{"id":8427,"date":"2019-10-25T09:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T09:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-reading\/what-is-confucius-institute-kong-zi-yu-han-yu-jiao-xue\/"},"modified":"2019-10-25T09:28:20","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T09:28:20","slug":"what-is-confucius-institute-kong-zi-yu-han-yu-jiao-xue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/what-is-confucius-institute-kong-zi-yu-han-yu-jiao-xue\/","title":{"rendered":"What is \u201cConfucius Institute\u201d? \u5b54\u5b50\u4e0e\u6c49\u8bed\u6559\u5b66"},"content":{"rendered":"
Chinese government has set up more than 200 “Co<\/em>nfucius Institute” around the world by the end of 2007. “Co<\/em>nfucius Institute” is a non-profit public institute with a mission of promoting Chinese language and culture and supporting local Chinese teaching. To name this institute after Co<\/em>nfucius (Kongzi) shows the lo<\/em>ngevity and profundity of Chinese language and culture. It also embodies the development trend of the integration of Chinese language and culture into the world in the new century. ChineseHour tells you more a<\/em>bout this “Master”.<\/p>\n

Better known in China as “Master Kong” (Chinese: \u5b54\u5b50 Kongzi), Co<\/em>nfucius was a fifth-century BCE Chinese thinker whose influence upon East Asian intellectual and social history is immeasurable. As a culturally symbolic figure, he has been alternately idealized, deified, dismissed, vilified, and rehabilitated over the millennia by both Asian and non-Asian thinkers and regimes. Given his extraordinary impact on Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought, it is iro<\/em>nic that so little can be known a<\/em>bout Confucius. The tradition that bears his name – “Confucianism” (Chinese: \u5112\u5bb6 Rujia) – ultimately traces itself to the sayings and biographical fragments recorded in the text known as the Analects (Chinese: Lunyu). As with the person of Co<\/em>nfucius himself, scholars disagree a<\/em>bout the origins and character of the Analects, but it remains the traditio<\/em>nal source for information a<\/em>bout Confucius’ life and teaching. Most scholars remain co<\/em>nfident that it is possible to extract from the Analects several philosophical themes and views that may be safely attributed to this ancient Chinese sage. These are primarily ethical, rather than analytical-logical or me<\/em>taphysical in nature, and include Confucius’ claim that Tian \u5929 (”Heaven”) is aligned with moral order but dependent upon human agents to actualize its will; his co<\/em>ncern for li \u793c (ritual propriety) as the instrument through which the family, the state, and the world may be aligned with Tian’s moral order; and his belief in the “contagious” nature of moral force \u5fb7 (de), by which moral rulers diffuse morality to their subjects, moral parents raise moral children, and so forth.
The Co<\/em>nfucius of the Analects<\/p>\n

Above all else, the Analects (\u8bba\u8bed lunyu) depicts Co<\/em>nfucius as someone who “transmits, but does not innovate”. What Co<\/em>nfucius claimed to transmit was the Dao (Way) of the sages of Zhou antiquity; in the Analects, he is the erudite guardian of tradition who challenges his disciples to emulate the sages of the past and restore the moral integrity of the state. Although readers of the Analects often assume that Confucius’ views are presented as a coherent and co<\/em>nsistent system within the text, a careful reading reveals several different sets of philosophical co<\/em>ncerns which do not co<\/em>nflict so much as they complement one another. These complimentary sets of co<\/em>ncerns can be categorized into four groups: Theodicy, Harmo<\/em>nious order, Moral force and Self-cultivation.<\/p>\n

Co<\/em>nfucius and Education<\/p>\n

A hallmark of Confucius’ thought is his emphasis on education and study. He disparages those who have faith in natural understanding or intuition and argues that the o<\/em>nly real understanding of a subject comes from long and careful study. Study, for Confucius, means finding a good teacher and imitating his words and deeds. A good teacher is someone older who is familiar with the ways of the past and the practices of the ancients. (See Lunyu 7.22) While he sometimes warns against excessive reflection and meditation, Confucius’ position appears to be a middle course between studying and reflecting on what one has learned. “He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.” (Lunyu 2.15) Confucius, himself, is credited by the tradition with having taught altogether three thousand students, though o<\/em>nly seventy are said to have truly mastered the arts he cherished. Co<\/em>nfucius is willing to teach anyone, whatever their social standing, as long as they are eager and tireless. He taught his students morality, proper speech, government, and the refined arts. While he also emphasizes the “Six Arts” — ritual, music, archery, chariot-riding, calligraphy, and computation — it is clear that he regards morality the most im<\/em>portant subject. Confucius’ pedagogical methods are striking. He never discourses at length on a subject. Instead he poses questions, cites passages from the classics, or uses apt analogies, and waits for his students to arrive at the right answers. “I o<\/em>nly instruct the eager and enlighten the fervent. If I hold up one corner and a student cannot come back to me with the other three, I do not go on with the lesson.” (Lunyu 7.8).<\/p>\n

Confucius’ goal is to create gentlemen who carry themselves with grace, speak correctly, and demo<\/em>nstrate integrity in all things. His strong dislike of the sycophantic “petty men,” whose clever talk and pretentious manner win them an audience, is reflected in numerous Lunyu passages. Co<\/em>nfucius finds himself in an age in which values are out of joint. Actions and behavior no lo<\/em>nger correspond to the labels originally attached to them. “Rulers do not rule and subjects do not serve,” he observes. (Lunyu 12.11; cf. also 13.3) This means that words and titles no lo<\/em>nger mean what they o<\/em>nce did. Moral education is im<\/em>portant to Co<\/em>nfucius because it is the means by which one can rectify this situation and restore meaning to language and values to society. He believes that the most im<\/em>portant lessons for obtaining such a moral education are to be found in the cano<\/em>nical Book of Songs, because many of its poems are both beautiful and good. Thus Co<\/em>nfucius places the text first in his curriculum and frequently quotes and explains its lines of verse. For this reason, the Lunyu is also an im<\/em>portant source for Confucius’ understanding of the role poetry and art more generally play in the moral education of gentlemen as well as in the reformation of society. Recent archaeological discoveries in China of previously lost ancient manus<\/em>cripts reveal other aspects of Confucius’s reverence for the Book of So<\/em>ngs and its im<\/em>portance in moral education. These manus<\/em>cripts show that Co<\/em>nfucius had found in the cano<\/em>nical text valuable lessons on how to cultivate moral qualities in o<\/em>neself as well as how to comport o<\/em>neself humanely and respo<\/em>nsibly in public.
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