Fear of the Unknown

The Passages

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5.15

8.17

Confucius tells his students to study as if they had fallen behind, afraid of losing even what they have. Zigong asks why Kong Wenzi, a powerful and ruthless minister of Wey, was given the posthumous title 文, cultured. Confucius answers with the quality the title rewards: he loved learning and was not ashamed to ask those below him. The rest of the man's life raises the question of what all that learning was for.

Philosophical Discussion

A title by the rule

Zigong's question is a leading one. Kong Wenzi had been the most powerful minister in Wey and, by every account, manipulative and vindictive, so 何以謂之文也 half expects to hear that he never deserved it. Confucius answers with the criterion instead. A posthumous title, 諡號, was not supposed to be arbitrary: each one stood for specific qualities, and 文, cultured, was the highest civil honor. The chapter on posthumous names in the 逸周書, the Lost Book of Zhou, gives six grounds for it, and one of them is the man Confucius describes: 敏而好學，不恥下問. Whatever else Kong Wenzi did, he met that clause.

The episode's one commentator point comes from 朱熹. In his 四書或問 he says a posthumous title is made to take a single good point and leave the rest out. Most people are a mix of good and bad, so most remain eligible for a laudatory title; only someone with no good quality at all earns a derogatory one such as 幽 or 厲. Zhu's own commentary quotes 蘇軾 making the same point more sharply: by this clause Kong Wenzi was entitled to the name, but not to the 文 of 經天緯地, weaving the pattern of heaven and earth, the sense that heads the list.

The man behind the title

Kong Wenzi was 孔圉, a minister of Wey who died around 480 BCE. In 14.19 Confucius names him, as 仲叔圉, among the capable men who kept the hopeless Duke Ling in power: 仲叔圉治賓客, he handled foreign envoys. His wife 伯姬 was Duke Ling's daughter and the sister of the exiled crown prince 蒯聵 (see Episode 12).

graph TD
    subgraph Wei["衛 State of Wey"]
        DL["衛靈公 Duke Ling"]
        NZ["南子 Nanzi"]
        KK["蒯聵 Kuai Kui
(exiled crown prince)"]
        BJ["伯姬 Bo Ji"]
        KY["孔圉 Kong Yu
(孔文子 Kong Wenzi)"]
        KJ["孔姞 Kong Ji"]
        TJ["太叔疾 Taishu Ji"]
        YI["太叔遺 Taishu Yi"]
        DL -- "married" --- NZ
        DL -- "father of" --> KK
        DL -- "father of" --> BJ
        BJ -- "married" --- KY
        KY -- "father of" --> KJ
        KJ -- "married first" --- TJ
        KJ -- "married next" --- YI
        TJ -- "elder brother of" --> YI
    end
    PC["宋朝 Prince Chao of Song"]
    NZ -- "affair with" --> PC
    PC -- "father of" --> W1["his daughter
(Taishu Ji's first wife)"]
    W1 -- "elder sister of" --> W2["her younger sister"]
    TJ -- "divorced her to marry 孔姞 Kong Ji" --> W1
    TJ -- "kept in a second household" --> W2
    KY -- "asked advice on attacking 太叔疾" --> KZ["孔子 Confucius"]
    KZ -- "refused, went home to 魯 Lu, 484 BCE" --> Lu["魯 State of Lu"]
    TJ -- "fled" --> Song["宋 State of Song"]

The story Zigong likely had in mind is in the Zuo Commentary under 484 BCE. The nobleman 太叔疾 had married a daughter of Prince Chao of Song, the handsome favorite of 6.16, and her younger sister had come into the household with her, as custom allowed. When the prince fell from favor and fled Wey, Kong Yu had 太叔疾 divorce his wife and marry his own daughter, 孔姞, instead. 太叔疾 kept the younger sister in a residence of her own in a nearby town, "as if he had two wives," and Kong Yu, furious, prepared to attack his son-in-law and asked Confucius for advice.

Confucius refused with almost the words he had used to Duke Ling in 15.1, then left:

• To Duke Ling (15.1): 俎豆之事，則嘗聞之矣；軍旅之事，未之學也。 "Of sacrificial vessels I have heard; of armies I have not learned."
• To Kong Yu (Zuo Commentary): 胡簋之事，則嘗學之矣；甲兵之事，未之聞也。 "Of sacrificial vessels I have learned; of armor and weapons I have not heard."

To Kong Yu he added 鳥則擇木，木豈能擇鳥: the bird chooses its tree; how can the tree choose the bird? Kong Yu protested that he had only been thinking of the state's troubles, and Confucius was ready to stay, until an envoy from Lu arrived with gifts to summon him home. It ended fourteen years on the road, 497 to 484 BCE. Whether he really gave nearly the same refusal twice, or the tradition attached one story to two occasions, the episode leaves open.

The marriage did not survive. Kong Yu took his daughter back; 太叔疾, caught in another affair, lost his carriage of rank to the townspeople and fled to Song; and Kong Yu married his daughter to 太叔疾's younger brother, 太叔遺, who took his place.

Learning for what

Kong Yu's love of learning is easy to account for. Lineages, precedent and well-placed poetry are exactly what a man needs to rise to the top of a court and talk a nobleman into a marriage. Eagerness to learn can serve growth, display, advantage, or the next link in a rabbit hole, and only its use shows which.

The Analects points the eagerness somewhere specific. Its first line pairs 學 with 習, study with practice. 李充, quoted in Episode 25, says conduct is what builds a person's 德. When Duke Ai asked which disciple loved learning (6.3), Confucius named 顏回 and gave conduct as the proof: 不遷怒，不貳過, he never turned his anger on the wrong person and never made the same mistake twice. 14.24 states the motive in a line: 古之學者為己，今之學者為人, the ancients studied for themselves, people now study for others.

Learning for yourself is not the end of the road. In 14.42 子路 asks three times what makes a gentleman, and each answer reaches further: 脩己以敬，脩己以安人，脩己以安百姓, cultivate yourself to be respectful, to bring peace to others, to bring peace to all the people. It is the outward widening of Episode 25, from the household to the world.

Not every useful skill builds character. When 樊遲 asks to learn farming and then gardening (13.4), Confucius sends him to a farmer and a gardener. He did not despise the work; 樊遲 was with him to learn to lead, and a leader's work is to be worth following.

The Qing scholar 李顒, in his 反身錄, puts the motive at the center of 8.17. The same urgency, studied for one's own character, is the gentleman's ceaseless self-strengthening; studied for wealth and rank, it is the petty man's 患得患失, worrying about getting and then about losing, a phrase he takes from 17.15. 同行異情，人品霄壤: the same conduct with different hearts, as far apart as sky and earth.

Curiosity still earns some credit. One benefit of the Odes, Confucius says in 17.9, is to 多識於鳥獸草木之名, learn the names of many birds, beasts, plants and trees. It is better to know than not to know; it is simply last on his list.

Context and Connections

Posthumous titles

The 文 in 孔文子 is a posthumous title, granted after death. The kings 姬昌 and 姬發 who founded the Zhou are known by theirs, King Wen and King Wu, as are the dukes of earlier episodes, Duke Ding of Lu and Duke Ling of Wey. A text that uses one was written after its holder died, and here the conversation itself must postdate Kong Yu's death. With Kong Yu dead around 480 BCE and Confucius in 479, the exchange falls in the last year or two of Confucius's life.

The six grounds for 文

The 逸周書 chapter on posthumous names, 諡法解, lists six:

• 經緯天地 — weaving the warp and weft of heaven and earth
• 道德博厚 — broad and deep in moral virtue
• 學勤好問 — diligent in study and fond of asking
• 慈惠愛民 — kind and generous, loving the people
• 愍民惠禮 — pitying the people and generous in ritual
• 錫民爵位 — granting the people rank and office

The 5.15 commentaries quote the third clause through 邢昺's subcommentary, in the order 勤學好問. D. C. Lau suspects the borrowing ran the other way: the 逸周書, traditionally taken as older, may have drawn on the Analects for it.

What the commentators argued about

The episode set the commentary aside as quarrels over minutiae. For 8.17 the quarrel is what the two clauses refer to. 繆協, quoted by 皇侃, has both describe a learner who already has it: feeling you fall short means you have reached it, and fearing loss means you will not lose it. 王夫之 and 陳天祥 split them: 不及 presses on to what is not yet learned, 失之 guards what is. 程樹德 sides with the split and finds the same pair in 19.5: 日知其所亡，月無忘其所能, each day learn what you lacked, each month forget nothing you can do.

For 5.15 it is who the "below" are. 朱熹 takes them as people of lower position, since the highly placed are most often ashamed to ask. 俞樾's 羣經平議 says the asking need not run down the ranks at all: whenever the able ask the unable, or the many-learned ask the little-learned, that is 下問.

Who's who

• 孔文子 — 孔圉, also 仲叔圉 (14.19), chief minister of Wey, died about 480 BCE; 文 is his posthumous title
• 子貢 — the disciple with the sharpest political instincts
• 伯姬 — Kong Yu's wife, Duke Ling's daughter and 蒯聵's sister; after Kong Yu's death she helped bring her brother back to seize Wey in 480 BCE
• 衛靈公 — Duke Ling of Wey, r. 534–493 BCE; 南子 — his wife
• 蒯聵 — Duke Ling's son, exiled after plotting to kill 南子
• 宋朝 — Prince Chao of Song, favorite of 南子 and the Duke (6.16)
• 太叔疾 — a Wey nobleman, Kong Yu's son-in-law, fled to Song in 484 BCE; 太叔遺 — his younger brother
• 孔姞 — Kong Yu's daughter, wife first of 太叔疾 and then of 太叔遺
• 顏回 — the disciple Confucius called the one lover of learning (6.3)
• 樊遲 — the disciple who asked to learn farming (13.4)
• 李充 — fourth-century scholar, quoted in 皇侃's subcommentary
• 朱熹 — 1130–1200, the great Song synthesizer, author of the 四書集注 and 四書或問
• 蘇軾 — 1037–1101, Song poet and statesman, quoted in 朱熹's commentary
• 邢昺 — 932–1010, author of the Song subcommentary on the Analects
• 王夫之 — 1619–1692, Ming loyalist philosopher
• 李顒 — 1627–1705, Qing scholar, author of the 反身錄
• 俞樾 — 1821–1907, Qing philologist, author of the 羣經平議
• 程樹德 — compiler of the 論語集釋 (1943)

Related passages

• 14.19 — 仲叔圉 among Duke Ling's capable ministers
• 15.1, 6.16 — Duke Ling asks about armies; Prince Chao's beauty, from Episode 12
• 1.1 — study paired with practice
• 6.3 — 顏回, the one who loved learning
• 14.24 — studying for oneself, studying for others
• 14.42 — cultivating oneself, in widening circles
• 13.4 — 樊遲 asks to learn farming
• 17.9 — the names of birds, beasts, plants and trees
• 17.15 — the petty man worried about getting and losing
• 19.5 — each day learn what you lacked, each month forget nothing

Language Notes

8.17 — 子曰：「學如不及，猶恐失之。」

Study — as if — not — reach; still — fear — lose — it.

• 如 — "as if." The sense survives in 比如, for example.
• 不及 — not reaching, here a goal rather than a place; "fallen behind" turns it around. The same 及 is in the modern potential complements 來得及 and 來不及, able or unable to make it in time.
• 猶 — usually "like," but read by every commentator as "still, even" here. With 如 already doing the work of "like," a second "like" would be redundant. Modern 猶如 keeps "just like"; 猶豫, to hesitate, has drifted away.
• 恐 — to fear, the 恐 of 恐怕, "I'm afraid that," the way to break bad news.
• 之 — "it," pointing back to the goal of the first clause, hence "what you've already gained."

5.15 — 子貢問曰：「孔文子何以謂之文也？」子曰：「敏而好學，不恥下問，是以謂之文也。」

Kong Wenzi — how — call — him — Wen? Quick — and — love — learning, not — ashamed — below — ask: this — by — call — him — Wen.

• 何以…也 — "by what," with a closing 也 that gives the question its rhetorical edge: "How is it that…"
• 謂之文 — "call him Wen": 謂 to call, 之 the pronoun for Kong Wenzi.
• 敏 — quick, diligent; modern 敏感, sensitive, and 過敏, allergic.
• 好學 — with 好 in the fourth tone, the verb "to love."
• 不恥下問 — "not ashamed to ask below": 下 is adverbial, asking downward, of those beneath you. The four characters survive whole as a modern idiom.
• 是以 — "by this," "that's why." 是 is the classical demonstrative "this," not the modern copula; Confucius turns Zigong's 何以 into its answer.