Abstract
This article explicates self psychological connotations of junzi (君子) in the Analects of Confucius. Junzi is a noble person who attempts to actualize Confucian cardinal virtues in concrete human relationships at any cost. Kohut argues that a tragic person is faithful to the psychologically structured ideals even at the expense of death. Like a tragic person, a junzi follows his or her ideals and values, which are deeply anchored in the nuclear self. In the Analects, a junzi remarkably resembles a tragic person. A junzi in the Analects shows the characteristics of a tragic person: empathy, creativity, humor, and wisdom.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ames, R. T. (2003). Confucius. In RoutledgeCurzon encyclopedia of Confucianism (vol. 1, (pp. 162–167)). London: RoutledgeCurzon.
The analects of Confucius (C. Huang, Trans.). (1997). New York and Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Brooks, E. B., & Brooks, A. T. (1988). The original analects: Sayings of Confucius and his successors. New York: Columbia University Press.
de Bary, W. T. (1991). The trouble with Confucianism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dixon, S. L. (1999). Augustine: The scattered and gathered self. St. Louis, MO: Chalice.
Duncan, J. (1997). Confucian social values in contemporary South Korea. In L. R. Lancaster, & R. K. Payne (Eds.), Religion and society in contemporary Korea (pp. 49–73). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Erikson, E. H. (1962). Young man Luther. New York: Norton.
Fingarette, H. (1972). Confucius: The secular as sacred. New York: Harper & Row.
Flax, J. (1990). Thinking fragments: Psychoanalysis, feminism, and postmodernism in contemporary West. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Freud, S. (1959). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego (J. Strachey, Trans.). New York: Norton (Original work published 1921).
Freud, S. (1961). Civilization and its discontents (J. Strachey, Trans.). New York: Norton (Original work published 1930).
Kafka, F. (2000). The metamorphosis, in the penal colony, and other stories with two new stories (J. Neugroschel, Trans.). New York: Simon and Schuster.
Kohut, H. (1971). The analysis of the self. New York: International Universities Press.
Kohut, H. (1977). The restoration of the self. New York: International Universities Press.
Kohut, H. (1978a). Psychoanalysis in a troubled world. In The search for the self: Selected writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950–197, Vol. 2 (pp. 511–546). New York: International Universities Press.
Kohut, H. (1978b). Thoughts on narcissism and narcissistic rage. In The search for the self: Selected writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950–197, Vol. 2 (pp. 615–658). New York: International Universities Press.
Kohut, H. (1984). How does analysis cure?. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kohut, H. (1985a). On courage. In Humanities and self psychology: Reflections on a new psychoanalytic approach (pp. 5–50). New York: Norton.
Kohut, H. (1985b). Self psychology and the science of man. In Humanities and self psychology: Reflections on a new psychoanalytic approach (pp. 73–94). New York: Norton.
Lacan, J. (1992). The seminar of Jacques Lacan book VII: Ethics of psychoanalysis 1959–1960 (D. Porter, Trans.). New York: Norton.
Lacan, J. (2006). The Freudian thing or the meaning of the return to Freud in psychoanalysis. In Écrits (B. Fink, Trans.) (pp. 334–363). New York: Norton.
Li, C.-Y. (2000). The Confucian concept of jen and the feminist ethics of care. In C.-Y. Li (Ed.), The sage and the second sex: Confucianism, ethics, and gender (pp. 23–56). Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Lorde, A. (1984). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” In Sister outsider: essays and speeches (pp. 110–113). Freedom, CA: Crossing.
McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial leather: Race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge.
Ricoeur, P. (1970). Freud and philosophy: An essay on interpretation (D. Savage, Trans.). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.
Shun, K.-L. (2002). Ren 仁 and li 禮 in the Analects. In B. W. Van Norden (Ed.), Confucius and the Analects: New essays (pp. 53–72). New York: Oxford University Press.
Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London: Zed.
Tu, W. M. (1985). Confucian thought: Selfhood as creative transformation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Van Norden, B. W. (2007). Kongzi and ruism. In Virtue ethics and consequentialism in early Chinese philosophy (pp. 65–138). Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Weber, M. (1968). The religion of China (H. Gerth, Trans.). New York: Free Press.
Whitehead, A. N. (1967a). Adventures of ideas. New York: Free Press (Original work published 1933).
Whitehead, A. N. (1967b). Science and the modern world. New York: Free Press (Original work published 1925).
Winnicott, D. W. (1986). The concept of the false self. In Home is where we start from: Essays by a psychoanalyst (pp. 65–70). New York: Norton
Yuan, L. (2005). Confucius, Confucianism, and the Confucian rationale for women’s inequality. In Reconceiving women's equality in China: A critical examination of models of sex equality (pp. 1–24). Lanham, MD: Lexington.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ahn, H. Junzi as a Tragic Person: A Self Psychological Interpretation of the Analects . Pastoral Psychol 57, 101–113 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-008-0133-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-008-0133-2