Dialogues of Confucius

Name: Dialogues of Confucius
Price: 69.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9780691276465

The Complete Text

Confucius, Brian Bruya, Wenwen Li

$69.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

Princeton University Pres
01 July 2026

Oriental & Indian philosophy; Ethics & moral philosophy; Religion & beliefs; Confucianism

Labelled a forgery and ignored for centuries, the Dialogues of Confucius was nevertheless preserved and passed down through the generations, purportedly a companion to the Analects. Recent archaeological finds and renewed analysis now suggest that the Dialogues can be accepted as authentic and that it accurately represents the thinking of Confucius on a wide array of topics. In this book, Brian Bruya and Wenwen Li offer the first complete translation of the text into English as well as a detailed introduction discussing Confucian philosophy, the history of the text, and the debates around its authenticity. This new translation shows that the Dialogues deserves a rightful place next to the Analects. In the Dialogues, as in the Analects, Confucius converses with his students and local potentates. The topics range from education to social norms to cosmology, and from cultivating individual virtues to instituting a meritocratic government.

As Bruya and Li argue, the main value of the Dialogues lies in its many philosophical clarifications and elaborations. At its core, it offers a valuable resource for understanding Confucius, his interactions with his students, and his philosophy. Each chapter includes both the original Chinese text and the English translation. The introduction includes a philosophical lexicon, and a 600-entry glossary at the end of the book provides context from the time of Confucius, enabling readers to understand how Confucius viewed his place in the world.

By: Confucius
Translated with commentary by: Brian Bruya, Wenwen Li
Imprint: Princeton University Pres
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780691276465
ISBN 10: 0691276463
Pages: 616
Publication Date: 01 July 2026
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Brian Bruya is professor of philosophy at Eastern Michigan University. He is the author of Ziran: The Philosophy of Spontaneous Self-Causation and the editor of The Philosophical Challenge from China and Effortless Attention: A New Perspective in the Cognitive Science of Attention and Action. He has translated several volumes in Princeton's Illustrated Library of Chinese Classics series, most recently A Cure for Chaos, C. C. Tsai's graphic version of selections from the Mencius. Wenwen Li is the coauthor of several Chinese-language books on the philosophy of Confucius, including Studying the Dialogues of Confucius and The Logic of the Analects.

Reviews for Dialogues of Confucius: The Complete Text

""[Dialogues of Confucius is] beautifully bound and printed. . . . Based on the most updated scholarship, this edition is destined to become a standard work in the English language for a long time to come.""---Alex Lo, South China Morning Post