Erudition and Reasoning Versus Prophecy in Pseudo-Confucian Discourse

Résumé En

This essay focuses on selected excerpts from a textual corpus, today fragmentary, whose compilation has traditionally been ascribed to Confucius. These texts are known as "Weft" writings in Chinese (wei) and "Confucian Apocrypha", "Han Apocrypha" or simply "Apocrypha" in European languages. The selected materials all relate to "Pseudo-Confucius", as I call the figure of Confucius as represented in the Weft or Apocryphal corpus. These materials present narrative, discursive or dialogic elements involving the various cognitive processes that enable Pseudo-Confucius to acquire knowledge and foreknowledge otherwise unobtainable: manipulative techniques, phenomenal observation, historical learning and dream interpretation. Concluding remarks discuss the validity of Sinological interpretations of Pseudo-Confucius as a "prophet" and of some Pseudo-Confucian discourse as belonging to the Western category of "prophecy".