Historical Narrative and Universal Principles in Confucian Hermeneutics

Chun-chieh Huang
National Taiwan University

The aim of the paper is to argue that in the Confucian classics, the narration of concrete historical facts (in particular the deeds of paradigmatic individuals) is intricately and inseparably bound together with the justification of abstract, universal patterns or principles (such as tao, way, and li, pattern). Thus the universality found in the Confucian classics is in fact a form of “concrete universality.”

Section II of the paper contends that in the Confucian classics, historical narration is typically used as a technique for establishing abstract universal principles. These universal principles are not established through logical or abstract inference procedures, but through narration of concrete historical experience. Sections III and IV of the paper discuss two methods used in Confucian discourse to establish universal principles through historical narration and consider related methodological issues. In light of the “concrete universality” found in Confucian discourse, Section V proposes that interpretations of the Confucian classics should firmly reflect their tendency to embed the abstract within the concrete and use the particular to express the universal.