad people still have the opportunity to become good themselves. Instead of judging a person's character based on what they are born with, it would be more advantageous to judge one's character based on what they do with it. If one is born into a family of thieves, but grows up to become a sheriff who risks his life to pursue justice, then such a person should be considered one of the "highest type of people" instead of being considered the lowest because he used to help his family steal jewelry as a child.
Most importantly, I find it a bit strange that Confucius bases his hierarchy on knowledge and learning. It would be strange to say that the genius thief who never gets caught is a higher type of person than the less intelligent police officer who always fails to catch him, for the police officer is on the side of the good, while the thief has forsaken a part of his morality for personal gain. This may suggest, though, that Confucius sees knowledge as the highest of virtues, since the highest of people are born with it, whereas the lowest of people cannot obtain it. Of course, this statement on its own is a bit strange. Is anyone really born with knowledge? It really is silly to argue that anyone could be born with knowledge. Even a priori knowledge must be gained through the use of reason. Nobody is simply born with knowledge or wisdom. Perhaps he means to say "intelligence" instead of knowledge. It might be possible to make a case for that, though it would still be difficult to call an infant intelligent.
Additionally, it would seem that Confucius's hierarchy puts those who work the hardest at the bottom, while those who do not work hard but get what they want anyway are placed at the top. Those who are "born with knowledge" do not have to work for it. They are already given what they want at birth. Those who pick up knowledge just by opening a book and reading it seem to be the second highest. These are the people who learn with ease simply by absorbing the knowledge as they read it. Below those are the people who have to work hard to learn. I imagine these are the people who must re-read things and study a subject repeatedly to master it. But are those people really of a lower type than those who learn easily? In the end, both people master the subject. One of them simply took longer to do it, and that person had the perseverance to work hard and push through his difficulty with learning. Is this not admirable on its own?
What this passage really shows is that Confucius seems to believe that a person's place in life is determined at birth, and that regardless of the hard work a person puts into improving his/herself, that person's place in the hierarchy will remain unchanged. It would also seem to suggest that for Confucius, what determines whether a person is the highest type of person or the lowest type of person is not how good or morally upright they are, but how naturally talented they are. It is with these two points that I cannot agree. A person's character should be judged based on their actions and what they do with their natural talents (or lack thereof), and the highest type of people are simply good people whose actions have genuine moral content.
 
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You really went to town with the psychoanalysis on this one. Overkilled it too, probably.
I really hope you know the context for this, or at least have a general idea about what other translations are out there.
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On September 12 2013 05:45 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You really went to town with the psychoanalysis on this one. Overkilled it too, probably.
I really hope you know the context for this, or at least have a general idea about what other translations are out there.
Yeah I've read a bunch. I just decided to analyze this one based on the language as its translated here. If I were to write something serious about this I would of course consider other translations and factor historical and cultural context into my response.
Really the idea here is that I just take this quote as it is translated and analyze it on its own based on the language used. Kind of a fun exercise. Nothing more.
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I think maybe the statement is more like a social commentary of genetics (before they had any idea what it was). Intelligence and work ethic.
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Baa?21242 Posts
Err...
OK I'll post more later but I strongly strongly disagree with this translation and think it means noting of what Confucius originally meant. It does more than distorts the meaning, it invents words and slaps Confucius' name onto it.
a quick tldr of what i will say later is that this quote is criticizing those who do not study/work rather than focused on elevating natural talent above hard work (in fact thats only very tangentially what its about imo)
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there's no way that confucius would ever say that someone could have something without hard work. It's the prime directive of confucianism to cultivate oneself through study, and also that the ideal of sagehood is unattainable in real life.
however, confucianism does not have the western fantasy that 'all men are born equal.' some people are born with more natural talent than others. We see this as distastefully elitist, but actually I think the western notion just places unreasonable demands on people. In the western notion, if you are not as talented, it is your fault. Confucianism is more gentle in a way, because it doesn't place this burden of responsibility on people because it acknowledges variations in primitive ability
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On September 12 2013 05:56 MichaelDonovan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 05:45 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You really went to town with the psychoanalysis on this one. Overkilled it too, probably.
I really hope you know the context for this, or at least have a general idea about what other translations are out there. Yeah I've read a bunch. I just decided to analyze this one based on the language as its translated here. If I were to write something serious about this I would of course consider other translations and factor historical and cultural context into my response. Really the idea here is that I just take this quote as it is translated and analyze it on its own based on the language used. Kind of a fun exercise. Nothing more.
I hope you didn't take this seriously in the slightest, then, because you basically won a boxing match against a paraplegic. Interpreting the quote the way you did, choosing that specific translation. Not hating on you for it, but you basically created a punching bag of an argument. Anyone could beat up on a view point that crappy.
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be nice, he put thought into this! He didn't just set it up to knock it down he was actually thinking about it. Don't listen to him op
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The above quote from the Analects of Confucius, as translated by Wing-Tsit Chan, seems to reveal a sort of reverence for natural talent in Confucian thinking. What I intend to show is that, based on an analysis of this particular quote, it would seem that Confucius valued natural talent over ability gained through hard work. That's not how it works, unfortunately. You can take the quote and discuss it out of context of course, but if you do take it out of context, you can't claim that based on your interpetation of just this one single out of context passage Confucius meant x or y.
The main issue here is that what Confucius means by 'learning' (xue) is not just academic, but entails ethical cultivation. It's very similar to developing phronesis in the Aristotelian sense. One of the main debates in the Confucian tradition was therefore what role 'learning', i.e. rectification of one's conduct through the classics, role models etc, and what role 'thinking', i.e. focused deliberation or concentration on our innate moral nature (mengzi), our innate ideas (wang yangming) or the li (form/structure) of the world (zhu xi), should play in moral cultivation. Thus historically the more the Confucians tended to lean towards 'learning', the more pessimistic they were about the goodness of human nature (xunzi for example), and the more they focused on 'thinking', the more optimistic they were (mengzi, yangming). This is super simplified of course, but it highlights how very problematic taking those passages out of context can be.
So the word knowledge that is used in that passage (zhi) is the outcome of 'learning' (xue), which implies not only an intellectual understanding (especially of classical texts), but also skill at deliberating means-ends relationships and properly evaluating people (and oneself), appreciating the virtuous and so on. 'Knowledge' (zhi) is the practical, decision-making component of virtue, which gets complemented by humaneness (i think that was 'ru', not sure) as its affective component. Later Confucians drastically disagreed on all of those aspects, but that's basically the main idea behind classical Confucianism.
I hope the passage becomes more clear now: The people who are naturally born good and know exactly what to do when to achieve the good and thus can grasp virtue easily are the best kind of people, which are basically the sages of antiquity (and the duke of zhou, I guess). The people who diligently put themselves towards self-cultivation and continually strive to become virtuous are next. Next to these are the people who have, for example, many bad habits or great difficulty acting virtuously but nonetheless manage to overcome their vices through a lot of effort. The worst are those that are crooked and deliberately choose to remain so.
EDIT:
On September 12 2013 05:56 MichaelDonovan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 05:45 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You really went to town with the psychoanalysis on this one. Overkilled it too, probably.
I really hope you know the context for this, or at least have a general idea about what other translations are out there. Yeah I've read a bunch. I just decided to analyze this one based on the language as its translated here. If I were to write something serious about this I would of course consider other translations and factor historical and cultural context into my response. Really the idea here is that I just take this quote as it is translated and analyze it on its own based on the language used. Kind of a fun exercise. Nothing more.
If that's what you want to do then that's totally fine and alright, but then you shouldn't make claims about Confucianism, but rather just say you made up a position for fun and argued against that. Everything else will be unfortunately very strawmanny unless you treat it with some depth.
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On September 12 2013 07:06 sam!zdat wrote:
humaneness is 'ren'
/selfpalm yeah, that's the one
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On September 12 2013 07:02 Sauwelios wrote:Show nested quote +The above quote from the Analects of Confucius, as translated by Wing-Tsit Chan, seems to reveal a sort of reverence for natural talent in Confucian thinking. What I intend to show is that, based on an analysis of this particular quote, it would seem that Confucius valued natural talent over ability gained through hard work. That's not how it works, unfortunately. You can take the quote and discuss it out of context of course, but if you do take it out of context, you can't claim that based on your interpetation of just this one single out of context passage, Confucius meant x or y. The main issue here is that what Confucius means by 'learning' (xue) is not just academic, but entails ethical cultivation. It's very similar to developing phronesis in the Aristotelian sense. One of the main debates in the Confucian tradition was therefore what role 'learning', i.e. rectification of one's conduct through the classics, role models etc, and what role 'thinking', i.e. focused deliberation or concentration on our innate moral nature (mengzi), our innate ideas (wang yangming) or the li (form/structure) of the world (zhu xi), should play in moral cultivation. Thus historically the more the Confucians tended to lean towards 'learning', the more pessimistic they were about the goodness of human nature (xunzi for example), and the more they focused on 'thinking', the more optimistic they were (mengzi, yangming). This is super simplified of course, but it highlights how very problematic taking those passages out of context can be. So the word knowledge that is used in that passage (zhi) is the outcome of 'learning' (xue), which implies not only an intellectual understanding (especially of classical texts), but also skill at deliberating means-ends relationships and properly evaluating people (and oneself), appreciating the virtuous and so on. 'Knowledge' (zhi) is the practical, decision-making component of virtue, which gets complemented by humaneness (i think that was 'ru', not sure) as its affective component. Later Confucians drastically disagreed on all of those aspects, but that's basically the main idea behind classical Confucianism. I hope the passage becomes more clear now: The people who are naturally born good and know exactly what to do when to achieve the good and thus can grasp virtue easily are the best kind of people, which are basically the sages of antiquity (and the duke of zhou, I guess). The people who diligently put themselves towards self-cultivation and continually strive to become virtuous are next. Next to these are the people who have, for example, many bad habits or great difficulty acting virtuously but nonetheless manage to overcome their vices through a lot of effort. The worst are those that are crooked and deliberately choose to remain so. EDIT: Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 05:56 MichaelDonovan wrote:On September 12 2013 05:45 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You really went to town with the psychoanalysis on this one. Overkilled it too, probably.
I really hope you know the context for this, or at least have a general idea about what other translations are out there. Yeah I've read a bunch. I just decided to analyze this one based on the language as its translated here. If I were to write something serious about this I would of course consider other translations and factor historical and cultural context into my response. Really the idea here is that I just take this quote as it is translated and analyze it on its own based on the language used. Kind of a fun exercise. Nothing more. If that's what you want to do then that's totally fine and alright, but then you shouldn't make claims about Confucianism, but rather just say you made up a position for fun and argued against that. Everything else will be unfortunately very strawmanny unless you treat it with some depth.
Thank you.
How the hell do you guys know about this?
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On September 12 2013 07:02 Sauwelios wrote:Show nested quote +The above quote from the Analects of Confucius, as translated by Wing-Tsit Chan, seems to reveal a sort of reverence for natural talent in Confucian thinking. What I intend to show is that, based on an analysis of this particular quote, it would seem that Confucius valued natural talent over ability gained through hard work. That's not how it works, unfortunately. You can take the quote and discuss it out of context of course, but if you do take it out of context, you can't claim that based on your interpetation of just this one single out of context passage Confucius meant x or y. The main issue here is that what Confucius means by 'learning' (xue) is not just academic, but entails ethical cultivation. It's very similar to developing phronesis in the Aristotelian sense. One of the main debates in the Confucian tradition was therefore what role 'learning', i.e. rectification of one's conduct through the classics, role models etc, and what role 'thinking', i.e. focused deliberation or concentration on our innate moral nature (mengzi), our innate ideas (wang yangming) or the li (form/structure) of the world (zhu xi), should play in moral cultivation. Thus historically the more the Confucians tended to lean towards 'learning', the more pessimistic they were about the goodness of human nature (xunzi for example), and the more they focused on 'thinking', the more optimistic they were (mengzi, yangming). This is super simplified of course, but it highlights how very problematic taking those passages out of context can be. So the word knowledge that is used in that passage (zhi) is the outcome of 'learning' (xue), which implies not only an intellectual understanding (especially of classical texts), but also skill at deliberating means-ends relationships and properly evaluating people (and oneself), appreciating the virtuous and so on. 'Knowledge' (zhi) is the practical, decision-making component of virtue, which gets complemented by humaneness (i think that was 'ru', not sure) as its affective component. Later Confucians drastically disagreed on all of those aspects, but that's basically the main idea behind classical Confucianism. I hope the passage becomes more clear now: The people who are naturally born good and know exactly what to do when to achieve the good and thus can grasp virtue easily are the best kind of people, which are basically the sages of antiquity (and the duke of zhou, I guess). The people who diligently put themselves towards self-cultivation and continually strive to become virtuous are next. Next to these are the people who have, for example, many bad habits or great difficulty acting virtuously but nonetheless manage to overcome their vices through a lot of effort. The worst are those that are crooked and deliberately choose to remain so. EDIT: Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 05:56 MichaelDonovan wrote:On September 12 2013 05:45 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You really went to town with the psychoanalysis on this one. Overkilled it too, probably.
I really hope you know the context for this, or at least have a general idea about what other translations are out there. Yeah I've read a bunch. I just decided to analyze this one based on the language as its translated here. If I were to write something serious about this I would of course consider other translations and factor historical and cultural context into my response. Really the idea here is that I just take this quote as it is translated and analyze it on its own based on the language used. Kind of a fun exercise. Nothing more. If that's what you want to do then that's totally fine and alright, but then you shouldn't make claims about Confucianism, but rather just say you made up a position for fun and argued against that. Everything else will be unfortunately very strawmanny unless you treat it with some depth.
It's worth noting that the translator here, Wing Tsit-Chan, is a very well respected source. It's not like I just made this translation up. And it's also not like this translation came from somebody who hasn't put a lot of thought into it themselves. Chan's interpretation of this quote is based on his interpretation of the philosophy of Confucius. I do not necessarily subscribe to Chan's point of view, but it is not completely without merit, or at the very least, it is worth looking at.
Additionally, I would like to mention that my motivation for writing this to begin with was to play with the idea that philosophers must be very careful with their language. We must choose our words carefully. So I analyzed this quote purely based on the language used here and the words chosen by the translator. If this translation is way off the mark (and I agree that it probably is), then this little write-up was meant to demonstrate what happens when words are not chosen carefully. That is, it is meant to show that the thoughts of the person who said them will be easily misinterpreted if the exact and correct words are not chosen.
Basically, I began my write-up under the assumption that the translation is was working with was 100 percent accurate (even though I know that it is almost certainly not), and worked from there. Really just an exercise for fun.
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I study Philosophy and have a bit of a weakness for the Chinese.
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because chinese philosophy is awesome!
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On September 12 2013 07:13 MichaelDonovan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 07:02 Sauwelios wrote:The above quote from the Analects of Confucius, as translated by Wing-Tsit Chan, seems to reveal a sort of reverence for natural talent in Confucian thinking. What I intend to show is that, based on an analysis of this particular quote, it would seem that Confucius valued natural talent over ability gained through hard work. That's not how it works, unfortunately. You can take the quote and discuss it out of context of course, but if you do take it out of context, you can't claim that based on your interpetation of just this one single out of context passage Confucius meant x or y. The main issue here is that what Confucius means by 'learning' (xue) is not just academic, but entails ethical cultivation. It's very similar to developing phronesis in the Aristotelian sense. One of the main debates in the Confucian tradition was therefore what role 'learning', i.e. rectification of one's conduct through the classics, role models etc, and what role 'thinking', i.e. focused deliberation or concentration on our innate moral nature (mengzi), our innate ideas (wang yangming) or the li (form/structure) of the world (zhu xi), should play in moral cultivation. Thus historically the more the Confucians tended to lean towards 'learning', the more pessimistic they were about the goodness of human nature (xunzi for example), and the more they focused on 'thinking', the more optimistic they were (mengzi, yangming). This is super simplified of course, but it highlights how very problematic taking those passages out of context can be. So the word knowledge that is used in that passage (zhi) is the outcome of 'learning' (xue), which implies not only an intellectual understanding (especially of classical texts), but also skill at deliberating means-ends relationships and properly evaluating people (and oneself), appreciating the virtuous and so on. 'Knowledge' (zhi) is the practical, decision-making component of virtue, which gets complemented by humaneness (i think that was 'ru', not sure) as its affective component. Later Confucians drastically disagreed on all of those aspects, but that's basically the main idea behind classical Confucianism. I hope the passage becomes more clear now: The people who are naturally born good and know exactly what to do when to achieve the good and thus can grasp virtue easily are the best kind of people, which are basically the sages of antiquity (and the duke of zhou, I guess). The people who diligently put themselves towards self-cultivation and continually strive to become virtuous are next. Next to these are the people who have, for example, many bad habits or great difficulty acting virtuously but nonetheless manage to overcome their vices through a lot of effort. The worst are those that are crooked and deliberately choose to remain so. EDIT: On September 12 2013 05:56 MichaelDonovan wrote:On September 12 2013 05:45 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You really went to town with the psychoanalysis on this one. Overkilled it too, probably.
I really hope you know the context for this, or at least have a general idea about what other translations are out there. Yeah I've read a bunch. I just decided to analyze this one based on the language as its translated here. If I were to write something serious about this I would of course consider other translations and factor historical and cultural context into my response. Really the idea here is that I just take this quote as it is translated and analyze it on its own based on the language used. Kind of a fun exercise. Nothing more. If that's what you want to do then that's totally fine and alright, but then you shouldn't make claims about Confucianism, but rather just say you made up a position for fun and argued against that. Everything else will be unfortunately very strawmanny unless you treat it with some depth. It's worth noting that the translator here, Wing Tsit-Chan, is a very well respected source. It's not like I just made this translation up. And it's also not like this translation came from somebody who hasn't put a lot of thought into it themselves. Chan's interpretation of this quote is based on his interpretation of the philosophy of Confucius. I do not necessarily subscribe to Chan's point of view, but it is not completely without merit, or at the very least, it is worth looking at. Additionally, I would like to mention that my motivation for writing this to begin with was to play with the idea that philosophers must be very careful with their language. We must choose our words carefully. So I analyzed this quote purely based on the language used here and the words chosen by the translator. If this translation is way off the mark (and I agree that it probably is), then this little write-up was meant to demonstrate what happens when words are not chosen carefully. That is, it is meant to show that the thoughts of the person who said them will be easily misinterpreted if the exact and correct words are not chosen. Basically, I began my write-up under the assumption that the translation is was working with was 100 percent accurate (even though I know that it is almost certainly not), and worked from there. Really just an exercise for fun.
I agree! Not a worthless exercise, just wanted to be clear I'm not bagging on you.
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On September 12 2013 07:24 EatThePath wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 07:13 MichaelDonovan wrote:On September 12 2013 07:02 Sauwelios wrote:The above quote from the Analects of Confucius, as translated by Wing-Tsit Chan, seems to reveal a sort of reverence for natural talent in Confucian thinking. What I intend to show is that, based on an analysis of this particular quote, it would seem that Confucius valued natural talent over ability gained through hard work. That's not how it works, unfortunately. You can take the quote and discuss it out of context of course, but if you do take it out of context, you can't claim that based on your interpetation of just this one single out of context passage Confucius meant x or y. The main issue here is that what Confucius means by 'learning' (xue) is not just academic, but entails ethical cultivation. It's very similar to developing phronesis in the Aristotelian sense. One of the main debates in the Confucian tradition was therefore what role 'learning', i.e. rectification of one's conduct through the classics, role models etc, and what role 'thinking', i.e. focused deliberation or concentration on our innate moral nature (mengzi), our innate ideas (wang yangming) or the li (form/structure) of the world (zhu xi), should play in moral cultivation. Thus historically the more the Confucians tended to lean towards 'learning', the more pessimistic they were about the goodness of human nature (xunzi for example), and the more they focused on 'thinking', the more optimistic they were (mengzi, yangming). This is super simplified of course, but it highlights how very problematic taking those passages out of context can be. So the word knowledge that is used in that passage (zhi) is the outcome of 'learning' (xue), which implies not only an intellectual understanding (especially of classical texts), but also skill at deliberating means-ends relationships and properly evaluating people (and oneself), appreciating the virtuous and so on. 'Knowledge' (zhi) is the practical, decision-making component of virtue, which gets complemented by humaneness (i think that was 'ru', not sure) as its affective component. Later Confucians drastically disagreed on all of those aspects, but that's basically the main idea behind classical Confucianism. I hope the passage becomes more clear now: The people who are naturally born good and know exactly what to do when to achieve the good and thus can grasp virtue easily are the best kind of people, which are basically the sages of antiquity (and the duke of zhou, I guess). The people who diligently put themselves towards self-cultivation and continually strive to become virtuous are next. Next to these are the people who have, for example, many bad habits or great difficulty acting virtuously but nonetheless manage to overcome their vices through a lot of effort. The worst are those that are crooked and deliberately choose to remain so. EDIT: On September 12 2013 05:56 MichaelDonovan wrote:On September 12 2013 05:45 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You really went to town with the psychoanalysis on this one. Overkilled it too, probably.
I really hope you know the context for this, or at least have a general idea about what other translations are out there. Yeah I've read a bunch. I just decided to analyze this one based on the language as its translated here. If I were to write something serious about this I would of course consider other translations and factor historical and cultural context into my response. Really the idea here is that I just take this quote as it is translated and analyze it on its own based on the language used. Kind of a fun exercise. Nothing more. If that's what you want to do then that's totally fine and alright, but then you shouldn't make claims about Confucianism, but rather just say you made up a position for fun and argued against that. Everything else will be unfortunately very strawmanny unless you treat it with some depth. It's worth noting that the translator here, Wing Tsit-Chan, is a very well respected source. It's not like I just made this translation up. And it's also not like this translation came from somebody who hasn't put a lot of thought into it themselves. Chan's interpretation of this quote is based on his interpretation of the philosophy of Confucius. I do not necessarily subscribe to Chan's point of view, but it is not completely without merit, or at the very least, it is worth looking at. Additionally, I would like to mention that my motivation for writing this to begin with was to play with the idea that philosophers must be very careful with their language. We must choose our words carefully. So I analyzed this quote purely based on the language used here and the words chosen by the translator. If this translation is way off the mark (and I agree that it probably is), then this little write-up was meant to demonstrate what happens when words are not chosen carefully. That is, it is meant to show that the thoughts of the person who said them will be easily misinterpreted if the exact and correct words are not chosen. Basically, I began my write-up under the assumption that the translation is was working with was 100 percent accurate (even though I know that it is almost certainly not), and worked from there. Really just an exercise for fun. I agree! Not a worthless exercise, just wanted to be clear I'm not bagging on you.
Oh it's fine. I live to be bagged on, actually. I would be disappointed if I wasn't bagged on. That's the best way to do philosophy. Put something up there and watch it get torn to shreds, then pick up the pieces that aren't burnt/singed and reassemble 
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On September 12 2013 07:27 MichaelDonovan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 07:24 EatThePath wrote:On September 12 2013 07:13 MichaelDonovan wrote:On September 12 2013 07:02 Sauwelios wrote:The above quote from the Analects of Confucius, as translated by Wing-Tsit Chan, seems to reveal a sort of reverence for natural talent in Confucian thinking. What I intend to show is that, based on an analysis of this particular quote, it would seem that Confucius valued natural talent over ability gained through hard work. That's not how it works, unfortunately. You can take the quote and discuss it out of context of course, but if you do take it out of context, you can't claim that based on your interpetation of just this one single out of context passage Confucius meant x or y. The main issue here is that what Confucius means by 'learning' (xue) is not just academic, but entails ethical cultivation. It's very similar to developing phronesis in the Aristotelian sense. One of the main debates in the Confucian tradition was therefore what role 'learning', i.e. rectification of one's conduct through the classics, role models etc, and what role 'thinking', i.e. focused deliberation or concentration on our innate moral nature (mengzi), our innate ideas (wang yangming) or the li (form/structure) of the world (zhu xi), should play in moral cultivation. Thus historically the more the Confucians tended to lean towards 'learning', the more pessimistic they were about the goodness of human nature (xunzi for example), and the more they focused on 'thinking', the more optimistic they were (mengzi, yangming). This is super simplified of course, but it highlights how very problematic taking those passages out of context can be. So the word knowledge that is used in that passage (zhi) is the outcome of 'learning' (xue), which implies not only an intellectual understanding (especially of classical texts), but also skill at deliberating means-ends relationships and properly evaluating people (and oneself), appreciating the virtuous and so on. 'Knowledge' (zhi) is the practical, decision-making component of virtue, which gets complemented by humaneness (i think that was 'ru', not sure) as its affective component. Later Confucians drastically disagreed on all of those aspects, but that's basically the main idea behind classical Confucianism. I hope the passage becomes more clear now: The people who are naturally born good and know exactly what to do when to achieve the good and thus can grasp virtue easily are the best kind of people, which are basically the sages of antiquity (and the duke of zhou, I guess). The people who diligently put themselves towards self-cultivation and continually strive to become virtuous are next. Next to these are the people who have, for example, many bad habits or great difficulty acting virtuously but nonetheless manage to overcome their vices through a lot of effort. The worst are those that are crooked and deliberately choose to remain so. EDIT: On September 12 2013 05:56 MichaelDonovan wrote:On September 12 2013 05:45 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You really went to town with the psychoanalysis on this one. Overkilled it too, probably.
I really hope you know the context for this, or at least have a general idea about what other translations are out there. Yeah I've read a bunch. I just decided to analyze this one based on the language as its translated here. If I were to write something serious about this I would of course consider other translations and factor historical and cultural context into my response. Really the idea here is that I just take this quote as it is translated and analyze it on its own based on the language used. Kind of a fun exercise. Nothing more. If that's what you want to do then that's totally fine and alright, but then you shouldn't make claims about Confucianism, but rather just say you made up a position for fun and argued against that. Everything else will be unfortunately very strawmanny unless you treat it with some depth. It's worth noting that the translator here, Wing Tsit-Chan, is a very well respected source. It's not like I just made this translation up. And it's also not like this translation came from somebody who hasn't put a lot of thought into it themselves. Chan's interpretation of this quote is based on his interpretation of the philosophy of Confucius. I do not necessarily subscribe to Chan's point of view, but it is not completely without merit, or at the very least, it is worth looking at. Additionally, I would like to mention that my motivation for writing this to begin with was to play with the idea that philosophers must be very careful with their language. We must choose our words carefully. So I analyzed this quote purely based on the language used here and the words chosen by the translator. If this translation is way off the mark (and I agree that it probably is), then this little write-up was meant to demonstrate what happens when words are not chosen carefully. That is, it is meant to show that the thoughts of the person who said them will be easily misinterpreted if the exact and correct words are not chosen. Basically, I began my write-up under the assumption that the translation is was working with was 100 percent accurate (even though I know that it is almost certainly not), and worked from there. Really just an exercise for fun. I agree! Not a worthless exercise, just wanted to be clear I'm not bagging on you. Oh it's fine. I live to be bagged on, actually. I would be disappointed if I wasn't bagged on. That's the best way to do philosophy. Put something up there and watch it get torn to shreds, then pick up the pieces that aren't burnt/singed and reassemble
This is true 
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@MichaelDonovan: Oh I think the translation is totally fine as far as translations go in general. Think of the mess we get into with 'arete' which tends to be translated as 'virtue' for example: It's perfectly legitimate, but there's more to arete than that. The point is that sometimes meaning can be lost in translation with no fault of the translator, especially if the terms tend to come with a certain amount of argumentative baggage. If I say that x is y because REASONS and then use the term x again later on, it is already established that it is y; if someone were to come along and pick my later statements about x without knowing that I've definded it as y, misunderstandings accrue.
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If you go in depth and you learn more about Confucianism, you'd find out that rulers in the past used it to control the masses and promote legalism. People were pretty much born into wealth and social mobility was almost non existent then. There's probably a lot of good stuff that can be learned from Confucianism, but mostly it was used, and is still used today, in Chinese culture to make people follow arbitrary laws and discourage subversive behavior.
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Ancient culture in general had different views and opinions. There is more importance on being content and accepting your lot in life than in western philosophy from my limited knowledge. When you impose western values on their philosophy there are naturally things you are not going to agree with. Remember, it works both ways. I would recommend taking extreme caution on forming opinions per-maturely.
Also the confucious things I've read always had confucious respond to someone who asked him a question of some sorts. Some kinda back ground info on the quote would have been nice as well. Why was he saying this?
That said you should be proud for taking initiative in your own study and learning, keep up the reading ^_^
EDIT: very informative Sauwelios, that was a nice post
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On September 12 2013 07:35 Sauwelios wrote:
@MichaelDonovan: Oh I think the translation is totally fine as far as translations go in general. Think of the mess we get into with 'arete' which tends to be translated as 'virtue' for example: It's perfectly legitimate, but there's more to arete than that. The point is that sometimes meaning can be lost in translation with no fault of the translator, especially if the terms tend to come with a certain amount of argumentative baggage. If I say that x is y because REASONS and then use the term x again later on, it is already established that it is y; if someone were to come along and pick my later statements about x without knowing that I've definded it as y, misunderstandings accrue.
Ah I see. Well I suppose I should also mention that Wing Tsit-Chan frequently puts footnotes to explain the terms used in his translations and whatnot. In the case of this translation, however, he chose not to say anything. Thus I assumed that he meant exactly what he wrote. But yeah, you're absolutely right. In order to make complete sense of this quote as it is translated, I would have to compare it to all of Chan's translations and see what kind of system develops in order to understand what he really means by "knowledge" and "learning" here. I've read other translations of this same statement, though, which use completely different language and say something quite different.
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On September 12 2013 07:36 lisward wrote:
If you go in depth and you learn more about Confucianism, you'd find out that rulers in the past used it to control the masses and promote legalism. People were pretty much born into wealth and social mobility was almost non existent then. There's probably a lot of good stuff that can be learned from Confucianism, but mostly it was used, and is still used today, in Chinese culture to make people follow arbitrary laws and discourage subversive behavior.
this is true about every idea ever, in the history of ideas
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On September 12 2013 07:42 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 07:36 lisward wrote:
If you go in depth and you learn more about Confucianism, you'd find out that rulers in the past used it to control the masses and promote legalism. People were pretty much born into wealth and social mobility was almost non existent then. There's probably a lot of good stuff that can be learned from Confucianism, but mostly it was used, and is still used today, in Chinese culture to make people follow arbitrary laws and discourage subversive behavior. this is true about every idea ever, in the history of ideas
Hahahaha
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On September 12 2013 07:36 Awesomedrifter wrote:
Ancient culture in general had different views and opinions. There is more importance on being content and accepting your lot in life than in western philosophy from my limited knowledge. When you impose western values on their philosophy there are naturally things you are not going to agree with. Remember, it works both ways. I would recommend taking extreme caution on forming opinions per-maturely.
Also the confucious things I've read always had confucious respond to someone who asked him a question of some sorts. Some kinda back ground info on the quote would have been nice as well. Why was he saying this?
That said you should be proud for taking initiative in your own study and learning, keep up the reading ^_^
EDIT: very informative Sauwelios, that was a nice post
Yes Sauwelios always has good things to say when he posts in my blogs.
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On September 12 2013 07:42 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 07:36 lisward wrote:
If you go in depth and you learn more about Confucianism, you'd find out that rulers in the past used it to control the masses and promote legalism. People were pretty much born into wealth and social mobility was almost non existent then. There's probably a lot of good stuff that can be learned from Confucianism, but mostly it was used, and is still used today, in Chinese culture to make people follow arbitrary laws and discourage subversive behavior. this is true about every idea ever, in the history of ideas
Especially the ones that get turned into state ideologies - dems something fierce.
@lisward: Legalism was an unusually fascist take on the orthodoxy that fell as quickly as the Qin and was not revived to any significant extent anymore in the subsequent history of the school. And unfortunately nobody subscribes to Confucianism in China anymore due to how incredibly 'out' it became after the commies took charge in 1949.
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On September 12 2013 07:42 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 07:36 lisward wrote:
If you go in depth and you learn more about Confucianism, you'd find out that rulers in the past used it to control the masses and promote legalism. People were pretty much born into wealth and social mobility was almost non existent then. There's probably a lot of good stuff that can be learned from Confucianism, but mostly it was used, and is still used today, in Chinese culture to make people follow arbitrary laws and discourage subversive behavior. this is true about every idea ever, in the history of ideas
Are you saying that ideas are discovered to control the people, or that ideas are inevitably twisted into a method of control?
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Jokes on them I was only pretending to strawman!
"Confucius said, 'Those who are born with knowledge are the highest type of people. Those who learn through study are the next. Those who learn through hard work are still the next. Those who work hard and still do not learn are really the lowest type."
I felt the translation was a bit lacking so I dug out the source and translated it as I see it.
+ Show Spoiler +孔子曰：“生而知之者上也，學而知之者次也；困而學之，又其次也；困而不學，民斯為下矣。”
Confucius said, "Those who are born with knowledge are the highest type of people. Those who actively learn through study are the next. Those who seek knowledge after facing difficulties are still the next. To face difficulties and still not learn, these are really the lowest type, and commoners fall within this group"
Doesn't the entire statement raise the question, who makes up this highest type of people, those who are born with knowledge? Obviously, nobody is born with knowledge about stuff. Confucius would know that. Neither did he nominate himself for that particular rank. It's possible he made up this image of an ideal, one who knows without learning, or learns at a superhuman rate, to motivate his students. Being a genius in a certain field might qualify for this, however Confucius took 'knowledge' to encompass knowing all sorts of things, such as academics, decorum and virtue.
Among the more humanly achievable ranks, those who actively seek out knowledge are ranked above everyone else, who only look for knowledge passively, as a tool to solve the problems in front of them. Thus his followers are encouraged to seek learning proactively.
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the latter. Walter benjamin has a beautiful quote about this in 'on the concept of history.'
“To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was’(Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger. Historical materialism wishes to retain the image of the past which unexpectedly appears to a man singled out by history at a moment of danger. The danger affects both the content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of Antichrist. Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious”
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On September 12 2013 09:44 tissue wrote:Jokes on them I was only pretending to strawman! "Confucius said, 'Those who are born with knowledge are the highest type of people. Those who learn through study are the next. Those who learn through hard work are still the next. Those who work hard and still do not learn are really the lowest type."I felt the translation was a bit lacking so I dug out the source and translated it as I see it. + Show Spoiler +孔子曰：“生而知之者上也，學而知之者次也；困而學之，又其次也；困而不學，民斯為下矣。” Confucius said, "Those who are born with knowledge are the highest type of people. Those who actively learn through study are the next. Those who seek knowledge after facing difficulties are still the next. To face difficulties and still not learn, these are really the lowest type, and commoners fall within this group" Doesn't the entire statement raise the question, who makes up this highest type of people, those who are born with knowledge? Obviously, nobody is born with knowledge about stuff. Confucius would know that, and his 'knowledge' would include stuff like morality and decorum as well as academic studies. Neither did he nominate himself for that particular rank. It's possible he made up this image of an ideal, one who knows without learning, or learns at a superhuman rate, to motivate his students. Among are the more humanly achievable ranks, those who actively seek out knowledge are ranked above everyone else, who only look for knowledge passively, as a tool to solve the problems in front of them. Thus his followers are encouraged to seek learning proactively.
Yeah. This shows how important it is to choose words carefully. Even just changing "hard work" to "facing difficulties" produces a completely different kind of statement.
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EPT
