205
“Scottish Commonsense” philosophy was a conscious effort in the eighteenth century to counteract the sceptical implications of the radical philosopher, David Hume. The young Legge had read the writings of Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown while a student at King's College in the early 1830s. He claimed later that he did not agree with all their philosophical implications, preferring a less rationalistic philosophy (perhaps that of William Paley), but even his granddaughter, the late Prof. Mary Dominica Legge, underscored his preference for Aristotelean ethics over the Confucian equivalent. If the content of James Legge's thought is rooted in the Biblical interpretations of the Non-Conformist tradition and Paley's evangelical system of natural theology, the categories came largely from the Commonsense tradition.
72
It was these categories which, as translator and interpreter, James Legge employed in evaluating Confucian ethics, education, and epistemology. The lack of rational precision in a number of places in Confucius' life evoke from Legge a sense that there was a “want of freedom” in Confucius' behaviour. He likewise criticized the important Song dynasty Confucian commentator, Zhu Xi, for implying that, when knowledge is complete, the thoughts are by this means necessarily made sincere or without self-deception. For Legge, the moral life stemmed from a spiritual source related to the moral will, which was more penetrating and more complex than a mere mental grasp of things.
7.1
In his study of Confucius' philosophy, Legge identifies specific details of the sage's biography in which his evasion of the truth (in one case involving an oath) is claimed to have produced an "injurious influence” as an example to later Chinese people. There is also a conflict between Confucius' more humble claims about himself and the claims made about him by later Confucianists. At times these claims approach blasphemy, and Legge minces no words in decrying these assertions. The fact that other canonical texts included passages in which Confucius appears as the advocate of an ethic of revenge, especially when it involved family or clan ties, was an additional issue Legge regarded as deserving unqualified criticism. Whether or not these texts were historically reliable, their negative ethical influence was undeniable.
What is important here is that the ethical questions Legge asked
205
“Scottish Commonsense” philosophy was a conscious effort in the eighteenth century to counteract the sceptical implications of the radical philosopher, David Hume. The young Legge had read the writings of Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown while a student at King's College in the early 1830s. He claimed later that he did not agree with all their philosophical implications. prefering a less rationalistic philosophy (perhaps that of William Paley), but even his granddaughter, the late Prof. Mary Dominica Legge. underscored his preference for Aristotelean ethics over the Confucian equivalent. If the content of James Legge's thought is rooted in the Biblical interpretations of the Non-Conformist tradition and Paley's evangelical system of natural theology, the categories came largely from the Commonsense tradition.
72
It was these categories which, as translator and interpreter. James Legge employed in evaluating Confucian ethics, education, and epistemology. The lack of rational precision in a number of places in Confucius' life evoke from Legge a sense that there was a “want of freedom" in Confucius' behaviour." He likewise criticized the important Song dynasty Confucian commentator. Zhu Xi, for implying that, when knowledge is complete, the thoughts are by this means necessarily made sincere or without self-deception. For Legge, the moral life stemmed from a spiritual source related to the moral will, which was more penetrating and more complex than a mere mental grasp of things.
7.1
In his study of Confucius' philosophy. Legge identifies specific details of the sage's biography in which his evasion of the truth (in one case involving an oath) is claimed to have produced an "injurious influence” as an example to later Chinese people." There is also a conflict between Confucius' more humble claims about himself and the claims made about him by later Confucianists. At times these claims approach blasphemy, and Legge minces no words in decrying these assertions." The fact that other canonical texts included passages in which Confucius appears as the advocate of an ethic of revenge. expecially when it involved family or clan ties, was an additional issue Legge regarded as deserving unqualified criticism." Whether or not these texts were historically reliable, their negative ethical influence was undeniable.
What is important here is that the ethical questions Legge asked
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