«The Master Taught [with] Literature». The Literary Dimension of Wisdom in Classical Confucian Texts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/mis.v81.i158-159.y2023.018Keywords:
Confucius, aesthetics, ethics, literature, Mencius, poetryAbstract
The present paper argues that the model of wisdom presented in two of the most prominent texts of Classical Confucianism, the Analects and the Mencius, stems from an eminently literary experience. The open and dynamic features of text and work, as opposed to the completeness and artificiality of concept and system, are the necessary rationale underpinning an ethical and aesthetical ideal that, taking individual experience as a basis, triggers a rich and complex process of collective acknowledgement. This is consistent with the inconclusive nature of the philosophical idea of the Way [道, dào].
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