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Notes on video lecture:
Confucius' View on Learning vs. The Enlightenment
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on May 8, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
asking, internalize, learning, wall, doubtful, Wen, content, Jesus, creative, tradition, memorize, imitating, distillations, past, social, reflecting, randomness, striving, danger, opposed, outside, himself, doomed, pattern, cultured, reason, new, forget, foreign, Ancient, study, Catholic, acting, proper, priests, lost, destroy, reflection, concepts, empty
Confucius on learning
xue [shee-AY-ah]
often translated as " "
better translation is "learning"
just as process of ritual gives us a language for , allows us to behave like cultured human being
hand shakes
thank you notes
xue (learning/studying) allows us to think like human beings
today in Western society we are very much believers in thought
coming up with ideas
e.g. Apple slogan: Think Different
we have geniuses who come up with completely new ideas
this is what we value
if you want to translate this into Confucius language, it's "Think "
Confucius wants you to think like the Zhou Dynasty kings thought
Analects 17.10
"A man who has not mastered the Odes is like someone standing with this face to the "
you need to have traditional learning in order to think properly
two concepts
Xue [zhoo] - learning (acquiring Classic knowledge)
Si [see] - thinking and
thinking and reflecting is not something you can do the context of learning
the tools that you use in learning are the classics
traditional texts like the Book of Odes or the Book of History
to Confucius, these books are of the right way to think
so the goal is to the classics and internalize the language and the message
gave you a vocabulary
e.g. the proper way to express anger is indirectly
today you still see this that it is preferable to express yourself indirectly
paragon modeling
important to understand how the classics work
not about following commandments but
they tell stories about the Duke of Zhou, King and King Wu
seeing how they behaved in difficult situations, you absorb proper values
this is not completely to us in Western society
in Christianity we have this phrase "What would do?" which captures the spirit of paragon modeling
and we have stories of how he behaved in various situations
this idea is that by hearing these stories over and over again, you extract a of behavior that you can use in your own life
learning and thinking
not just pouring knowledge into an mind
although learning is based on acquiring a high amount of experience reading the classics
requires individual participation
you have to engage in
requires thinking and concentration
but acquiring knowledge has priority over thinking
Analects 2.15, "If you learn without thinking about what you have learned, you will be , but if you think without learning, you will fall into , the latter being the worst of the two"
to think without acquiring knowledge is a way of reinventing the wheel
thinking outside the classics will probably lead to and chaos, it is a doomed endeavor
"the Zhou dynasty figured this stuff out and figured it out right, they have these documents preserved, so this is what we need to start with if we are going to be a human being"
Analects 15.31, "I once engaged in thought for an entire day without eating and an entire night without sleeping, but it did no good, it would have been better for me to have spent that time in ."
Western Enlightenment is to this idea
in the West, we admire thinking is autonomous
the whole idea of the Enlightenment was about freeing thought from
wake up, stop listening to what the say
stop being a child, be an adult and think for yourself
if you want to change the world, change the way you think
but it is odd movement since most cultures value traditional thought
Descartes: "There is not novelty to me in the reflection that, from my earliest years, I have accepted many false opinions as true, and that what I have concluded from such badly assured premises could not but be highly and uncertain. From the time that I first recognized this, I have realized that if I wished to have any firm and constant knowledge in the sciences, I would have to undertake, once and for all, to set aside all the opinions which I had previously accepted among my beliefs and start again from the very beginning."
in other words, if you want sure and certain knowledge, you need to everything your culture has taught you and begin again on solid foundations
Descartes then decided to engage in a "serious and unimpeded effort to generally all of my former opinions"
although he very suspiciously gets God and the Church back on solid foundations
what's important in contrast to Confucius' approach to learning is that Descartes has attained this knowledge and through first principle
this is an idea that we have in the West: use our internal reason to determine what is true of the world
there is good reason to think that Descartes' project of rejecting all former knowledge is to failure from the start
exaggerates the power of without substance
ignores that we are cultural and animals
most of what we know is shaped by our cultures and things we learned from the
in contrast, Confucius' approach of first internalizing the knowledge of the Zhou dynasty and using that as a basis for thinking, is a more accurate view of how we think, since we have to think in terms of some kind of
learning in action
the student is not going to radically come up with new ideas
but participation is important
a student is not an empty receptacle but has to take action with the that is being learned
Analects 15.16: "I have never been able to do anything for a person who is not himself constantly , What should I do, what should I do?"
you have to be possessed by a thirst for knowledge
you have to anticipate what you are going to be taught
Analects 7.8: "I will not open the door for a mind that is not already to understand, nor will I provide words to a tongue that is not already struggling to speak. If I hold up on corner of a problem, and the student cannot come back to me with the other three, I will not attempt to instruct him again."
students should be paying so much attention and be engaged as such a deep level, that they see where their learning is going, this habit is essential to the classics
Spelling Corrections:
aquiring ⇒ acquiring
preferrable ⇒ preferable
receptical ⇒ receptacle
Ideas and Concepts:
Confucius on learning and proper thinking via tonight's Ancient Chinese Thought class: "Today in Western society we value creative thought, we admire people with creative ideas and encourage people to come up with their own ways of thinking, perhaps best expressed by Apple's slogan:Think Different. If you want a translation of Apple's slogan in Confucius' language, it would be "Think Ancient". Confucius wanted his followers to think as the Zhou Dynasty kings thought, as according to Confucius one needs to have traditional learning in order to think properly. Confucius had two concepts regarding education:(1) Xue [zhoo], or learning, and (2) Si [see], or thinking and reflecting, where thinking and reflecting is only something you can do within the context of learning, and the tools that you use in learning are the classics, e.g. traditional texts such as the Book of Odes or the Book of History. The goal is to memorize the classics, to internalize their language and their message which will provide you the content, the structure, and the vocabulary to think correctly."
Moral term of the day via tonight's Ancient Chinese Thought course: "Paragon modeling is important to understand in order to appreciate how Confucius viewed the classics and how they were to be used for moral training. The goal of a follower of Confucianism was not to follow commandments but to absorb and imitate proper behavior, and so the classics tell stories about the Duke of Zhou, King Wen, and King Wu and how they behaved in difficult situations. By reading these, one could absorb proper values and behavior. This is not completely foreign to us in Western society, as in Christianity we have the concept "What would Jesus do?" which captures the spirit of paragon modeling, as you have stories of how Jesus behaved in various situations, and so paragon modeling is simply the idea that by hearing these stories over and over again, you extract a pattern of behavior that you can use in your own life."