924
Lectures Watched
Since January 1, 2014
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:
Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:

VIEW ARCHIVE


Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info
Notes on video lecture:
The Primitivists in the Analects
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
human, narratives, irresponsible, Europe, appropriation, stone, critics, beasts, loosely, yourself, job, anomalies, hem, change, sarcastic, age, travels, Mud, listen, composite, unsuccessful, poetry, nature, Daodejing, mind, Eisenhower, educated, inherently, oxen, quitting, dropping, basket, ford, Marsh, rivals, primitive, mission, comfort, peasants, primal, urban
the Analects is a                    text
has different layers to it
the last part of the book is late and has many                   
stylistically distinctive
has long                     
for the first time we see Confucius confronting               
he confronts rulers who don't              to him
he doesn't confront              in the sense of other philosophers who have different views of the world
Analects 14.39
Confucius is sitting in front of his residence in the state of Wei
playing the            chimes
a man dressed strangely with a              strapped to his back stops and listens
Confucius is frustrated because he has come back from on                          meeting with a ruler
man says, "Whoever is playing the chimes like that certainly has something on his         "
then the man says, "How despicable is this petty stubbornness! If no one understands you, just tend to                 "
then he quotes from the odes
"If the river ford is deep, use the stepping-stones, if it is shallow, simply raise your       "
i.e. you need to change your behavior to accord with different situations
this was a standard way of critiquing someone: don't say anything directly, but quote a provokotive piece of             
the Master then says, "Such resoluteness! Who could take issue with that"
most commentators interpret this as Confucius being                   
Confucius rather has a                and will see it through
Analects 18.06
Confucius is on a trip from one state to another trying to find a       
"Confucius passed Change and Jie who were yoked together pulling a plow through a field"
odd for a few reasons
their names mean something
"Standing tall in the           "
"Prominent in the       s"
using self-conscious                    technology
people at this point used          to draw plows
it would be as if someone was cutting their lawn with an old fashioned manual lawn mower
you would be sending a message
deliberately primitive
Confucius sends one of his disciples to ask these two people where the          is to get across the river
one of the men ask if that is Confucius, and the disciple says yes, and the man says, then he should know where the ford is
meaning: Confucius                so much, he should know where the ford is
second man says, "instead of following a scholar who merely avoids the bad people, wouldn't it be better for you to follow scholars like us, who avoid the        itself?"
these people are uses old technology and lower than                 
but they are intelligent, i.e. they know who Confucius is
these are people who have dropped out of the march of progress
they are saying that it is the world itself that is bad
why not join us
Zilu the disciple goes back and reports to Confucius
Confucius thinks and says, "A person cannot flock together with the birds and the             . If I do not associate with the followers of men, then with whom would I associate? If the Way were realized in the world, then I would not need to change anything"
                 out is not the answer
we are humans and we have to live in the            world
going to live in the countryside is                 , it's not trying to change anything
the primitivists
motif in Analects: people who are                  but who have dropped out of society
quit their jobs
returned to rural live
rejecting technologies
rejecting            culture
believe that Confucius' efforts to change the world are not going to work
the cultured, civilized world is the problem
being in the system doesn't allow you to              it
a movement that was consciously apposed to Confucius' mission
little known about it
               connected movement
reject public service
returning to             
rejecting the Confucius way, the Confucius strategy
this was the beginning of waring states philosophical debate
these people sound quite a bit like the hippies of the of the 1960s counter culture in North America and             
educated elites: white kids who dropped out of college and wanted to become farmers
explicit rejection of technology,               , and urbanism
the natural world is a model
have a faith that there is something about the natural world that is                      good
there is something about society that is messing up that goodness
we need to get back to a             , natural goodness
there is something deeply wrong with culture
faith in nature
faith in the goodness of humans as a natural creature
today the equivalents would be back to local food movements
self-conscious                            of simplicity
the primitivists don't fare very well in the Analects because it's not their book
they get in good jabs
but Confucius always comes in at the end and says something like, "a person cannot flock together with birds and beasts"
these people are                            and childish
the way the                      generation viewed the hippy movement, i.e. just a bunch of kids running around like savages
but they do get their own book
The Guodian                   

Spelling Corrections:

waringwarring
anomoliesanomalies
rivelsrivals
The Definition of Religion
Mind/Body Dualism and Cognitive Control
Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics
Wu-Wei, Dao, Tien and De
The Shang Dynasty (1554-1045 BC)
The Beginnings of Written Chinese History
Eastern Holistic Thinking and the Paradox of Virtue
The Golden Age of the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE)
Philosophical and Conceptual Innovations in Zhou Thought
Confucius and the Analects
Confucius: I Transmit, I Do Not Innovate
Confucius' Use of Ritual as a Tool
Confucius' View on Learning vs. The Enlightenment
Confucius and Holistic Education
Confucius and the Art of Self-Cultivation
At Home in Virtue
Non-Coercive Comportment, Virtue, and Charisma of the Zhou
The Transition to Becoming Sincere
The Primitivists in the Analects
Laozi and the Daodejing
Laozi: Stop the Journey and Return Home
Laozi and The Desires of the Eye
Laozi: He Who Speaks Does Not Know
The Concept of Reversion
Laozi on Shutting Down the Prefrontal Cortex
The Guodian Laozi
Mozi and Materialist State Consequentialism
Mozi's Idea of Ideological Unity
Mozi's Doctrine of Impartial Caring
Mozi's Anti-Confucian Chapters
Mozi's Religious Fundamentalism and Organized Activism
The Language Crisis in the Warring States Period
Yang Zhu and Mid-Warring States' Focus on the Body
The Guodian School of Confucianism
Qi and Self-Cultivation