Reading Roberts’s new translation of the Analects along with Chin-shin Huang’s study of Confucianism as a religion is instructive because Confucius himself stands between two interpretations-readers can make their own conclusions from a clear and concise translation which is also interpreted by Roberts as he proceeds. And, of course, the fact that there are Confucian temples certainly suggests that Confucius’s teachings, much like Buddhism and Daoism, are more than just “philosophy” to many people.

Is Confucianism a religion, or is it a philosophy? “Confucius,” Moss Roberts tells us, “would address things present and manifest, that is, cultural presentations ( wenzhang), but not things invisible and speculative, that is, human nature ( renzhing) and the Way of heaven ( tiandao).” However, in the years after Confucius’s death in 479 BCE, his followers made “things invisible and speculative” the principal parts of the Analects, which had hitherto been “earthbound” and contained “no gestures towards the divine.” Chin-shing Huang, on the other hand, regards Confucianism as a real religion, basing his argument on Wittgenstein’s observation that religions have a “family resemblance”, thus suggesting, as Huang puts it, “the diverse and variegated nature of religion” rather than some monolithic or all-embracing definition.

The lunyu