Thanks Christopher!

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Sam,
I suppose I am duty bound to put in my own reply, given that “A Ku Indeed!” is the name of my blog! I don’t know anything about the usage of the hanzi you point out, so I’ll skip that and get to the passage itself.
In all honestly, Sam, who knows what it means — it’s one of the more cryptic passages in the book (which I like!). In the commentarial tradition there’s no agreement on the specific meaning, other than agreement on the fact that (a) ku (gu) is a ritual drinking vessel, and (b) Confucius isn’t happy (or at least perplexed) about something.
The best I can do is say what I take it to mean, or at least what I was thinking when I named my own blog “A Ku Indeed”. First, I tend to like Brooks and Brooks’ take. They suggest that “gu” was a sacred ritual vessel from the Shang, and that in Confucius’ time, the gu was still recognized as such and valued, but no longer used in accordance with its role, and so was just kept around more as a museum piece.
In my own way of reading things, this would make a “ku” an odd artifact; Confucius doesn’t seem (to me) to hold that a thing can be valuable “out of practice”. Value is found, or rather emerges, from the way in which something is interacting with other things appropriately in a situation in accordance with what it is. In this situation, the “ku” is valued out of situation, not performing its role, or not exemplifying its nature, which is odd.
I think there’s a larger point here. I think Confucius is often drawing our attention to things that don’t seem to be what they appear, and he wants us to be critical. A teacher who does not impart his/her wisdom would be such a case. “A teacher who is not a teacher? A teacher indeed!” Parents who do not care for their children are not really parents. “A parent who is not a parent! A parent indeed!”
Most importantly (and in the biggest picture): people who have claims to virtue but who lack the correct internal components (drive, passion, emotions, whatever). If “being human” is a task (and not a given genetic state) that one needs to set about achieving by acquiring virtue, then there will be lots of people who look human, and who might even think they are human, but who are not: “A human being who is not a human being! A human indeed!”
I think the Confucius of Lunyu is very concerned with fakes (intentional and otherwise) and thinks it is all too easy to be fooled by them, sometimes even going so far as to thin that we are especially susceptible to fooling ourselves about ourselves. One of the tasks of Lunyu, I think, is to lift the self-deception about what it means to be a real person, as opposed to a fake one, and see one’s life for what it is — and to get yourself moving onto the road to (and task of ) becoming a human being.
If you notice, the subtitle of my blog (in Chinese to the right) is “the junzi is not a tool”. The connection to 6.23 is this (for me): a human who is human (as opposed to just looks like one) does not treat others, and him/herself, as objects or tools. Moreover, in treating another as a tool, I think Confucius feels that we invariably treat ourselves as tools. Thus, if we were to say “a human that is not a human! A human indeed!” it would be because the person in question is not treating others, and thus him/herself, correctly and so fails to attain to ren (humanity).
Thus, in a long winded way, my own blog title was (in conjunction with the subtitle) trying to get across the point that my personal mission in life was to try to be a human, and not just appear to be one.

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Thanks all for the commets.
Chris,
I like your reading, especially inserting other nouns in the sentence – makes for some thoughtful, even fun, possibilities….

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