¹ For the purposes of this discussion, I speak of Confucius' thought as if it were in fact the teachings ascribed to him in the Analects, especially those portions of the Analects which are likely to be earlier and closer to the authentic sayings of Confucius himself. Of course it has been doubted whether any of the sayings in the Analects were actually Confucius', and there seems good reason to suppose that they are at least worked-over versions of his actual words. Nevertheless, the consensus seems to be that much of the Analects constitutes the largest single body of quotations or near-quotations from the historical Confucius. In any case, it is the doctrine to be found in this work that is central to my purpose, not the precise historical origin of it.

As to the identification of this “earliest core” itself, there are differences of opinion. So far as I know, there is a consensus among experts that Chapters 3 through 8 are to be included (certain particular passages excepted). With individual differences of opinion, there is broadly a consensus that if we go beyond this central core and take larger and larger segments of the work (2–9; 1–9; 1–15; 1–20), we get increasingly great amounts of materials which are later in style and at times, but not always, foreign in content to Confucius' sayings and ideas. I have consulted especially: James Legge, Confucian Analects in The Chinese Classics, Hong Kong University Press (reprint, 1960), 12–18; Arthur Waley, The Analects of Confucius (Modern Library, New York, 1938), 21–26; H. G. Creel, Confucius and the Chinese Way (Harper Torchbook, New York, 1960), 291–94, and his Literary Chinese by the Inductive Method, II (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1939), 9–21; Daniel Leslie, Confucius (Editions Segher, Paris, 1962), 32–35, and his article in Pao, T'oung, “Notes on the Analects,” Vol. 49 (1961)Google Scholar; S. Kaizuka, Confucius, trans. G. Bownes (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1956), 103.

² In this middle third of the twentieth century, writers who disagree in many ways almost all tend to agree on the secular, humanist, rationalist orientation of Confucius. Waley says the turn toward the this-worldly was characteristic of tendencies of the age and not peculiar to Confucius (Waley, op. cit., 32–33). See also Daniel Leslie, op. cit., 40–41; Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1963), 15; H. G. Creel, Confucius and the Chinese Way, 120; S. Kaizuka, op. cit., 109–19; Wu-chi Liu, Confucius: His Life and Times (Philosophical Library, New York, 1965), 154–56. Fung Yu-Lan in his various pre-Communist works takes a more ambiguous position on this issue but seems to me to stress the rationalist, humanist aspects, ending by holding this to be a defect of one-sidedness in Confucius; cf. his The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy, trans. E. R. Hughes (Beacon Press, Boston, 1962), 28.

³ Quotations from the Analects are cited by Chapter and paragraph according to the traditional text. There are a number of English translations which follow this order, the two most useful being Legge's and Waley's (cited above, footnote 1). Legge's is the “classic” English source. Waley's is a modern one, outstanding both in style and scholarship. The quotations as given in this paper are basically Legge's and Waley's with occasional contributions by myself.

⁴ Duyvendak, J. L., “The Philosophy of Wu Wei,” Etudes Asiatiques 3/4 (1947), 84.Google Scholar

⁵ Cf. A. Waley, op. cit., 64–66, and especially (p. 66): “I do not think Confucius attributed this magic power to any rites save those practiced by the divinely appointed ruler.”

⁶ See, for example, Waley, op. cit., 66.

⁷ See, for example, Creel, op. cit., 82–83. See also, Analects, 9:3.

⁸ Austin, J. L., “Performative Utterances,” in Philosophical Papers (Oxford University Press, London, 1961), 220–39Google Scholar; How To Do Things With Words (Oxford University Press, London, 1962); “Performatif-Constatif,” in La Philosophie Analytique, Cahiers de Royaumont, Phil. No. IV (Editions de Minit, Paris, 1962), 271–305.

⁹ Though the list could go on interminably, I mention here just a few more terms which commonly enter into formulae having an obvious performative function: “I christen you,” “I appoint you,” “I pick this (or him),” “I congratulate you,” “I welcome you,” “I authorize you,” “I challenge you,” “I order you,” “I request you.”

¹⁰ For an extensive and characteristic example of the recent trend to treat as a special, crucial category these and other first-person present-tense expressions using “mental” or “action” verbs, see S. Hampshire, Thought and Action (Chatto & Windus, London, 1959).

¹¹ The literature on issues pertaining to this topic is now vast, and in general one might summarize by saying that there are two distinct and contrasting trends, easily the two most influential throughout the English-speaking philosophical world. One trend is the “formalistic” analysis of science, language, and “knowledge,” a kind of analysis which, in a much more attenuated and sophisticated way, still leans toward a view, opposed to what I have here expressed, which denies the ultimate irreducibility of such notions as, e.g., “the ceremonial act,” and argues instead for a behavioral or physicalist approach to human conduct. I have in mind here the movement inspired by Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica and by the work of the “Vienna Circle”; the more specific and recent tendencies may be sampled in such standard anthologies as that of H. Feigl and M. Brodbeck, Readings in the Philosophy of Science (Appleton Century, Crofts, New York, 1953); and in the series of the Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science. The other trend has its roots in the later work of L. Wittgenstein, G. Ryle, J. L. Austin, P. F. Strawson, John Wisdom, and others. These analysts have concentrated on the natural languages (hence not “formal” languages), and have in one way or another argued that the physicalist-behavioralist approaches to “mind” and “action” are fundamentally misconceived. They have been elaborating in great detail alternative analyses which, though not identical, have family resemblances and which affirm a radical logical gap between the language of “action,” “mind” and, in effect, what I have here called the ceremonial act, and on the other hand the mathematical-physical language of physical science.

¹² This position is taken more or less explicitly in the various works of Fung Yu-Lan. The Analects passage which is most explicit — indeed the only fully explicit passage on cheng ming in the Analects (13:3) — is evidently much later in style than and different in content from the core of the work (see Waley, op. cit., 172). Even so, the passage does not itself say that names must “correspond” to “actualities” (Fung, op. cit., 60; also essentially Chu Hsi's interpretation in his commentary on the Lun Yu). Nor does it say names must be in “accordance with the truth” (Legge), nor that “language must concord with what is meant” (Waley). The text itself merely says that names (or language) must be concordant (what is needed, or what goes with). But this leaves it ambiguous: must language be concordant with the activity (li) of which it is a part (“the prince being a prince”), or must it concord as name with thing named? My own view is that the distinction was not originally clear, and that both senses were tacitly in mind. Even in Hsun Tzu, if one reads carefully with this question in mind, the issue is not clearly formulated one way or another, though he is always read as if he were definitely speaking of name and thing named. But this is in large part due to our own Western bias toward this traditional (but now widely rejected) doctrine of how language works; it is supported by the analogous view which also developed in China and becomes part of the orthodox commentary. Once we are aware of the ceremonial or performative kinds of functions of language, the original texts begin to read differently.