Who Was Confucius? And What Did He Really Say?

Who Was Confucius? And What Did He Really Say? A talk given at One Day University online on 11 September 2020 by Professor Bryan W. Van Norden of Vassar College.

This is the first lecture in a series on Chinese philosophy, but you might enjoy this mini-lecture for general intellectual background: "Existence and Essence,"    • Thinkbomb 1: Existence and essence  
Following Lecture in this Series: "Confucius on Language: How NOT to Rectify Names"    • Van Norden, Confucius on Language: Ho...  

Part I Introduction
0:20 The “Confucius Statue Incident” of 2011
1:34 Confucius: Sage? Punchline? Villain?
5:07 China in the Time of Confucius
7:29 Youth of Confucius (Analects 9.6)
8:52 Confucius’s Brief Political Career (Analects 9.18)
9:58 The Years of Wandering (Analects 15.2)
12:36 Confucius as Teacher (Analects 7.7)
13:42 The Analects

Part 2 The Six Themes of Confucianism
15:32 Overview of the Six Themes
16:18 A Contrast with Plato’s View
18:07 Happiness in the Everyday World (Analects 11.26)
21:37 Virtue Instead of Force (Analects 2.3, 2.1)
23:44 Ritual and “The Secular as Sacred” (Analects 12.1, 12.2)
25:43 Learning to Be Virtuous (Analects 2.15, 7.8)
28:30 Tradition as the Source of Wisdom (Analects 7.1, 9.3, 2.11)
30:26 The Family as the Nursery of Virtue (Analects 1.2)
31:58 The Family and Special Obligations (Analects 13.18)
33:44 Review of the Six Themes of Confucianism

Part 3 The Fate of Confucianism in Modern China
35:04 The Qing Dynasty Background
36:17 The Opium Wars and Its Aftermath
38:01 Mao and Communist Suppression of Confucianism
39:35 Mao vs. Confucius
40:42 The Confucian Revival after Mao

42:48 Concluding Reflections: Whither Confucianism?