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After the Mencius, the Xunzi counts as the second extended group of writings which aligns itself with Confucius among the Ru ritual experts. Remarkable about it is its thematic arrangement of extended non-narrative material. The collection is thus among the first thematically organized bodies of discursive work in Classical Chinese. We will read one little-read chapter, 榮辱篇 On honour and shame, and one much read chapter性惡篇 Nasty at birth. The interest in these chapters lies firstly in the term xing, state at birth, usually and misleadingly rendered “human nature”; it is etymologically connected not only with birth sheng生, but also with xing 姓clan name. Domains were ruled by clans, and who and what you are is largely determined by your clan. The issue of what counts as given at birth is important for the question of what counts as right and wrong, and the importance of shame, as opposed to guilt, hence the interest of On honour and shame. The second area of interest lies in the precise nature of e “nastiness”, and its relation to honour and shame. Knowledge of Classical Chinese is required.
Texts, commentaries and translations:
Hutton, Eric L. (trans.) (2014). Xunzi. The Complete Text. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Abbreviated: H.
Kamenarovic, Ivan P. (trans.) (2016). Xunzi. Écrits de Maître Xun. Pari: Les Belles Lettres.
Knoblock, John (trans., comm.) (1988, 1990, 1994). Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, 3 volumes, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Wang Tianhai (ed.) (2016). Xun zi jiao shi. Shanghai: Guji Chubanshe.王天海, 荀子校釋.上海古籍出版社.
Wang Xianqian (ed.) (1988). Xun zi ji jie. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. 王先謙, 荀子集解. 北京中華書局.
Other Literature:
See Goldin, Paul R., "Xunzi", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/xunzi/.
On guilt, see Crone, Thomas (2020). Between Disaster, Punishment, and Blame. The Semantic Field of Guilt in Early Chinese Texts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. |
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