History of Philosophy Commons^™

Wise Women: The Female Junzi In Confucian Ethics, Berit Turnquist

Library Research Prize Student Works

In the context of Confucian ethics, there are few concepts as indefinable yet centrally important to the system of thought as a whole as the ideal of the sage. The sage is a key topic of discussion in The Analects of Confucius, and has been the subject of much reflection, revision, and discussion by neo-Confucian scholars throughout history. For centuries, however, one segment of the population was largely absent from the annals of Confucian scholarship, namely, women. The goal of this essay is to argue that, although women are rarely addressed in the canon of Confucian writings, women are not …