Talk:Great Learning

"Qin min" versus "Xin min"

The earliest texts present the second part of the way of the great learning as "by loving the people" (zai qin min), and indeed this is still the received version of the text. Starting in the Song Dynasty, a tradition arose that "qin min" was a mistranscription of the original "xin min," i.e. "making the people anew." (The difference is one radical.) Since then, most published editions of the text include the scholium asserting the "xin min" reading below the main text. This interpretation became orthodoxy for a few hundred years, but was later rejected by other Confucians. (For cultural context: imagine that Thomas Aquinas asserted that "political animal" was a typo and Aristotle originally wrote "ballitical animal," i.e. an animal that likes to play ball games, and then this opinion become orthodoxy.)

Anyway, it doesn't matter which reading you prefer. The article has the correct character for "qin min", but underneath it says "renovating the people". That's just wrong. You can write the character for "xin min" and translate as "renovating the people", or you can translate "qin min" as "loving the people."

I fixed the English to match the Chinese. I prefer the "qin min" reading (among other things, you won't find a Chinese text which puts "xin min" in the main body of the text: they always put "qin min" in the text, and mention "xin min" in the scholium underneath it), but the other way is fine too. Just make sure the Chinese matches the English.

Untitled

There is a problem with the redirect on this page... Specifically, it redirects from Zhong Yong, which is a totally different text (the "Doctrine of the Mean"). I'm not sure how to fix this problem, so I thought I'd just make a note of it. 71.17.191.16 20:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)Chris

Added some stuff. Also changed the translation. I don't think that Legge translates "tian xia zhi ping" correctly, and not translating it was world peace, leaves out a lot of the power and vision of the passage.

Also its really important to point out that the first passage uses the term dao which is the same character as Daoism. Confucianism understands dao to mean something quite different from Daoism, and one of the points of the Great Learning is to define exactly what dao means to Confucians.

Roadrunner

Yes, you made a good editing job here, thanks. One litlle thing: I would state somewhere that the translation is adapted from Legge's one, and I would say "Way" instead of "path", but you surely know more than I do. gbog 15:36, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

On the Translation

I'm not sure what the policies on adapting translations are, so hopefully someone will help out here. In learning this text recently, I was taught that 明明德 ought to be translated here as making your bright virtue shine- more literal than the translation (which I assume is from the Legge mentioned earlier in the article) provides with manifesting virtue. Also, this translation is rather abridged from what I see, omitting several segments. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs here, but I really prefer the Mueller translation linked at the bottom of the page (and here [1]). Of course, I'm not about to go and flat out replace what we have here, but I think it should be discussed. Mendaliv (talk) 22:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm good with replacing what we have here. I'm coming to think that any article including a bibliography section needs to have it deleted and then be rebuilt from the ground up. — LlywelynII 06:40, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

There are a lot of false or misguiding facts in many articles concerning China or Chinese philosophy...

Every kid knows Confucius never wrote, edited or compiled anything himself, yet many articles about the Confucian classics or post Confucian writings are misguiding, because they contain information that is historically incorrect or which stands in direct contradiction to other related articles or even the text passage above within one article. Please do NOT write that Confucius wrote something himself. Try to study and learn something thoroughly, before you lecture about it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.142.9.159 (talk) 17:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it'll be much better to say that Zhu Xi claimed this and that, rather than this and that. It's more WP:NPOV. - Anonymous coward 129.199.192.5 (talk) 11:59, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

There's POV & then there's simple factual incorrectness.

In any case, it's important to note that the Chinese are traditionally taught that he composed them himself and then follow that up with discussion of how that was almost certainly not the case. — LlywelynII 06:42, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

error

The text currently states:

Literary analyses have suggested that the text dates back to the Song Dynasty.

That's a terrible mistake. Existence of the text was well attested in other books long before the Song dynasty. It appears in the Li Ji, which is much earlier than the Song. I'm not sure whether there has been any recent work that pins things down more narrowly, but it has to be sometime after Mencius and no later than the early part of the Han dynasty. The article on Li Ji may have references for the dates of that compilation. P0M (talk) 06:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed that nobody has fixed this mistake, so I will do it now. It is an entirely groundless assertion. P0M (talk) 22:42, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm all fine with deleting unsourced assertions, but you do know it's not an error, right? The fact that there was a Great Learning before the Song doesn't mean that the one we still have predates it in form or syntax. Or even content. — LlywelynII 06:50, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The version that was commented upon by Zhu Xi has the same form, syntax, and content as that present in earlier dynasties. That is true except for one section that was added by Zhu Xi. He declares in the text and commentary that he produced that he has written that one section because he believed that there had to be a missing block of text. He says that the version that came down to scholars of his time in the Li Ji must have been corrupted at some time, and that since then the original text has been unavailable.

Generation after generation of Chinese scholars have worked to maintain what is correct in the ancient texts that have come down to them, and to correct mistakes when they have been detected. Usually scholars left the "received text" as it was, but appended (in smaller print) the variant versions of a text, where it was found, details regarding dating, and why they thought that the text should be emended. Typically that kind of commentary will quote a variant that appears as a quotation in a slightly less ancient text. Sometimes the variant text makes sense in context whereas the received text does not make sense, and the commentator can explain why the error in copying may have occurred. It's a highly technical task and it requires scholars with great training and clear thinking. To ignore the work of those generations of serious scholars who have been well respected by the authorities of their own times and later times would be highly disrespectful.

The majority of top rate Chinese scholars regard both the Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean as having been written after the time of Mencius. Text coming earlier than that often have many points that are still murky.

The top rate Chinese scholars who do not agree that the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean came after the Mencius argue that they came before the Mencius. The two books have their value to Chinese scholars because they are believed to reflect, at least at one or two removes, the teachings of Confucius. They would not have the same prestige if they had been fabricated in the Song dynasty, and if they had been fabricated then they would have easily been discovered.

It would be interesting to see the citations for the "literary analyses that say that the texts "date back to" such a late time. The fact is that quotations in other texts will show that both these books date back to a much earlier time.P0M (talk) 16:32, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Rewrite

Working on other stuff, but the article still needs more revision.

Among other things,

• The article writes in POVy ways about the Neoconfucians and the "support" or "improvement" they provided, rather than simply noting their wholesale revision of Confucius's ideas and points. It also drones about completely unrelated philosophers without connecting them to the text, to its development, or to the attached glosses (which go unexplained).
• Inline citations need to be reformatted using <ref> tags that include the full name of the cited text, then the extraneous bibliography should go.
• The article repeats highly dubious points – e.g. about Chinese respect for their teachers as though they were parents – without any critical analysis whatsoever and glosses obtruse language in completely uncritical and unhelpful ways. Providing a citation does not mean that in fact introspection (and even there introspection of what aspect of personality or truth?) leads to complete understanding of human relationships and particle physics.
• The article uses pointy gender neutral language to describe a culture and philosophy that was – while not considering itself misogynistic – hardly credulous of women's capability at rational or virtuous thought. Every single instance of "person" should be replaced with man &c. or there should be a sourced discussion of the gender relations and in particular, how "ordering one's family" was established in practice & why – if women were considered capable of virtue – they were banned from the Imperial Examinations that gave people any interest in this text.

&c. — LlywelynII 06:50, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

This article needs serious work, especially attention from an editor with good sources who knows how to use <ref> tags. Most of your ideas are good, but the last point (about reflecting premodern cultural biases against women via gender-biased language) isn't a good idea. It is very common in English to assume that premodern philosophies and ethical systems can and should be applied to women, even if the writers of those philosophies may not have, and I do not believe that this text explicitly discusses its relevance to women. Please do not edit the article this way without further discussion.Ferox Seneca (talk) 20:45, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

References

@LlywelynII and Ferox Seneca: I've partly fixed the refs by replacing

(Author page)

with

<ref>''Author''</ref>{{rp|''page''}}

I haven't time to do the whole job now, but at least now they're down in the Refs section rather than in the middle of the text. --Thnidu (talk) 18:12, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Ma

mother is best fighter in the world 2409:4088:8780:6327:0:0:157F:68AC (talk) 18:12, 8 February 2024 (UTC)