Understanding ancient Chinese society:: Approaches to Ren and Min

The study of ancient Chinese society is fraught with problems and issues and generally hampered by a lack of awareness that many basic terms are in fact still imperfectly understood. The meanings of key designation for social groups have therefore seldom been questioned, leaving them either in the state of "naturally evident" assumptions or of received knowledge hallowed by Chinese and sinological tradition. Although the importance of kinship and clan structures is generally stressed, scholars have not paid much attention to relating the textual evidence on social entities to the corresponding lexical material. This applies particularly to ren and min. Close reading of ancient texts not only reveals many interesting facts and information on the terms themselves, but also prompts us to reassess our understanding of key philosophical concepts in ancient Chinese thought.