The first volume of David M. Honey’s comprehensive history of Chinese thought offers a close study of Confucius, that tradition’s proto-classicist. This opening volume examines Confucius traditions that largely formed the views of later classicists, who regarded him as their profession’s patron saint. Honey’s survey begins by examining how these views informed the Chinese classicists’ own identities as textual critics and interpreters, all dedicated to self-cultivation for government service. It focuses on Confucius’s methods as a proto-classical master and teacher, and on the media in which he worked, including the spoken word and written texts. As Honey explains, Confucius’s immediate motivations were twofold: the moral development of himself and his disciples and the ritual application of the lessons from the classics. His instruction occurred in ritualized settings in the form of a question and answer catechism between master and disciples. This pedagogical approach will be analyzed through the interpretive paradigm of “performative ritual,” borrowed from recent studies of Greek classical drama. The volume concludes with a detailed treatment of a trio of Confucius’s disciples who were most prominent in transmitting his teachings, and with chapters on his intellectual inheritors, Mencius and Xunzi.

Throughout history, the thinking of Western Europe and America has often dominated scholarly conversation, even on objects of study outside of those cultures. Thus Western academic inquiry into Chinese philosophy, for example, from Confucius and Laozi to Mozi and Chen Liang, has rarely engaged with scholarly work from China itself. This has been the West's great loss. Penn State University Press is pleased to have entered into an agreement with Nanjing University Press to allow greater access to the critical work of Chinese scholars concerning prominent Chinese thinkers. These volumes, all displaying the text in both Chinese and English, offer unique, fresh, and provocative assessments of these essential Chinese philosophical and intellectual figures.

Throughout history, the thinking of Western Europe and America has often dominated scholarly conversation, even on objects of study outside of those cultures. Thus Western academic inquiry into Chinese philosophy, for example, from Confucius and Laozi to Mozi and Chen Liang, has rarely engaged with scholarly work from China itself. This has been the West's great loss. Penn State University Press is pleased to have entered into an agreement with Nanjing University Press to allow greater access to the critical work of Chinese scholars concerning prominent Chinese thinkers. These volumes, all displaying the text in both Chinese and English, offer unique, fresh, and provocative assessments of these essential Chinese philosophical and intellectual figures.

Throughout history, the thinking of Western Europe and America has often dominated scholarly conversation, even on objects of study outside of those cultures. Thus Western academic inquiry into Chinese philosophy, for example, from Confucius and Laozi to Mozi and Chen Liang, has rarely engaged with scholarly work from China itself. This has been the West's great loss. Penn State University Press is pleased to have entered into an agreement with Nanjing University Press to allow greater access to the critical work of Chinese scholars concerning prominent Chinese thinkers. These volumes, all displaying the text in both Chinese and English, offer unique, fresh, and provocative assessments of these essential Chinese philosophical and intellectual figures.