Junziとは 意味・読み方・使い方

Junzi (Chinese: 君子, pinyin: Jūnzǐ) was a term used by Confucius (and the Duke of Wen in the main Yi Jing), to describe his ideal human. To Confucius, the functions of government and social stratification were facts of life to be sustained by ethical values; thus his ideal human was the junzi. Often translated as "gentleman" or "superior person" and sometimes "exemplary person", the junzi literally means "lord's son". As the potential leader of a nation, a son of the ruler is raised to have a superior ethical and moral position while gaining inner peace through being virtuous. Despite its literal meaning, any righteous man willing to improve himself can become a junzi. Paul Goldin's translation of junzi as "noble man" is a clever attempt to suggest both the earlier political meaning as well as the later moral meaning.