Talk:Four Books and Five Classics

China Mid‑importance

	China portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject China, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of China related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChinaWikipedia:WikiProject ChinaTemplate:WikiProject ChinaChina-related articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

East Asia (defunct)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject East Asia, a project which is currently considered to be defunct.East AsiaWikipedia:WikiProject East AsiaTemplate:WikiProject East AsiaEast Asia articles

Philosophy: Literature / Eastern High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles

High

This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Associated task forces:
/
	Philosophical literature
	Eastern philosophy

Literature Mid‑importance

	Literature portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Literature, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Literature on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LiteratureWikipedia:WikiProject LiteratureTemplate:WikiProject LiteratureLiterature articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Books

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Books. To participate in the project, please visit its page, where you can join the project and discuss matters related to book articles. To use this banner, please refer to the documentation. To improve this article, please refer to the relevant guideline for the type of work.BooksWikipedia:WikiProject BooksTemplate:WikiProject BooksBook articles

I Agree[edit]

Yes, I believe that the Four Books articleshould be merged with the Five Classics article. After all, they are a set of related Chinese classics. Sungrad (talk) 23:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Sungrad. Such a merger would simplify things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.102.49.119 (talk) 08:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge[edit]

I propose that this article be merged with Thirteen Classics to form an article called "Confucian classics", giving a narrative with sections "Five Classics", "Thirteen Classics" and "Four Books". This would be different from Chinese classics, which also includes non-Confucian works. Kanguole 18:31, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase "Four Books and Five Classics" is very recognizable within Chinese literature, and it is a well-known canon. Whereas I think the term "Confucian classics is too broad, and the article Chinese classics already pertains to this idea.--Sevilledade (talk) 12:11, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Four Books and Five Classics are indeed well-known canons, as is the Thirteen Classics, which were an expansion from the Five Classics and from which the Four Books were selected. I'm saying that they're aspects of the same topic, and that to cover that topic properly one would want to discuss the evolution of this canon from the Six Classics, then the Five Classics, gradually expanded through to the Kaicheng Stone Classics and the Thirteen Classics, followed by Zhu Xi's selection of the Four Books. As I said above, Chinese classics is broader, also including non-Confucian works. Kanguole 15:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Drop reference to editing by Confucius[edit]

The line reading "These books, or parts of them, were either commented, compiled, or edited by Confucius himself" should be dropped. This tradition is not accepted by modern scholars. See, for example, Michael Nylan, The Five "Confucian" Classics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). ~entenman

please add German link[edit]

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BCnf_Klassiker — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.153.172.89 (talk) 17:37, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Last sentence of Great Learning[edit]

As written "Government, self-cultivation and investigation of things are linked" is ambiguous. Is this what is taught in this book? Is this what follows from employing those teachings? Is it the starting assumption? Is it a problem to overcome? Arbalest Mike (talk) 23:41, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If someone doesn't edit this dangling sentence, and the last sentence of the next section (Doctrine of the Mean) soon, I will remove them. They are probably significant but, as written, are statements of fact rather than being related to the book being discussed. Arbalest Mike (talk)

Done -- removed dangling sentences. They could be added back in if expressed as claims of the book under discussion. As written, they look like statements of fact. Arbalest Mike (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:01, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Notes[edit]

I didn't write this article, but I am reading more on the subject. If anyone else reads the subject, I thought we might make notes.

I'd like to note to start that Hansen and others consider the evidence that Confucius read the Book of Changes to be slim. FourLights (talk) 04:24, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]