《論語》「季路問事鬼神」章解讀疏證 — 一個生死學進路的義理探索=“ Jih - lu Asked about the Worship of the Celestial and E arthly Spirits ” in the Analects : A Philosophical Inquiry from the Approach of Life - and - Death Studies
It has been a deep rooted taboo in Chinese culture to openly and straightforwardly discuss issues about life-and-death. This kind of attitude is pervasive in Chinese people’s daily conversations, thoughts and behavior. Whenever topics of life-and-death or related issues are raised or discussed, people would often quote—from the chapter of “Jih-lu Asked about the Worship of the Celestial and Earthly Spirits” in the Analects—a Confucius’ saying “ While one doesn’t yet know about life, how can he know about death?” as the authoritative and canonical ground for their evasive attitude toward life-and-death. It seems to imply that Confucius’ words or thoughts on life-and-death represented by the above quotation have already become the mainstream of Chinese views on life-and-death. Whether this is true or not needs to be thoroughly investigated. It has been a conventional point of view that Confucius as well as Confucianism preferred discourses on the life issues rather than on death, and rarely discussed the latter. Nevertheless, if one reads the Analects thoroughly and carefully, he will have a surprising finding that the times which the term “death” is mentioned far outnumber those of “life” in this classic. Besides, also mentioned in the Analects are many other terms, such as “aging,” “disease,” “illness,” “decease,” “perish,” “sacrifice,” “worship,” “ghosts,” “deities,” “bereavement,”“funeral,”“exequy,” “burial,” and “coffin as well as its outer case,” etc. , which are directly related to life-and-death issues. Moreover, there are nearly 120 chapters in the Analects, which occupy about one fifth to one fourth of the whole volume, contain discourses on issues closely related to life-and-death. As the fact shows Confucius never evaded or refused to discuss about life-and-death matters; on the contrary, he did put forward a lot of arguments about them. Taking the quotation “While one doesn’t yet know about life, how can he know about death?” as the departure point, the purpose of this paper is trying to re-read, reexamine and reinterpret the philosophical context and implication of the chapter of “Jih-lu Asked about the Worship of the Celestial and Earthly Spirits” in the Analects from the philosophical approach and perspective of a life-and-death inquiry. It is also intended to delve into and unfold the deeper meanings of Confucius’ words which connote hidden dimensions pertaining to life-and-death concerns. Furthermore, the author also attempts to undertake the task of examining and reinterpreting some of those chapters concerning life-and-death arguments in the Analects, as the groundwork for future investigations and explorations of the life-and-death view of Confucius and Confucianism. It is also expected that this endeavor will be conducive to the task of constructing modern theories of life-and-death studies.
