Classics Annotations and Independent Thinkers’ Books
Li Changran
(Center for the Compilation of Complete Literature of Confucianism, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China)
Abstract:There are two basic types of content correlativity between different books. As the common, default type, “independent-thinker relationship” refers to books irrelative, equal to each other; while “classics-annotation relationship” refers to books closely relative, almost parallel to each other. From this point of view, we can easily find that books which explain classics include not only the typical form of annotation, but other forms that have some kind of independent-thinker relationship with the original book. Thus, the original book, its closely relative annotations, books comparatively relative, and books almost irrelative, form a shading sequence of form types of books. This article discusses the dialectic relationship between book form type of annotation, of independent thinker and repetition, exploration in academe, revealing the practical significance of the differentiation of these two types of content correlativity, as well as the possibility and reality of integrating the two.
Key words:classics hermeneutics; theory on catalog; content correlativity; the Four Books, Five Classics; “compilation rather than composition”