Analects 14.25: 憲問 (Xian Wen)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 14 tests ethical judgment in public life. Salary, courage, accomplished speech, and a reputation for virtue each prove incomplete measures of a person. The arguments about Guan Zhong ask how benefits to many people should weigh against a demand for personal fidelity. Accounts of officeholders, messengers, and failed appeals make responsibility concrete: competent service can sustain a flawed ruler, and a duty to speak can survive refusal. Short sayings turn from judging others toward learning, ability, and the relation between words and deeds. The later encounters press the choice between persistence and withdrawal when others offer no recognition. The dialogue with Zilu gives self-cultivation an expanding aim, ending in peace for all the people; the closing scenes test conduct through bodily bearing and the desire to seem grown before the work is done.
Analects 14.25
子曰、古之學者為己、今之學者為人。
The Master said, “In the past, people learned for themselves; now they learn for others.”
Commentary
ethics For oneself and for others The contrast is compressed enough to sound surprising: learning for oneself receives the older, favorable place. In the surrounding sayings, conduct must answer to one’s own work rather than to display. This supports taking 為己 as personal formation and 為人 as learning for other people’s regard. The bare wording itself leaves those motives unstated.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium