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# Confucius/Talk

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His philosophy, which drew from Taoism...

Um, not that I'm an expert with Confucianism, but as far as I know, Confucian literature and Daoist literature are full of invectives against each other. Confucius even openly ridicules the Daoist concept of "wu wei" ("non-acting" - OK, OK, dubious translation). I was under the strong impression that Confucianism and Daoism were indeed the two opposite poles of Chinese philosophy - or am I wrong here?

(comment by Xiemaisi originally on Confucianism/Talk)

No, this is correct, much Confucian thought is dependant on the precursory Tao Te Ching, and in fact puts great stress on wu wei. Confucius admittedly thought that governmental action would keep people's actions in check, but also held that government by example de and correct etiquette and manners li was more socially efficient. sjc

I know this is beginning to sound finicky, but how can you be sure that the Dao De Jing is precursory to Confucianism? AFAIK there are very different opinions about its date of origin. Some say it was actually written by Laozi in the 6th century BCE, others claim Laozi is a fiction and the Dao De Jing was written by some disciples of an unknown master in the 4th century BCE ... so isn't it a bit dubious to outrightly claim Confucius was influenced by it? I mean, wouldn't it be more appropriate to say that Confucianism and Daoism drew from common sources?

Besides, I still think that the differences between Confucianism and Daoism outweigh their similiarities. As I've said before I don't know that much about it, but what about their respective attitudes towards knowledge and learning? I think learning is quite important for Confucius (see first sentence of the Analects), whereas the Dao De Jing is very skeptical of it (see Dao De Jing, 81: "The extensively learned do not really know." - translation taken from http://www.human.toyogakuen-u.ac.jp/~acmuller/contao/laotzu.htm). Or is this just an unimportant facet?

-- Xiemaisi

No, you don't sound finicky, you're making a number of very valid and also vexed points. The whole area is very, very, grey, and is in fact seriously into the realm of archaeological conjecture. The Ma-Wang-Tui manuscripts of the Tao te Ching have been dated to around the first part of the 3rd century BCE, with much earlier silk manuscripts referring to the Tao, Confucius is thought to have lived around 551-479 BCE. Some people think that Confucius was contemporaneous with Lao-Tzu; others that the compilation of the Tao was a group act and which predates Confucius by a very long way. My reading of it is that the Analects have critical dependencies upon the Tao te Ching which the Tao does not upon the Analects, therefore the supposition has to be that the Tao is older than the Analects.

I think also you have to see the text of the Tao as being something other than prima-facie; it is, to my mind, a highly ironic text, and phrases such as "The extensively learned do not really know" more than adequately make this point... It's self-referential to the nth degree, whereas the Analects are altogether more earnest. They are very different texts in this respect, and substantially different in their underlying philosophies, but Confucianism, to my way of thinking, is a reaction against something which it is secretly hankering to be but can't quite attain. We'll have to disagree on this one, I suspect! sjc

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