The Original Analects
Responses to Reviews and Other Comments

For a complete list of reviews and comments known to us, see the Reviews page. In this section, we respond to some reviewer criticisms. In general, we are not aware that the methods used in arriving at our view of ther Analects, or their major results, such as the accretional nature of the text, have ever been successfully refuted. On the contrary, the accretional theory of another text, the Dau/Dv Jing, has been stunningly confirmed by archaeological finds at Gwodyen. We find reviewer objections to be rooted in discomfort with a new idea, or to derive from a wish to operate with the conventional image of Confucius as a propaganda device in the modern world. But readers will judge, and here is the dialogue for their consideration.

(Some of this material is duplicated from the web site of Thomas Carlson of Brussels, whose versions in turn were sometimes abridged with the original author's permission; these are marked by TC).

1998

• Li Dzv-hou (Appendix 2 to his Lun Yw Jin Du), April 1998
  • Response
• B J Mansvelt Beck (IIAS Newsletter #17), Dec 1998
  • Response

1999

• John Makeham (China Review International), Spring 1999 [TC]
  • Response

2000

• Edward Slingerland (PEW, v50 #1), Jan 2000 [TC]
  • Response and Reply [TC; includes the famous Gwodyen Confirmation]
    • The Gwodyen Matter: The Argument at Length [Newsletter 13]
  • Rejoinder [not printed by Philosophy East and West]

2001

• David Schaberg (CLEAR), 2001
  • Response
• Donald J Munro (Author's Note to reprint of The Concept of Man in Early China), 2001
  • Response
• Liu Xiaogan (Foreword to the above Munro reprint), 2001
  • Part 1 (on the growth of texts)
  • Part 2 (on archaeological evidence)
  • Part 3 (on the consistency principle)
  • Part 4 (on Sinological progress after 1969)

2004

• Terry Kleeman (Journal of Chinese Religions #23 (2004) 29-45
  • Response

Not all criticisms of The Original Analects have appeared in print. For a hypothetical response to one unpublished manuscript, see the Open Letter to a Young Scholar (2006). 

  

17 May 2007 / Contact The Project / Exit to Publications Page