Confucian Wisdom of the Treatise “KONG-ZI JIA YU (SPEECHES OF THE SCHOOL OF CONFUCIUS”)

This article analyzes the main ideas contained in the early Confucian written text, the “Kongzi Jia Yu” (The Speeches of the School of Confucius). This treatise possesses enormous theoretical value and also represents an important resource for the study of the Confucian intellectual tradition. Moreover, “Kongzi Jia Yu” contains stories from the life of the great ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 BCE), his conversations with his closest disciples, and prominent political figures of the time. These conversations are philosophical dialogues, addressing crucial ontological, ethical, aesthetic, and epistemological issues. For a number of reasons, studying this written monument was long considered unsustainable. However, thanks to analysis of the results of recent archaeological excavations, this situation has now changed. In the first part of the article, the author briefly reviews several works by young Chinese Sinologists devoted to the problem of attribution, dating, and the history of the dissemination of this text. The authors explore the authorship and origins of this text, the history of its study, and the main themes of the treatise. In the second part, the article identifies the main philosophical concepts expounded in the “Kongzi Jia Yu”, which can be broadly summarized under three most significant questions: What is the ideal model of national governance? What principles is it based on, and who exercises such governance? These are the topics covered in this article. Understanding the textual material from the “Kongzi Jia Yu” helps expand the academic community's understanding of the ethical, political, and pedagogical ideas of Confucianism, carries with it the wisdom of China's spiritual culture, and also provides new evidence with which to reconstruct the most significant aspects of the Confucian tradition.