The Mengzi (or Mencius in its Latinized form) is known by its author’s name. It consists of 14 books (labeled 1A through 7B), each divided into “chapters,” which can be anywhere from a short paragraph to several pages in length. Van Norden’s translation, The Essential Mengzi, contains a selection of these which amount to the majority of the whole book and adds end notes (marked in the text by the character 注, zhù, ‘note’) which provide commentary of his own and quotations from others, especially Zhu Xi (1130-1200), who was probably the morst important Confucian thinker after Confucius himself and Mengzi.

The passages I’ve assigned from Van Norden’s translation fall into three groups, one of which is assigned for each class devoted to Mengzi. Since many of the chapters are anecdotes that touch on a number of issues, the topics of these groups are not sharply defined but they focus on (i) issues concerning virtue, (ii) human nature and moral development, and (iii) the moral significance of family, culture, and ritual.

Mengzi doesn’t offer a systematic theory but some key passages can lead you into the heart of his view. Of these 2A6 and 6A6 are the most central, but they can be filled out by the analogies of the man of Song in 2A2 and Ox Mountain in 6A8 as well as other passages in book 6A.

Class-by-class assignments: