Today I'll talk about Confucius' way of learning in The Analects We know that Confucius apired to in study when he was 15, and with persistent efforts, he finally achieved when he was 30. Therefore, Confucius' achievement lies in his persistent efforts. He said," study as if one could never learn enough, lest he should lose it." this depends on self efforts rather than God or other supernaturals to achieve success. It is totally different from that of religious saints like Jesus or Mohammed . Confucius mentioned many times in The Analects that "we are not born with knowledge rather we aquire knowledge by wide experience." 如 He stresses here that the difference between he and those ignorants is wide experience, which, in his view, is secondary to being born with knowledge. Moreover, he also stresses the importance of asking questions in study Then in The Analects, how does he stress asking questions? what kind of questions are appropriate? Confucius makes use of Kong Wenzi's words to explain the one and only way to study. That is, to ask more questions, and "not to feel ashamed to learn from those subordinates" has often been used idiom , in our daily life. Moreover, "to learn form those subordiantes" has become a virtue handing dowen from generation to generation, and a fine tradition of being modest and eager to learn. But it is worth retrospecting whether this kind of asking is asking with or without an answer. if it's asking while knowing the answer, it is meaningless valueless, nor is it a traditional virtue It only manifests asker's hypocrisy, so this kind of asking is not worth encouraging. If the latter is the case, how can the quality of the questions be guaranteed? indeed there are no silly questions, but in reality, when the quality of such kind of asking is questioned, how to ask and what to ask turns into a problem. so both asking while knowing the answer and asking while not knowing the answer actually menifest the asker's wickedness rather than virtue. Could it be said that Confucicus' evaluation of Kong Wenzi in The Analects is wrong? Could it be said that the tradition of good study style of not feeling ashamed to learn from those subordinates is wrong? If it is ture, it would be unacceptable to us, both logically and emotionally. But when we reject our pride and prejudice, restore our sense and sensibility, and have a thorough study of Confucicus's words in The Analects, we can eliminate our various misundersanding. what he wanted to underscore here is not an binary opposition between knowledge and ignorance， he actually stresses both knowledge and ignorance, in other words, this is a kind of intermediate state, only asking by this way, can we eliminate ignorance, and further make knowledge obviously clear , thus achieve a desirable state. It is the way of intermediate state of asking Confucius uses in The Analects that helps him achieve the tradition of knowledge and virtue. It is recorded in both The Analects and The Historical Records Confucicus's juvenile background. Like " I come from a humble family,so I am good at civilian things." Though his juvenile learning environment was not that good, Confucicus can bring into full play of his own innitiative, draw inferences about other cases from one instance, and achieve success in the end. Above all, in the process of his studys, the intermediate state of asking Confucius uses contributes to his success in the end.
