Hsieh Liang-tso and the Analects of Confucius: Human Learning as a Religious Quest (review)

There has been a gap, in English scholarship, between the publication of Angus Graham's work on the Cheng Brothers (Mingdao 1032–85 and Yichuan 1033–1107) in 1958 and more recent works on Zhu Xi (1130–1200) by Julia Ching, John Berthrong, and others. To a certain degree, Thomas W. Selover's Hsieh Liang-tso and the Analects of Confucius helps to fill up, at least partially, that gap. Focusing on Xie Liangzuo (Hsieh Liang-tso 1050–1103), the most brilliant disciple of the Cheng Brothers, this is indeed a remarkable contribution to the study of neo-Confucianism in North Song Dynasty. It is also a fascinating work on the hermeneutics of Confucius's Analects, the founding scripture of Confucianism, on which Selover attempts to base his vision of comparative theology. Two chapters of Xie's commentary on Confucius's Analects, translated into English and attached as appendices, are quite useful for English readers to check how Xie 'savors' the texts under his interpretation.

Xie has inherited and developed Cheng Mingdao's concept of ren, his emphasis on 'knowing ren,' his interpretation of ren as the sensitive and dynamic relatedness among human beings and all things, and the attainability of ren by the moral praxis of cheng (sincerity) and jing (reverence). Nevertheless, Selover has made clear Xie's originality in his own interpretation of ren as jue (sensitive awakening), arguably under the influence of Chan Buddhism of his time. But the most interesting part of this book consists in its making explicit the hermeneutic implications of Xie's practice of 'savoring' the scripture in his commentary on the Analects. Although the methods of intertextuality and intratextuality he used are quite common practice in hermeneutics in the East and West, Xie's reading of the Analects contains a hermeneutics of savouring scripture that awakens the ren in one's own mind and heart, while one is reading a scripture, by pointing directly to one's own moral praxis with self-awareness. This is quite different from Western hermeneutics, such as Heidegger's, for which what one understands in a text is the 'possibilities-to-be' it reveals; or Betti's hermeneutics, which targets the objective meaning structure of a text. On the contrary, 'savoring the scripture' is essentially a moral awakening of one's sensitive and dynamic relatednesss with other people and all things in the universe by way of reading a scriptural text.

In a sense, Xie is following Mencius's hermeneutic principle 'to trace the expressed intent by understanding,' applied first to the reading of Odes. Here is something similar to what Wilhelm Dilthey says about the function of understanding as re-enacting the process of an author's creative expression by way of empathy. Unlike Dilthey's, Mencius's empathy is not merely psychological; it is immediately ontological and involves one's moral experience.

As to Selover's own project in comparative theology, the fourfold pattern of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience constitutes indeed an ambitious conceptual framework, worthy of fuller development in the future. But this book of 180 pages is too short to unfold the project in a more satisfying way. It is also debatable whether to put God and ren on the same level of comparison. Matteo Ricci's Confucian Concept of Heaven seems to be a better candidate. Also, there are some minor details to reconsider for correction in the next edition. For example: all Chinese sources indicate Xie lived in the period 1050–1103, but Selover puts it repeatedly c 1050–c 1120, without any justification. Also, although this book justifiably adopts the Wade-Giles system, since all libraries in the world are now switching to pinyin system, it is better for publications on China to change to the pinyin system to be more convenient for Western readers. Note also that Confucius's disciple who asked the question in Analects 14.1 should be Yuan Xian...