맹자로 대표되는 ‘민본사상(民本思想)’은 중국 전통 정치문화에서 가장 진보적이며 영원한 주제이다. 맹자는 공자와 선진 유가의 전통을 계승하여 ‘민본사상(民本思想)’ 을 사회현실에 비추어 체계적이고 진보적인 사상으로 발전시켰다. 맹자는 “성선론”의 철학을 토대로 “백성은 귀하고 임금은 가볍다.”, “민중의 생산 창제”, “부역과 세금 감경”, “능력 있는 자의 등용” 등 민본이념에 근거한 “백성을 위한 정치”를 주장했다. “민본사상”은 비록 역사와 시대적 환경의 제약으로 통치계급에 이용되기도 했으나 당시의 폭정과 사회적 모순을 완화하고 폭정에 저항하는 이론적 근거를 제공했다. 맹자의 민본사상은 사회적 모순과 억압, 전제적 폭정을 억제하고 민중의 중요성을 일깨워 주는 고대 인문주의의 남상이 되었고, 맹자 사상이 가지는 철학과 가치는 현 대국가의 국민화합과 정치, 경제, 사회, 문화의 발전을 위한 정책 등 다방면에 깊은 영향을 끼쳤다.

The Analects of Confucius, a scripture representing traditional culture, has concise and meaningful language that could be interpreted into literature, history, and philosophical humanities for moral discipline. However, there is a countless number of the interpretation for the Analects making it difficult for readers to guess which interpretation would be good. Interpretation of the Analects should be focused on surrounding evidence and intention and use literature and exegesis for precision. This procedure can only shine light on meaning and value of the Analects. For decode of the Analects, self-analysis based on literature must be done first. Major goals for exegetics research are to study meaning of old characters and language so as to decode old books. This study is to decode some of complicated lines in the Analects using methods of exegetics. In the Analects, people(In, 人)does not mean organization(Gwan, 官) and people(Min, 民) does not mean slave. Based on studies of Wang Inji and Yang Bongmin,it is fair to interpret Yi(Yeok, 易) of Xianxianyise(Hyeon-hyeon-yeok-saek, 贤贤易色) as “negligence” and entire meaning of the phrase will be “Respect inner virtue and neglect outer beauty.”

The syntax of each chapter of 《The Analects of Confucius》 has many different interpretations over a long period of time. For example, there are many different interpretations in the parts saying “If you earn something that's not a moral, you don't leave it” and “It's good to learn without words, and what's not satisfied with learning, and the lazy teaching? What will I do?” In the mentioned phrases, “earn” means “earn from listening” and “What will I do?” means “What kinds of difficulties would there be?” This book tries to explore the real meaning of 《The Analects of Confucius》 by analyzing the mentioned sentence. There are various interpretations for 《The Analects of Confucius》 and other classical pieces. And those interpretations leave readers confused of Kongzi’s ideas. This comes as limitation of interpretation of the classics. Researches done by Yangshuda and Yangbojun combined traditional Sohak (Chinese Elementary Learning) and modern linguistics and decoded many phrases. The present writer also believes phrases in the classics can be solved by studying traditional Sohak, or characters, exegesis and phoneme in conjunction with modern linguistics theories.