Zhong Yong – A Few Remarks on the Meaning and Translation of the Title
Abstract
Zhong Yong – one of the Four Books of Confucian philosophy – presents various and complicated concepts of early Chinese philosophy in the form of a guideline for people who aspire to become a sage. Zhong Yong’s ambiguity is obvious; not only the main idea of integrity or sincerity – cheng – but also the concepts of zhong and yong, which separately and together provide a perplexing problem for translators. The main aim of this article is to analyse the contents of these self-development guidelines, as well as to propose an interpretation of the two terms zhong and yong, and their meaning as a phrase. I argue that the traditional translation – the Doctrine of the Mean – is inaccurate, not only because it omits the meaning of yong, but because it also does not comply with the relativist- and context-oriented thought of Early Confucian masters.
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