Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period 722-453 B.C.E. (review)

Foundations of Confucian Thought is a welcome contribution to Chunqiu studies because of the rarity of such works in English. Despite Yuri Pines' efforts, however, I doubt that his book will change anyone's opinion regarding the authenticity of the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu) or its most important commentary, the Zuozhuan. The inherent weakness in Pines' argument is not due to any shortcoming that he can correct but rather to the nature of the Chunqiu documents themselves.

Pines endeavors to establish two pivotal points. First, he wants to substantiate the authenticity of the material, especially the speeches of the statesmen, contained in the Zuozhuan. If that material is genuine, then Pines believes he can document the intellectual trends, changes, and development of Chunqiu thought, which preceded Confucius. If one could document the intellectual life of the Chunqiu period, then one could better understand both Confucius' debts and innovations. However, the correct interpretation of the Chunqiu material rests on the status of its authenticity. The strongest evidence to establish the authenticity of the texts would be an archaeological discovery of an early Zhanguo (Warring States period) copy of the Zuozhuan itself, or an excavation of the primary materials, that is, the speeches and other documents that were (supposedly) used in preparing the Zuozhuan. Without the hard evidence, one is basically left with a leap of faith. Pines attempts to bolster faith in the authenticity of the documents with a careful analysis and interpretation. At every turn, however, the skeptic can still claim that without hard evidence both the material and Pines' interpretation are anachronistic.

I am not one of the skeptics. I accept the authenticity of the Annals and a large part of the Zuozhuan, and Pines does an excellent job identifying the inauthentic material in the Zuozhuan. However, I disagree with Pines' analysis of the content and development of Chunqiu intellectual thought, which I shall return to after summarizing his work.

Foundations of Confucian Thought contains an acknowledgment, notes on translation, an introduction, seven chapters, four appendixes, over fifty pages of detailed notes, a very helpful list of Chunqiu personalities, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index. In the acknowledgment we learn that this book is a revision of Pines' dissertation. In the introduction he reviews some of the major political and social developments of the Chunqiu period to set the stage for understanding the intellectual life of that period. Pines argues that the statesmen's speeches in the Zuozhuan were derived from written sources, that the fact of the unique intellectual developments in the Zuo narrative "rules out the possibility that the speeches were invented or significantly polished by later editors or transmitters. Hence, I suggest that the Zuo speeches should be regarded as . . . genuine and reliable" (p. 7). Note the apparent circular reasoning in this quote—reasoning that plagues the work—namely that because the material is not invented, it must be genuine. He reviews other studies and claims that they are prone to error because they "artificially ossify Chunqiu intellectual life," while his approach embraces the "dynamic impulses" inherent in Chunqiu life that were passed on to the Zhanguo period (p. 10).

In chapter 1, "Sources of Chunqiu Thought," Pines attempts to extract the original sources of the Zuozhuan from the Zuozhuan itself based on skillful textual interpretation. Again, given the lack of external corroborating material, the circular reasoning still abides here. He also investigates the Guoyu, Chunqiu shiyu, and paleographic and other sources to contest the skeptics' claim that we lack adequate source material to (re)construct Chunqiu intellectual life.

In chapter 2, "Heaven and Man Part Ways," Pines follows the lead of Angus Graham to show that the Western Zhou reliance on the divine authority of tian or Heaven had begun to break down during the Chunqiu period. First, he documents the gradual decline in the...