ABSTRACT
One will not find much explicit consideration of humility as a concept or a virtue in the Analects of Confucius. 2 Yet humility is a pivotal theme running through the text. 3 On one rendering of the Confucian tradition, humility has been reduced to a demand for blind obedience to authority. In contrast, I argue here that the Analects articulates a theory of humility as a disposition of strength, which prepares one to better practice other important virtues of social and political engagement. As such, Confucius teaches us something about the concept of humility that is lacking in Western thought addressing this virtue (or vice, as some see it).
