孔子的《论语》

The Analects of Confucius

《论语》是孔子的弟子们为了纪念孔子把他与弟子们的谈话提炼、编撰而成的一部著作。对它的解释多种多样,但并不可以任意解释。孔子的事业主要在于教育,而不是政治。在孔子眼里,即使是政治,也是要通过教育实现的一种伦理境界。他所构想的这种人类交往的方式超越于现代政治学的范畴。从更广的方面说,孔子的教育也不仅限于伦理。学做完人是综合而完整的课程,它覆盖了我们现在所谓文科的全部。在一个讲求实惠、以个人为中心的世界里,追求精神满足的渴求常常容易采取极端主义的和只强调特殊性的方式。而《论语》所表达的孔子的人性学说,对于实现人生目的而言是一条平衡的和敞开的道路,它为认知自我提供了重要的精神训练,是一种根基性的智慧,是激发人类作自我理解的永不衰竭的源泉。

The Analects is the distillation of what must have been a series of rich, varied, spontaneous, timely, dynamic, memorable, and thought-provoking interchanges between Confucius （551-479 BC） and his disciples over the stretch of several decades. Although there is plurality in interpretive strategies, relativism does not work either in theory or in practice. The main career of Confucius was education rather than politics. He assumed that politics is an extension of ethics, to him, cultivation of personal morality is a precondition for participation in politics. What Confucius envisioned as the proper way of human interaction transcends modern political categories no matter how broadly they are conceived. However, Confucius education is not exhausted in ethics. To be a perfect person is the whole subject which covers what we call humanities. In a world characterized by materialistic and egocentric tendencies, the thirst for spiritual gratification often takes the form of fundamental extremism and exclusive particularism. Confucian humanism, as expressed in the Analects, is a balance and open approach to the purpose of life. It offers a spiritual exercise essential for self-knowledge and it is a primordial wisdom and a source of inspiration forever meaningful to human self-understanding.