The exegesis of the chapter on Wen mo wu you ren ye (文莫吾猶人也) (Analects 7.33) has been perennially contentious in classical scholarship. Building upon a thorough review of traditional commentaries, this paper undertakes a further critical re-examination of the interpretations of this chapter from two complementary perspectives—philological glossing and philosophical elucidation. It argues that the view that Mo (莫) is a scribal error for Qi (其) is the most cogent and the corruption most likely arose from miscopying during the transcription of the ancient-script text. The sentence Wen qi wu you ren ye (文其吾猶人也), when subjected to syntactic restructuring, reveals its original form as Wen, wu you ren ye (文，吾猶人也)—a topic-prominent construction. However, since its semantic import in this chapter is not self-sufficient and requires logical cohesion with the following clause to achieve full meaning, the sentence undergoes syntactic restructuring under the constraints of the chapter's overall expression. The restructured syntax forms a concessive-conditional relation with the subsequent clause, thereby highlighting the significance of Gong Xing (躬行).Through Confucius’ self-assessment, this chapter ultimately conveys the idea that mere acquisition of Wen (文) is insufficient without their performative actualization.

目 錄
1.舊注梳理與辨正
2.“文莫”章析論
    2.1 “莫”爲“其”字之誤
    2.2 “文莫<其>”一章的義理闡釋
3.結語

• 李肖雨(四川大學文學院漢語言文字學專業碩士研究生) | Xiaoyu LI
• 鄭春蘭(四川大學文學院教授) | Chunlan ZHENG