| Chapter 1: | The Rationale for Reading the Analects Existentially |
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the language sign with self-understanding. It is through self-understanding that understanding of others is made possible. At this reflective stage, a corrective critique is made so as to insulate understanding against misunderstanding. Because the purpose of all interpretation is to “conquer a remoteness, a distance between the past cultural epoch to which the text belongs and the interpreter himself,” self-reflection, or self-understanding, is essential to a good hermeneutic enterprise.2 Finally, there are ontological foundations beneath both semantic and reflective analysis. Each in its own way affirms the dependence of the self upon existence. “Psychoanalysis shows this dependence in the archaeology of the subject, the phenomenology of the spirit in the teleology of figures, the phenomenology of religions in the signs of the sacred.”3 According to Paul Ricoeur, these different existential functions (psychoanalysis, phenomenology of the spirit, and phenomenology of religions) can possibly be united on the level of ontology through symbols.
The three levels of hermeneutics—semantic, reflective, and existential—are employed in my interpretation of the Analects. I argue that there is a unity in Confucius’s thought on the level of ontology expressed in three dimensions: metaphysical, social, and personal. On the textual level, in addition, I argue that what Confucius said in the Analects is coherent and that this work generally reflects the thought of Confucius. Sometimes Confucius’s thought is expressed in the words of his disciples, but only those statements congruent with the basic concepts as expounded by Confucius himself are used here.
The Chinese have a long tradition of hermeneutics, especially with respect to Confucian texts. Chinese interpreters talk about Dao (the Way) carried or embodied in the text, and each different generation sets itself to reveal this Way. The traditions of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism (
) and modern New Confucianism (
) represent no more than new interpretations of the Way as it is embodied in texts such as the Analects. Whereas the Western approach seeks a unifying principle (such as ontology) for different interpretations of a text, the Chinese look for the Way as a reflection of truth transmitted authentically from generation to generation.