SOURCE: Ivanhoe, Philip J. “Whose Confucius? Which Analects?” In Confucius and the Analects: New Essays, edited by Bryan W. Van Norden, pp. 119-33. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

In the following excerpt, Ivanhoe uses Analects 5.13 to illustrate some profound philosophical differences in the tradition of Confucian interpretation.

For over two thousand years, Confucian scholars have sought to explicate the meaning of their sacred texts, producing an extensive, rich, and sophisticated commentarial tradition that is an indispensable aid to the modern interpreter.¹ In addition to writing formal commentaries, Confucian thinkers regularly referred to and expounded upon the meaning of classical passages in the course of their philosophizing. These thinkers did much more than simply chant the words of their sages and provide precise annotation and background information to these texts, they interpreted the sayings of the ancients. We who study the classics today are in a significant sense following...