《论语》“四十而不惑，五十而知天命”章是伪作

The Studies of the Chapter “At Forty,I Had No Doubts. At Fifty,I Knew the Decrees of Heaven” in the Analects of Confucius

两千多年来,《论语》"四十而不惑,五十而知天命"章,被视为孔夫子真实的人生经历,或者视其为孔子勉励学子而提示的修身进学阶梯。但该章所言并非孔子之真实人生经历,甚至也并非孔子所作;该章是伪作,其题旨是为世人或后人提供理想化的修养进阶模式,为学者立范;其思想要害在于"不逾矩"。该章以孔子的面目出现,产生了极大的欺骗性。它所展示的以修养为主题的人生道路,把后世中国学子引入了空谈修身之歧途,把中国人的注意力都吸引到了道德修养方面而脱离开对社会实践和大自然的关注。这段话的真实性及其思想内涵,需要认真清理。

In the past 2000 years,the chapter "At forty,I had no doubts. At fifty,I knew the decrees of Heaven"in the Analects of Confucius,has been regarded as the real life experience of Confucius or the ladder of cultivating one’s moral character and advancing one’s learning set by Confucius for his students. Nevertheless,this chapter was neither Confucius’ real life experience,nor of his own writing. The gist of this chapter was to provide an ideal model for ordinary people and their descendants to cultivate their moral characters and advance their learning. The ideological harm of this chapter lay in no transgressing what is right. The chapter appeared in the disguise of Confucius and has been very deceptive. The path of life it displayed,with cultivating one ’s moral character as its theme,caused Chinese students of later generations onto the wrong path of merely talking about cultivating one’s moral character and focusing on moral cultivation,while diverting one’s concern for nature and social practice. The authenticity and ideological connotations of this sentence needs serious clarification.