Best confucianism books according to redditors

I'm not at home, which means I don't have any of my books, so this will be unsourced...

but

I think it comes because plenty of relatively famous Confucianists made some pretty wildly stupid policy proposals. One of the ones in mencius and then again by some neo-confucianists in the Song (I think?) dynasty was to abolish the imperial system and reinstitute a feudal (ie based off of Zhou-era feudal practices) system, which was a complete and total disaster when anyone was idiotic enough to try.

Like, this was a really monumentally stupid idea. If the Song era neo-Confucians had their policies implemented... There are so many people with huge stakes in the empire that any attempt at instantly pushing this kind of reform is pretty much guaranteed to lead to civil war. Even if you win, the feudal system was a bit of a mess and led into the warring states, I'm not really sure how this isn't going to be repeated. Either you keep enough control over your zhuhou/governors that it is still the empire, or you don't, they start fighting, and after another unnecessary civil war the winner reestablishes the empire anyways. (I think I kinda got this take from a book called something like 'End of Empire' (帝国的终结）, but I idk for sure)

They thought this would be a good idea because of a rather misguided view of the early Zhou dynasty being some sort of utopia, and the decline in li/rise of greed/[insert whatever you want to show is good/bad here] led to the current corrupted state. They also had various silly ideas how to rule: if a ruler simply set a proper moral example and helping the people, then everyone will follow, establishing music/rituals and being just like Yao and Shun will make everything perfect, etc.

The bureaucrats who actually ran the empire tended to ignore nonsense like this and were somewhat more practical, despite mostly being Confucians (depending on the era).

back to
>When did Confucius get the reputation of a practically ineffective politician who is remembered more by chance than through any well-deserved admiration? I feel like this is something I've been seeing more of lately...

Confucius is about far more than just how to run a state (unlike, say, legalism :P), so I don't know why people would let this color their entire view of Confucianism. Also, some parts of it did work fairly well, the civil examination system etc. probably should be seen as a huge Confucian administrative successes, considering the era... Maybe the bureaucracy as a whole, although that depends how much you think the whole 'confucianism on the outside, legalism on the inside' thing is true.

So I think this is true to a degree, but shouldn't give you a totally negative image of him?

but take this with a grain of salt because:

1. This is purely off of memory and unsourced
   
   
2. i think the general acceptance of mencius over xunzi was a mistake and led to a lot of stuff like this, and some degree of legalist ideas are necessary when running a state (which are both definitely debatable), so I'm just a little bit biased :P
   
   As for book, we probably should have a section of Confucianism in the useful link section >_> Unfortunately, most of my reading has been in Chinese, and I don't have any of my books with me, but Sources of Chinese Tradition is a pretty good overview of primary sources up to modern times, a lot of which can be hard to find in English. As it is mostly primary sources though, and context/analysis is really important... I can try to find more after I'm back home, if you want?
   
   Also, this translation of Xunzi is really, really good. But, primary sources, blah, blah, blah.
   
   This is a lot, but hopefully answers your question?

u/Erebus_of_darkness, u/Osroes-the-300th

There is a helpful and basic introductory series called "History of Imperial China". I have not read their books on the Yuan & Ming or the Qing, but I liked what I saw in their book on the Tang. They're basic, topical, and makes for an easy overview.

In America, the "New Qing" school mostly dominates discussion of Qing Dynasty history. China tends to view the Manchu Qing (and the Mongol Yuan) as part of a multicultural "China" state that has existed since time immemorial. "New Qing" disputes that by essentially arguing that the Manchu only considered "China" as one part of their empire, and thus ruled over Buddhist theocratic Tibet, Buddhist nomadic Mongolia, and Muslim Xinjiang (among others) differently from how it administered core China. This obviously ruffles feathers in China, since this ethnic-focused historiography seems to be trying to start something, but both sides of the ocean can probably agree that it at least provides a way of looking at things, including at ethnic relationships in Qing China. For New Qing, China Marches West is perhaps the most salient right now. You can also look at The Manchus (and look at The Tibetans in the same series while you're at it, since Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetans played important roles in the Ming, Qing, and modern China). Mark Eliot also is a prominent "New Qing" professor, and this seems to be his hallmark book, The Manchu Way.

During the Ming Dynasty, the Neo-Confucianism ideology solidified and became the guiding philosophy of East Asia. For a primary source peek at this philosophy, this translation of Wang Yangming seems a decent start.

The Forbidden City is the crowning achievement of Chinese palatial architecture, a culmination of imperial wisdom transmitted across thousands of years. No less, this book is a great, short introductory resource that is visually pleasing. I don't think it's a direct translation of the author's authoritative Chinese works, but he is the foremost expert on the architecture of the Forbidden City, and Nancy Steinhardt is an excellent authority on traditional Chinese architecture.

See if you can't find this book, The Class of 1761, in a library, going through the minutiae of the Chinese imperial examination system. I plan to look at this as well.

Chinese literature and opera came into maturity during the Ming and Qing Dynasty. So if you're feeling for long reads, read any of the Four Classic Novels of China. In particular, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, while not covering Ming or Qing (written in late Yuan/early Ming) will let you interface with literally any East Asian since they will know all the anecdotes and the Dream of the Red Chamber is noted for its extreme depth (entire departments devoted to studying it) and particular insight into mid-Qing society.

For opera, probably the Peony Pavilion is good enough, as a classic of Kunqu opera, the OG Chinese opera.

And honestly, just go to chinaknowledge.de ... It's a very comprehensive website surprisingly enough.

I liked the very short introduction to Indian philosophy (http://www.amazon.com/Indian-Philosophy-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192853740/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420386854&sr=1-1&keywords=indian+philosophy+very+short).


I noticed there is one for Confucianism that may also be good (http://www.amazon.com/Confucianism-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0195398912/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420386854&sr=1-2&keywords=indian+philosophy+very+short).


I like these books because they're a good place to start, and all of them have good bibliography / further reading sections at the end.

I would have to agree with you. Especially in terms of the nature of the self, there is little argument over the individual self and what that means, even though human nature and the cultivation of the self takes a front row seat in both Mengzi and Xunzi. I would take that as perhaps an indication of how neither of them really thought that was a problem they would have to deal with, rather than something they just ignored (I may be mistaken in thinking talk of self-cultivation implies that a self must exist).

The real conflict between Confucianism and Buddhism comes after Buddhism was integrated into China through the Han and up into the Tang dynasties. At which point Neo-confucianism started to appear as a result, much of which would take Mengzi as their standard. This would give rise to the orthodox Confucianism we can see today, which is based mainly on Zhu Xi and his interpretation of Mengzi.

For anyone looking for a great read on Mengzi that won't take much time, I would recommend this book and if you want to actually read Mengzi, I've been using this tranlsation and commentary. Ivanhoe also goes on to look at Neo-Confucianism, so if anyone is looking to see arguments from Confucianism against Buddhism, that is highly recommended.

Link?

EDIT: I wrote his name wrong. Here it is at amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Confucius-Analects-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872206351

Bless him for using Pinyin! It makes me so irritated to see people coming up with new versions of the analects not using Pinyin.

The best place to start, I think, is with the Analects. I prefer the Edward Slingerland translation, which also includes commentary from himself as well as translations of traditional Chinese commentaries.

I took a couple eastern studies courses at BYU and have read (most of) The Teachings of Buddha & The Analects of Confucius. I have gained a profound respect for those great teachers and it has infused my faith and attitudes with additional peace and insight.

Remember, one of the core LDS tenants is to seek after anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy. That includes (sometimes especially) things outside the LDS or Christian faith.

I'm just now considering reading Mengzi as a direct result of reading Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy.

I think I like Chinese philosophy over the Greeks because of the fact that it's centered around community and doing what is best for society and, thus, isn't as individualistic as the virtue ethics of Aristotle and Socrates.

The Tao Te Ching was mentioned in the Intro book, and I've read it before many years ago. But...idk...it doesn't seem to have what I'm personally looking for as far as something I can go to when I'm looking for answers to life's problems.

http://www.amazon.com/Confucian-Analects-Great-Learning-Doctrine/dp/0486227464/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293035531&sr=8-1

this is a great start. a lot of asian philosophy studies in academia utilize this as a starter. i highly recommend it.

I highly recommend Edward Slingerland's translation of the Analects because he shares verse by verse commentaries from many of the famous historical Chinese commentaries on the text. This will greatly help you understand the context in which the Analects was written, as well as help you enter into the dialogue and conversation that the Analects was meant to provoke. As far as I'm aware, Slingerland's translation is the only english translation that gives a wide variety of famous historical Chinese commentaries on the Analects, but translated into English.

Cool! I knew the instructor's name sounded familiar. Let us know how it goes.