Confucianism

Distillation of Confucianism — Decision Record

This README fixes which texts and which translation are distilled, and on whose standpoint.

Tradition

• Slug: confucianism
• Tradition / family: Confucianism (Rújiā 儒家) — the classical Rú ethical-political tradition rooted in Confucius (Kongzi, 551–479 BCE) and Mencius (Mengzi, c. 372–289 BCE).
• Primary frame in one sentence: a this-worldly ethic of self-cultivation, family reverence, and humane order, in which the moral transformation of the person radiates outward to family, state, and the cosmos under tian (Heaven).
• Lived-alongside note: Confucianism is frequently lived alongside other traditions (Daoism, Buddhism, ancestral religion, and in modern times Christianity or none). It is often described less as an exclusive religion than as a moral-ritual orientation. This is recorded here because it directly shapes the rooted compass: a Confucian family compass is designed to be layerable with another tradition, not to displace it.

Canon selection (what is included, and why)

The Four Books (Sì Shū 四書), canonized as a unit by Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi) in the Song dynasty and the backbone of the imperial examination curriculum for ~600 years — the single highest-lived-centrality grouping in the tradition.

Text	Chinese	Included?	Rationale
Analects (Lúnyǔ 論語)	Confucian Analects	yes (primary)	The sayings of Confucius; the tradition's load-bearing core. 20 books.
Great Learning (Dàxué 大學)	Ta Hsio	yes	The "method": self-cultivation → ordered family → ordered state. Short, foundational.
Doctrine of the Mean (Zhōngyōng 中庸)	Chung Yung	yes	The metaphysical frame: Heaven-conferred nature, equilibrium-and-harmony, cheng (sincerity).
Mencius (Mèngzǐ 孟子)	The Works of Mencius	yes (selection)	Develops ren/yi, innate moral sprouts, humane government, people-first. Scope note below.
Five Classics (Wǔ Jīng)	Odes, Documents, Changes, Rites, Annals	noted	The older classical layer Confucius transmitted; referenced (e.g. Analects quotes the Odes) but not distilled here.

• Full-canon commitment: the Four Books are the committed canon for this tradition. The Five Classics are a possible later stage.

Translation policy

• Named translation — Analects: James Legge, Confucian Analects, in The Chinese Classics, vol. I. Public domain. Source text: Project Gutenberg #3330 (the English translation portion, all 20 books, clean plaintext).
• Named translation — Great Learning & Doctrine of the Mean: James Legge, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, from his The Four Books (Commercial Press bilingual edition). Source text: Internet Archive — The four books (fourbooksconfuci00leggiala), full-text plaintext. Caveat: this edition interleaves Legge's running commentary and Chinese characters with the translation; only the numbered canonical translation paragraphs were extracted (notes excluded). A cleaner standalone Gutenberg plaintext of Legge's GL/DM was not found — see access notes.
• Named translation — Mencius: James Legge, The Sayings of Mencius (Book I), as reprinted in Chinese Literature (the Colonial Press "World's Great Classics"). Source text: Project Gutenberg #10056, the section "THE SAYINGS OF MENCIUS [Translated into English by James Legge]". Scope note: this is a clean Legge selection centred on Book I (King Hwuy of Lëang) — humane government, benevolence-over-profit, sharing-with-the-people. The famous "four sprouts" (Mencius II.A.6) and "human nature is good / like water flowing downward" (VI.A) passages were supplemented from the Legge Four Books archive text, and so cited there.
• Why Legge: unambiguously public-domain, the scholarly standard English Confucian translation, and the same translator across all Four Books (consistency of diction).
• Caveat — Legge's diction (19th-c.): Legge renders ren as "perfect virtue" / "benevolence," li as "the rules of propriety," junzi as "the superior man," xiao as "filial piety," tian as "Heaven." These English choices carry interpretive weight and are glossed against the original terms throughout. Romanization is Legge's older system (e.g. Tsang, Tsze-kung).
• Quote accuracy: char-for-char verified against Gutenberg #3330/#10056 and Internet Archive. See quote-audit-confucianism.md — PASS (53 anchors; 47 PASS, 3 DRIFT fixed, 3 SOURCE_ARTIFACT noted).

Untranslatable terms to preserve (transliteration)

ren 仁 (humaneness/co-humanity) · li 禮 (ritual propriety) · xiao 孝 (filial reverence) · yi 義 (righteousness/rightness) · junzi 君子 (the exemplary person) · de 德 (moral force/virtue-power) · tian 天 (Heaven) · zhong 忠 (conscientious loyalty/doing-one's-utmost) · shu 恕 (reciprocity/considerateness) · cheng 誠 (sincerity/integral truthfulness) · zhengming 正名 (rectification of names).

Reviewer / standpoint

• Within-tradition reviewer: none secured.
• Therefore: this output is "one structured reading, not authoritative" and the reviewer gap is flagged. The pluralist, layerable framing of the compass is an owned standpoint, not a neutral one.

Structure for this tradition

• Atomic unit ("books/"): the Analects distilled in 5 grouped files (its 20 books), plus one file each for the Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, and Mencius. Cited as Analects <book>:<chapter>, Great Learning <para>, Doctrine of the Mean <ch>:<para>, Mencius <book>.<part>.
• Internal convergence layer: yes — the Four Books are treated as four quasi-independent sources within the tradition; the layers/ folder records which principles are attested across multiple books (within-tradition attestation breadth, not cross-tradition agreement).
• Core principles: 15 core Confucian principles.

Files

File	Status
Methodology	done
Index and traceability	done
Analects extractions (20 books in 5 files)	done
Great Learning extraction	done
Doctrine of the Mean extraction	done
Mencius extraction	done
Convergence layer (Four Books)	done
Core principles	done — 15 core principles
Structural analysis	done
Rooted compass	done