A Research On The Literal Meaning Of Confucius’"Know The Decrees Of Heaven" And The Ways To Know Them:Center On The Analects

Through a close reading of Ancient Confucianism’s "interpreting’at fifty, I know the decrees of heaven’in the Analects of Confucius ", this essay concludes that Confucius’"decrees of Heaven "are neither what New Confucianism calls moral decrees nor decrees disenchanted by the ideology of the late20th century (namely, natural law). Confucius did uphold the concept of "decrees of Heaven" of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The ancient Confucians followed this theory but very few examined the ways to "decrees of Heaven "which Confucius stated unambiguously, which is also neglected by modern and contemporary scholars (even if some scholar noted this, they wrote little or nothing because of various difficulties). This is a great regret for the21th-century studies on Confucius’ doctrines. This essay attempts to compensate for this regret through sorting the ancient annotations (Sun Chuo, Xiong Mai)and modern theories Hu Shi,Liu Wenying).