History or Sage?:
A Hermeneutical Analysis of Cui Shu’s Study of the Analects

Kai-wing Chow
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

My papers seeks to explore the assumptions and methodology underlying the critical study of the Analects by Cui Shu. I argue that Cui’s critical scholarship operated on the assumption that Confucius was a sage. He cast doubt on any part of the Analects that he believed to be contradicting what a sage would do or say. The principles and methodology he used were not historical as it is often believed. I will compare him with the classical study of another early Qing scholar Yao Jiheng to show why both Yao and Cui were not highly regarded by the “evidential scholars” in the mid-eighteenth century. The reason is because they followed different principles in reading the Classics. I would like to use this case to argue a large point: that hermeneutics is essentially a mode of reading and hence, the study of hermeneutics needs to include a theory of language, a theory of text, and a theory of semiotics. In my paper, I will analyze the assumptions that informed Cui’s study in these three aspects: language, text, and semiotics.