Introduction to the study of Kong-zi jia-yu (“School Sayings of Confucius”)

The Kong-zi jia-yu (“School Sayings of Confucius”) is an important historical source for the study of Confucius’ teachings. The text comprises Confucius’ sayings, records of his conversations with his students and other people, and also information regarding his life and deeds. Regardless of the factual cornucopia, the text remains almost completely unknown to Russian scholars. Equally, it has never been translated into Russian. The necessity to translate this historical source into Russian is obvious, at least because of the information regarding the life of Confucius (551–479 BC) and also the theory of his philosophy and belief system. The article offers the initial stage of the study of the Kong-zi jia-yu and comprises the Russian translation of the first two chapters. One of the tasks of the article is the identification of the sources the Kong-zi jia-yu is based upon. The translation is accompanied by the synopsis of the contents of the first five chapters, their composition and a source critical study about the information found in the Kong-zi jia-yu and the ancient Chinese works, such as Chun-qiu Zuo-zhuan, Xun-zi, Li-ji, Da Dai li-ji, Yi-wen-zi, Shuo-yuan. The study has proven that these texts should not be considered as sources of information for the first and second chapters of the Kong-zi jia-yu due to significant differences in detail description. It has been also established that the texts of the third, fourth and fifth chapters, which are philosophical dialogues to a large extent coincide with the chapters of Li-ji (chapters Ai-gong wen, Ru xing) and Da Dai li-ji (chapters Zhu yan, Ai-gong wen yu Kong-zi). However, regardless of these coincidences these texts still should not be considered as direct sources for the relevant chapters from the Kong-zi jia-yu. Most likely, the authors of all three chapters had recourse to the same source.

Confucianism on Political Legitimacy

This chapter discusses political legitimacy within the Confucian context. It attempts reconcile the early Confucians’ embrace of equality with their defense of hierarchy. The chapter also considers how to reconcile their idea that the legitimacy of the state lies in service to the people, with the idea that it is not the people alone who make the final political decisions. It shows that the lack of capacities of making sound political decisions by the masses cannot result from the failure of the state to secure basic goods, education, and other necessary conditions for people to make sound political decisions, and it has to be the result of a basic fact of human life. That is, in spite of all these governmental efforts that are demanded by them, and in spite of their beliefs that human beings are all potentially equal (Mencius and Xun Zi) or close to being equal (Confucius), early Confucians also took it as a fact of life that the majority of the people cannot actually obtain the capacity necessary to make sound political decisions and participate fully in politics.