IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/chnrpt/v46y2010i4p333-351.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the General Meaning of the Sage

Author

Listed:
  • Sun Bo

    (World Religions, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China.)

Abstract

From the Confucian perspective, a sage should possess three characteristics: a noble moral character; profound knowledge, and a remarkable ability to put his ideals into practice. Sages are born out of the circumstances of their times, they are the inheritors and promulgators of worthy traditions; in short, they are the ‘divine workers’ in human history. Sages understand ‘the Way’ (Dao) and ‘the divine’, however, from their own perspective. The Way or the divine is nothing but a highly developed and refined way of life. This is ‘culture’. This means that humans must consciously transform their qualities to make their human nature more perfect. Seen in this light, sages are ‘models’ of progression in the self-consciousness of human beings.

Suggested Citation

  • Sun Bo, 2010. "On the General Meaning of the Sage," China Report, , vol. 46(4), pages 333-351, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:chnrpt:v:46:y:2010:i:4:p:333-351
    DOI: 10.1177/000944551104600402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000944551104600402
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/000944551104600402?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:chnrpt:v:46:y:2010:i:4:p:333-351. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.