Reading the Analects Today

<p><b>One of China's most prominent contemporary philosophers reads and comments on one of the central texts in the Chinese philosophical tradition.</b></p><p>In this book one of contemporary China's most prominent philosophers Li Zehou explores one of the central texts in the Chinese philosophical tradition the <i>Analects</i> of Confucius. While the book provides an introduction to the <i>Analects</i> itself and to Confucianism in general it also serves as an introduction to Li's own thought particularly the ways in which he regarded the Confucian tradition as relevant to postrevolutionary contemporary China. Key topics include the role of Confucianism in the Chinese tradition and in contemporary China; Confucianism's quasi-religious quasi-philosophical character; Li's views on emotion morality and fate in Confucianism; and his call for a separation of public social morality from private religious morality in modern China. Translated here by Maija Bell Samei <i>Reading the Analects Today</i> is among the most accessible of Li Zehou's works and will be of interest not only to philosophers but to scholars and students of both modern and traditional Chinese intellectual social and religious history.</p>