what is confucianism essay

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The historical context

• The Analects as the embodiment of Confucian ideas
• Mencius: The paradigmatic Confucian intellectual
• Xunzi: The transmitter of Confucian scholarship
• The Confucianization of politics
• The Five Classics
• Dong Zhongshu: The Confucian visionary
• Confucian ethics in the Daoist and Buddhist context
• The Song masters
• Confucian learning in Jin, Yuan, and Ming
• The age of Confucianism: Chosŏn-dynasty Korea, Tokugawa Japan, and Qing China
• Transformation since the 19th century

Where does Confucianism come from?

How did confucianism spread.

• When was Confucius born?

Confucianism

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What is Confucianism?

Confucianism is the way of life propagated by Confucius in the 6th–5th century BCE and followed by the Chinese people for more than two millennia. It remains the social code of the Chinese and continues to influence other countries, particularly Korea , Japan , and Vietnam .

Does Confucianism have a god?

There is no deity worshipped in Confucianism, though the worship of ancestors and of Confucius himself as a sage master and teacher are practiced.

Though Confucius is sometimes credited with founding Confucianism, he said that he was interpreting the philosophy of Zhougong , the duke of Zhou, rather than creating new doctrine. Zhougong was said to have helped consolidate, expand, and refine the “ feudal ” ritual system. This system depended on blood ties, marriage alliances, and old covenants as well as on newly negotiated contracts.

Confucianism was not successfully spread by Confucius . Instead, the scholar Mencius , who was born more than a century after Confucius died, adapted his philosophy and preached in different states. At first the Chinese people embraced Confucianism more readily than the ruling class did, but Confucianism was revived and popularized by the Han dynasty , from 206 BCE to 220 CE.

Confucianism , the way of life propagated by Confucius in the 6th–5th century bce and followed by the Chinese people for more than two millennia. Although transformed over time, it is still the substance of learning, the source of values, and the social code of the Chinese. Its influence has also extended to other countries, particularly Korea , Japan , and Vietnam .

Confucianism, a Western term that has no counterpart in Chinese , is a worldview, a social ethic , a political ideology , a scholarly tradition, and a way of life. Sometimes viewed as a philosophy and sometimes as a religion , Confucianism may be understood as an all-encompassing way of thinking and living that entails ancestor reverence and a profound human-centred religiousness. East Asians may profess themselves to be Shintōists , Daoists , Buddhists , Muslims , or Christians , but, by announcing their religious affiliations, seldom do they cease to be Confucians.

Although often grouped with the major historical religions, Confucianism differs from them by not being an organized religion. Nonetheless, it spread to other East Asian countries under the influence of Chinese literate culture and has exerted a profound influence on spiritual and political life. Both the theory and practice of Confucianism have indelibly marked the patterns of government , society, education , and family of East Asia . Although it is an exaggeration to characterize traditional Chinese life and culture as Confucian, Confucian ethical values have for well over 2,000 years served as the source of inspiration as well as the court of appeal for human interaction between individuals, communities , and nations in the Sinitic world.

The thought of Confucius

The story of Confucianism does not begin with Confucius. Nor was Confucius the founder of Confucianism in the sense that the Buddha was the founder of Buddhism and Jesus Christ the founder of Christianity . Rather, Confucius considered himself a transmitter who consciously tried to reanimate the old in order to attain the new. He proposed revitalizing the meaning of the past by advocating a ritualized life. Confucius’s love of antiquity was motivated by his strong desire to understand why certain life forms and institutions, such as reverence for ancestors, human-centred religious practices, and mourning ceremonies, had survived for centuries. His journey into the past was a search for roots, which he perceived as grounded in humanity’s deepest needs for belonging and communicating. He had faith in the cumulative power of culture . The fact that traditional ways had lost vitality did not, for him, diminish their potential for regeneration in the future. In fact, Confucius’s sense of history was so strong that he saw himself as a conservationist responsible for the continuity of the cultural values and the social norms that had worked so well for the idealized civilization of the Western Zhou dynasty .

The scholarly tradition envisioned by Confucius can be traced to the sage-kings of antiquity. Although the earliest dynasty confirmed by archaeology is the Shang dynasty (18th–12th century bce ), the historical period that Confucius claimed as relevant was much earlier. Confucius may have initiated a cultural process known in the West as Confucianism, but he and those who followed him considered themselves part of a tradition, later identified by Chinese historians as the rujia , “scholarly tradition,” that had its origins two millennia previously, when the legendary sages Yao and Shun created a civilized world through moral persuasion.

Confucius’s hero was Zhougong , or the duke of Zhou (fl. 11th century bce ), who was said to have helped consolidate, expand, and refine the “ feudal ” ritual system. This elaborate system of mutual dependence was based on blood ties, marriage alliances, and old covenants as well as on newly negotiated contracts. The appeal to cultural values and social norms for the maintenance of interstate as well as domestic order was predicated on a shared political vision, namely, that authority lies in universal kingship, heavily invested with ethical and religious power by the “mandate of heaven” ( tianming ), and that social solidarity is achieved not by legal constraint but by ritual observance. Its implementation enabled the Western Zhou dynasty to survive in relative peace and prosperity for more than five centuries.

Inspired by the statesmanship of Zhougong, Confucius harboured a lifelong dream to be in a position to emulate the duke by putting into practice the political ideas that he had learned from the ancient sages and worthies. Although Confucius never realized his political dream, his conception of politics as moral persuasion became more and more influential.

The concept of “ heaven ” ( tian ), unique in Zhou cosmology , was compatible with that of the Lord on High ( Shangdi ) in the Shang dynasty . Lord on High may have referred to the ancestral progenitor of the Shang royal lineage, but heaven to the Zhou kings, although also ancestral, was a more-generalized anthropomorphic god. The Zhou belief in the mandate of heaven (the functional equivalent of the will of the Lord on High) differed from the divine right of kings in that there was no guarantee that the descendants of the Zhou royal house would be entrusted with kingship, for, as written in the Shujing (“Classic of History”), “heaven sees as the people see [and] hears as the people hear”; thus, the virtues of the kings were essential for the maintenance of their power and authority. This emphasis on benevolent rulership, expressed in numerous bronze inscriptions, was both a reaction to the collapse of the Shang dynasty and an affirmation of a deep-rooted worldview.

Partly because of the vitality of the feudal ritual system and partly because of the strength of the royal household itself, the Zhou kings were able to control their kingdom for several centuries. In 771 bce , however, they were forced to move their capital eastward to present-day Luoyang to avoid barbarian attacks from Central Asia . Real power thereafter passed into the hands of feudal lords. Since the surviving line of the Zhou kings continued to be recognized in name, they still managed to exercise some measure of symbolic control. By Confucius’s time, however, the feudal ritual system had been so fundamentally undermined that the political crises also precipitated a profound sense of moral decline: the centre of symbolic control could no longer hold the kingdom, which had devolved from centuries of civil war into 14 feudal states.

Confucius’s response was to address himself to the issue of learning to be human . In so doing he attempted to redefine and revitalize the institutions that for centuries had been vital to political stability and social order: the family, the school, the local community , the state, and the kingdom. Confucius did not accept the status quo, which held that wealth and power spoke the loudest. He felt that virtue ( de ), both as a personal quality and as a requirement for leadership, was essential for individual dignity, communal solidarity, and political order.

Friday Essay: an introduction to Confucius, his ideas and their lasting relevance

Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies, The University of Western Australia

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The man widely known in the English language as Confucius was born around 551 BCE in today’s southern Shandong Province. Confucius is the phonic translation of the Chinese word Kong fuzi 孔夫子, in which Kong 孔 was his surname and fuzi is an honorific for learned men.

Widely credited for creating the system of thought we now call Confucianism, this learned man insisted he was “not a maker but a transmitter”, merely “believing in and loving the ancients”. In this, Confucius could be seen as acting modestly and humbly, virtues he thought of highly.

Or, as Kang Youwei — a leading reformer in modern China has argued — Confucius tactically framed his revolutionary ideas as lost ancient virtues so his arguments would be met with fewer criticisms and less hostility.

Confucius looked nothing like the great sage in his own time as he is widely known in ours. To his contemporaries, he was perhaps foremost an unemployed political adviser who wandered around different fiefdoms for some years, attempting to sell his political ideas to different rulers — but never able to strike a deal.

It seems Confucius would have preferred to live half a millennium earlier, when China — according to him — was united under benevolent, competent and virtuous rulers at the dawn of the Zhou dynasty. By his own time, China had become a divided land with hundreds of small fiefdoms, often ruled by greedy, cruel or mediocre lords frequently at war.

But this frustrated scholar’s ideas have profoundly shaped politics and ethics in and beyond China ever since his death in 479 BCE. The greatest and the most influential Chinese thinker, his concept of filial piety, remains highly valued among young people in China , despite rapid changes in the country’s demography.

Despite some doubts as to whether many Chinese people take his ideas seriously, the ideas of Confucius remain directly and closely relevant to contemporary China.

This situation perhaps is comparable to Christianity in Australia. Although institutional participation is in constant decline, Christian values and narratives remain influential on Australian politics and vital social matters .

The danger today is in Confucianism being considered the single reason behind China’s success or failure. The British author Martin Jacques, for example, recently asserted Confucianism was the “biggest single reason” for East Asia’s success in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, without giving any explanation or justification.

If Confucius were alive, he would probably not hesitate to call out this solitary root of triumph or disaster as being lazy, incorrect and unwise.

Political structure and mutual responsibilities

Confucius wanted to restore good political order by persuading rulers to reestablish moral standards, exemplify appropriate social relations, perform time-honoured rituals and provide social welfare.

He worked hard to promote his ideas but won few supporters. Almost every ruler saw punishment and military force as shortcuts to greater power.

It was not until 350 years later during the reign of the Emperor Wu of Han that Confucianism was installed as China’s state ideology.

But this state-sanctioned version of Confucianism was not an honest revitalisation of Confucius’ ideas. Instead, it absorbed many elements from rival schools of thought, notably legalism , which emerged in the latter half of China’s Warring States period (453–221 BCE). Legalism argued efficient governance relies on impersonal laws and regulations — rather than moral principles and rites.

Like most great thinkers of the Axial Age between the 8th and 3rd century BCE, Confucius did not believe everyone was created equal.

Similar to Plato (born over 100 years later), Confucius believed the ideal society followed a hierarchy. When asked by Duke Jing of Qi about government, Confucius famously replied:

let the ruler be a ruler; the minister, a minister; the father, a father; the son, a son.

However it would be a superficial reading of Confucius to believe he called for unconditional obedience to rulers or superiors. Confucius advised a disciple “not to deceive the ruler but to stand up to them”.

Confucius believed the legitimacy of a regime fundamentally relies on the confidence of the people. A ruler should tirelessly work hard and “lead by example”.

Like in a family, a good son listens to his father, and a good father wins respect not by imposing force or seniority but by offering heartfelt love, support, guidance and care.

In other words, Confucius saw a mutual relationship between the ruler and the ruled.

Love and respect for social harmony

To Confucius, the appropriate relations between family members are not merely metaphors for ideal political orders, but the basic fabrics of a harmonious society.

An essential family value in Confucius’ ideas is xiao 孝, or filial piety, a concept explained in at least 15 different ways in the Analects, a collection of the words from Confucius and his followers.

Read more: Can Ne Zha, the Chinese superhero with $1b at the box office, teach us how to raise good kids?

Depending on the context, Confucius defined filial piety as respecting parents, as “never diverging” from parents, as not letting parents feel unnecessary anxiety, as serving parents with etiquette when they are alive, and as burying and commemorating parents with propriety after they pass away.

Confucius expected rulers to exemplify good family values. When Ji Kang Zi, the powerful prime minister of Confucius’ home state of Lu asked for advice on keeping people loyal to the realm, Confucius responded by asking the ruler to demonstrate filial piety and benignity ( ci 慈).

Confucius viewed moral and ethical principles not merely as personal matters, but as social assets. He profoundly believed social harmony ultimately relies on virtuous citizens rather than sophisticated institutions.

In the ideas of Confucius, the most important moral principle is ren 仁, a concept that can hardly be translated into English without losing some of its meaning.

Like filial piety, ren is manifested in the love and respect one has for others. But ren is not restricted among family members and does not rely on blood or kinship. Ren guides people to follow their conscience. People with ren have strong compassion and empathy towards others.

Translators arguing for a single English equivalent for ren have attempted to interpret the concept as “benevolence”, “humanity”, “humanness” and “goodness”, none of which quite capture the full significance of the term.

The challenge in translating ren is not a linguistic one. Although the concept appears more than 100 times in the Analects, Confucius did not give one neat definition. Instead, he explained the term in many different ways.

As summarised by China historian Daniel Gardner , Confucius defined ren as:

to love others, to subdue the self and return to ritual propriety, to be respectful, tolerant, trustworthy, diligent, and kind, to be possessed of courage, to be free from worry, or to be resolute and firm.

Instead of searching for an explicit definition of ren , it is perhaps wise to view the concept as an ideal type of the highest and ultimate virtue Confucius believed good people should pursue.

Relevance in contemporary China

Confucius’ thinking hs had a profound impact on almost every great Chinese thinker since. Based upon his ideas, Mencius (372–289 BCE) and Xunzi (c310–c235 BCE) developed different schools of thought within the system of Confucianism.

Arguing against these ideas, Mohism (4th century BCE), Daoism (4th century BCE), Legalism (3rd century BCE) and many other influential systems of thought emerged in the 400 years after Confucius’ time, going on to shape many aspects of the Chinese civilisation in the last two millennia.

Modern China has a complicated relationship with Confucius and his ideas.

Since the early 20th century, many intellectuals influenced by western thought started denouncing Confucianism as the reason for China’s national humiliations since the first Opium War (1839-42).

Confucius received fierce criticism from both liberals and Marxists .

Hu Shih , a leader of China’s New Culture Movement in the 1910s and 1920s and an alumnus of Columbia University , advocated overthrowing the “House of Confucius”.

Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, also repeatedly denounced Confucius and Confucianism. Between 1973 and 1975, Mao devoted the last political campaign in his life against Confucianism.

Read more: To make sense of modern China, you simply can't ignore Marxism

Despite these fierce criticisms and harsh persecutions, Confucius’ ideas remain in the minds and hearts of many Chinese people, both in and outside China.

One prominent example is PC Chang , another Chinese alumnus of Columbia University, who was instrumental in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on December 10 1948. Thanks to Chang’s efforts , the spirit of some most essential Confucian ideas, such as ren , was deeply embedded in the Declaration.

Today, many Chinese parents, as well as the Chinese state, are keen children be provided a more Confucian education .

In 2004, the Chinese government named its initiative of promoting language and culture overseas after Confucius, and its leadership has been enthusiastically embracing Confucius’ lessons to consolidate their legitimacy and ruling in the 21st century.

Read more: Explainer: what are Confucius Institutes and do they teach Chinese propaganda?

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Confucianism.

Confucianism has existed for more than 2,500 years and is one of the most influential religious philosophies in the history of China. It is concerned with inner virtue, morality and respect for the community and its values.

Religion, Social Studies, Ancient Civilizations

Confucian Philosopher Mencius

Confucianism is an ancient Chinese belief system, which focuses on the importance of personal ethics and morality.

Photograph by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images, taken from Myths and Legends of China

Confucianism is a philosophy and belief system from ancient China that laid the foundation for much of Chinese culture. Confucius was a philosopher and teacher who lived from 551 to 479 B.C.E. His thoughts on ethics , good behavior and moral character were written down by his disciples in several books, the most important being the Lunyu . Confucianism promotes ancestor worship and human-centered virtues for living a peaceful life. Some examples of ancestor worship include maintaining a shrine in one’s home for relatives that have passed on and making offerings of food and drink, flowers or incense at gravesites. The golden rule of Confucianism is “do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you.” Confucianism is a term that Westerners coined; there is no equivalent in any Chinese dialect. Over time, Confucian teachings became closely tied to the rituals and beliefs associated with Buddhism and Taoism. Together, the tenets of these three religious philosophies became known as The Three Teachings. All three are deeply embedded in Chinese culture. Religion vs. Philosophy Scholars disagree about whether Confucianism should be considered a religion or a philosophy. It began as a revival of an earlier religious tradition and has some characteristics of the Western framework of religion. There are also Confucian temples where important community and civic rituals happen. Confucianism does not, however, fit neatly into the Western concept of religion. There are no Confucian gods, and Confucianism focuses neither on the creation of the Earth or human life nor the afterlife. Although many people emphasize that Confucianism is both a religion and a philosophy, it is better understood as an ethical guide to life in the here and now. Confucian Teachings The main idea of Confucianism is the importance of having a good moral character, which can affect the world around a person through the idea of cosmic harmony. This moral character is achieved through the virtue of ren, or “humanity,” which leads to more virtuous behaviors, such as respect, altruism and humility. If an emperor has moral perfection, his rule will be peaceful and benevolent. Natural disasters and conflict, on the other hand, are a natural consequence of straying from ancient teachings. Confucius believed in the importance of education in order to create this virtuous character. He thought that people are essentially good yet may have strayed from the appropriate forms of conduct. Rituals in Confucianism were designed to bring about this respectful attitude and create a sense of community within a group. The idea of “ filial piety ,” or devotion to family, is key to Confucius thought. This devotion can take the form of ancestor worship, submission to parental authority or the use of family metaphors, such as “son of heaven,” to describe the emperor and his government. The family is the most important group for Confucian ethics, and devotion to family can only strengthen the society surrounding it. Confucianism Past and Present While Confucius gave his name to Confucianism, he is understood as a spiritual leader as opposed to the founder of a new religion or philosophy. This is in part due to the fact that Confucius was not the first person to discuss many of the concepts that became central to Confucianism. Indeed, Confucius was concerned with the preservation of traditional Chinese knowledge from earlier thinkers, such as such as Zhougong, a leader of China in the 11th century. Confucius viewed Zhougong as a hero because he willingly and peacefully transferred power to his nephew, maintaining harmony in Chinese society. Some practices associated with Confucianism, such as ancestor worship, also appear to predate Confucius. This suggests that Confucianism incorporated existing customs. After Confucius’s death, several of his disciples compiled his wisdom and carried on his work. The most famous of these disciples were Mencius and Xunzi, both of whom further developed Confucian thought and ideals. Confucianism includes strict rules about class in Chinese society, which contributed to the stratification of ancient Chinese society. China was divided into four social classes: the noble or scholar elite class, the landowners and farmers, craftsmen, and merchants (who were lowest on the scale because Confucius argued against luxury). People were taught to stay in their social classes to create social harmony, which discouraged anyone from rising in status. Women were considered a different and lower social class than men. According to Confucian rules, women had to obey their male family members, including their sons. Practices like feet binding became more popular, and women’s social power decreased as Confucian ideas had a resurgence during the Song period (960–1279 C.E.). Confucianism remains one of the most influential philosophies in China. During the Han Dynasty, emperor Wu Di (reigned 141–87 B.C.E.) made Confucianism the official state ideology. During this time, schools were established to teach Confucian ethics. Confucianism existed alongside Buddhism and Taoism for several centuries as one of the most important Chinese religions. In the Song Dynasty (960–1279 C.E.) the influence from Buddhism and Taoism brought about “Neo-Confucianism,” which combined ideas from all three religions. However, in the Qing dynasty (1644–1912 C.E.), many scholars looked for a return to the older ideas of Confucianism, prompting a Confucian revival. Confucianism was denounced under Chairman Mao Zedong, but the current Chinese government recognizes that Confucianism is aligned with its socialist goals. For example, Confucian ideas regarding the hierarchy of society and concept of social responsibility fit with socialist communal values and strict government and societal structure.

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At different times in Chinese history, Confucius (trad. 551–479 BCE) has been portrayed as a teacher, advisor, editor, philosopher, reformer, and prophet. The name Confucius, a Latinized combination of the surname Kong 孔 with an honorific suffix “Master” ( fuzi 夫子), has also come to be used as a global metonym for different aspects of traditional East Asian society. This association of Confucius with many of the foundational concepts and cultural practices in East Asia, and his casting as a progenitor of “Eastern” thought in Early Modern Europe, make him arguably the most significant thinker in East Asian history. Yet while early sources preserve biographical details about Master Kong, dialogues and stories about him in early texts like the Analects ( Lunyu 論語) reflect a diversity of representations and concerns, strands of which were later differentially selected and woven together by interpreters intent on appropriating or condemning particular associated views and traditions. This means that the philosophy of Confucius is historically underdetermined, and it is possible to trace multiple sets of coherent doctrines back to the early period, each grounded in different sets of classical sources and schools of interpretation linked to his name. After introducing key texts and interpreters, then, this entry explores three principal interconnected areas of concern: a psychology of ritual that describes how ideal social forms regulate individuals, an ethics rooted in the cultivation of a set of personal virtues, and a theory of society and politics based on normative views of the family and the state.

Each of these areas has unique features that were developed by later thinkers, some of whom have been identified as “Confucians”, even though that term is not well-defined. The Chinese term Ru (儒) predates Confucius, and connoted specialists in ritual and music, and later experts in Classical Studies. Ru is routinely translated into English as “Confucian”. Yet “Confucian” is also sometimes used in English to refer to the sage kings of antiquity who were credited with key cultural innovations by the Ru , to sacrificial practices at temples dedicated to Confucius and related figures, and to traditional features of East Asian social organization like the “bureaucracy” or “meritocracy”. For this reason, the term Confucian will be avoided in this entry, which will focus on the philosophical aspects of the thought of Confucius (the Latinization used for “Master Kong” following the English-language convention) primarily, but not exclusively, through the lens of the Analects .

1. Confucius as Chinese Philosopher and Symbol of Traditional Culture

2. sources for confucius’s life and thought, 3. ritual psychology and social values, 4. virtues and character formation, 5. the family and the state, other internet resources, related entries.

Because of the wide range of texts and traditions identified with him, choices about which version of Confucius is authoritative have changed over time, reflecting particular political and social priorities. The portrait of Confucius as philosopher is, in part, the product of a series of modern cross-cultural interactions. In Imperial China, Confucius was identified with interpretations of the classics and moral guidelines for administrators, and therefore also with training the scholar-officials that populated the bureaucracy. At the same time, he was closely associated with the transmission of the ancient sacrificial system, and he himself received ritual offerings in temples found in all major cities. By the Han (202 BCE–220 CE), Confucius was already an authoritative figure in a number of different cultural domains, and the early commentaries show that reading texts associated with him about history, ritual, and proper behavior was important to rulers. The first commentaries to the Analects were written by tutors to the crown prince (e.g., Zhang Yu 張禹, d. 5 BCE), and select experts in the “Five Classics” ( Wujing 五經) were given scholastic positions in the government. The authority of Confucius was such that during the late Han and the following period of disunity, his imprimatur was used to validate commentaries to the classics, encoded political prophecies, and esoteric doctrines.

By the Song period (960–1279), the post-Buddhist revival known as “Neo-Confucianism” anchored readings of the dialogues of Confucius to a dualism between “cosmic pattern” ( li 理) and “ pneumas ” ( qi 氣), a distinctive moral cosmology that marked the tradition off from those of Buddhism and Daoism. The Neo-Confucian interpretation of the Analects by Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) integrated the study of the Analects into a curriculum based on the “Four Books” ( Sishu 四書) that became widely influential in China, Korea, and Japan. The pre-modern Confucius was closely associated with good government, moral education, proper ritual performance, and the reciprocal obligations that people in different roles owed each other in such contexts.

When Confucius became a character in the intellectual debates of eighteenth century Europe, he became identified as China’s first philosopher. Jesuit missionaries in China sent back accounts of ancient China that portrayed Confucius as inspired by Natural Theology to pursue the good, which they considered a marked contrast with the “idolatries” of Buddhism and Daoism. Back in Europe, intellectuals read missionary descriptions and translations of Chinese literature, and writers like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) and Nicolas-Gabriel Clerc (1726–1798) praised Confucius for his discovery of universal natural laws through reason. Enlightenment writers celebrated the moral philosophy of Confucius for its independence from the dogmatic influence of the Church. While at times he was criticized as an atheist or an advocate of despotism, many Europeans viewed Confucius as a moral philosopher whose approach was in line with rationalism and humanism.

Today, many descriptions combine these several ways of positioning Confucius, but the modern interpretation of his views has been complicated by a tendency to look back on him as an emblem of the “traditional culture” of China. In the eyes of some late nineteenth and twentieth century reformers who sought to fortify China against foreign influence, the moral teachings of Confucius had the potential to play the same role that they perceived Christianity had done in the modernization of Europe and America, or serve as the basis of a more secular spiritual renewal that would transform the population into citizens of a modern nation-state. In the twentieth century, the pursuit of modernization also led to the rejection of Confucius by some reformers in the May Fourth and New Culture movements, as well as by many in the Communist Party, who identified the traditional hierarchies implicit in his social and political philosophy with the social and economic inequalities that they sought to eliminate. In these modern debates, it is not just the status of Confucius in traditional China that made him such a potent symbol. His specific association with the curriculum of the system of education of scholar-officials in the imperial government, and of traditional moral values more generally, connected him to the aspects of tradition worth preserving, or the things that held China back from modernization, depending on one’s point of view.

As legacies of Confucius tied to traditional ritual roles and the pre-modern social structure were criticized by modernizers, a view of Confucius as a moral philosopher, already common in European readings, gained ascendancy in East Asia. The American-educated historian Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962) wrote an early influential history of Chinese philosophy, beginning with Laozi 老子 and Confucius, explicitly on the model of existing histories of Western philosophy. In it, Hu compared what he called the conservative aspect of the philosophy of Confucius to Socrates and Plato. Since at least that time, Confucius has been central to most histories of Chinese philosophy.

Biographical treatments of Confucius, beginning with the “Hereditary House of Confucius” ( Kongzi shijia 孔子世家), a chapter of Sima Qian’s 司馬遷 (c.145–c.86 BCE) Records of the Grand Historian ( Shiji 史記), were initially based on information from compilations of independently circulating dialogues and prose accounts. Tying particular elements of his philosophy to the life experiences of Confucius is a risky and potentially circular exercise, since many of the details of his biography were first recorded in instructive anecdotes linked to the expression of didactic messages. Nevertheless, since Sima Qian’s time, the biography of Confucius has been intimately linked with the interpretation of his philosophy, and so this section begins with a brief treatment of traditional tropes about his family background, official career, and teaching of 72 disciples, before turning to the dialogue and prose accounts upon which early biographers like Sima Qian drew.

Confucius was born in the domain of Zou, in modern Shandong Province, south of the larger kingdom of Lu. A date of 551 BCE is given for his birth in the Gongyang Commentary ( Gongyang zhuan 公羊傳) to the classic Spring and Autumn Annals ( Chunqiu 春秋), which places him in the period when the influence of the Zhou polity was declining, and regional domains were becoming independent states. His father, who came from Lu, was descended from a noble clan that included, in Sima Qian’s telling, several people known for their modesty and ritual mastery. His father died when Confucius was a small child, leaving the family poor but with some social status, and as a young man Confucius became known for expertise in the classical ritual and ceremonial forms of the Zhou. In adulthood, Confucius travelled to Lu and began a career as an official in the employ of aristocratic families.

Different sources identify Confucius as having held a large number of different offices in Lu. Entries in the Zuo Commentary ( Zuozhuan 左傳) to the Spring and Autumn Annals for 509 and 500 BCE identify him as Director of Corrections ( Sikou 司寇), and say he was charged with assisting the ruler with the rituals surrounding a visiting dignitary from the state of Qi, respectively. The Mencius ( Mengzi 孟子), a text centered on a figure generally regarded as the most important early developer of the thought of Confucius, Mencius (trad. 372–289 BCE), says Confucius was Foodstuffs Scribe ( Weili 委吏) and Scribe in the Field ( Chengtian 乘田), involved with managing the accounting at the granary and keeping the books on the pasturing of different animals (11.14). [ 1 ] In the first biography, Sima Qian mentions these offices, but then adds a second set of more powerful positions in Lu including Steward ( Zai 宰) managing an estate in the district of Zhongdu, Minister of Works ( Sikong 司空), and even acting Chancellor ( Xiang 相). Following his departure from Lu, different stories place Confucius in the kingdoms of Wei, Song, Chen, Cai, and Chu. Sima Qian crafted these stories into a serial narrative of rulers failing to appreciate the moral worth of Confucius, whose high standards forced him to continue to travel in search of an incorrupt ruler.

Late in life, Confucius left service and turned to teaching. In Sima Qian’s time, the sheer number of independently circulating texts centering on dialogues that Confucius had with his disciples led the biographer to include a separate chapter on “The arranged traditions of the disciples of Confucius” ( Zhong Ni dizi liezhuan 仲尼弟子列傳). His account identifies 77 direct disciples, whom Sima Qian says Confucius trained in ritual practice and the Classic of Odes ( Shijing 詩經), Classic of Documents ( Shujing 書經, also called Documents of the Predecessors or Shangshu 尚書), Records of Ritual ( Liji 禮記) and Classic of Music ( Yuejing 樂經). Altogether, some 3000 students received some form of this training regimen. Sima Qian’s editorial practice in systematizing dialogues was inclusive, and the fact that he was able to collect so much information some three centuries after the death of Confucius testifies to the latter’s importance in the Han period. Looked at in a different way, the prodigious numbers of direct disciples and students of Confucius, and the inconsistent accounts of the offices in which he served, may also be due to a proliferation of texts associating the increasingly authoritative figure of Confucius with divergent regional or interpretive traditions during those intervening centuries.

The many sources of quotations and dialogues of Confucius, both transmitted and recently excavated, provide a wealth of materials about the philosophy of Confucius, but an incomplete sense of which materials are authoritative. The last millennium has seen the development of a conventional view that materials preserved in the twenty chapters of the transmitted Analects most accurately represent Confucius’s original teachings. This derives in part from a second century CE account by Ban Gu 班固 (39–92 CE) of the composition of the Analects that describes the work as having been compiled by first and second generation disciples of Confucius and then transmitted privately for centuries, making it arguably the oldest stratum of extant Confucius sources. In the centuries since, some scholars have come up with variations on this basic account, such as Liu Baonan’s 劉寳楠 (1791–1855) view in Corrected Meanings of the Analects ( Lunyu zhengyi 論語正義) that each chapter was written by a different disciple. Recently, several centuries of doubts about internal inconsistencies in the text and a lack of references to the title in early sources were marshaled by classicist Zhu Weizheng 朱維錚 in an influential 1986 article which argued that the lack of attributed quotations from the Analects , and of explicit references to it, prior to the second century BCE, meant that its traditional status as the oldest stratum of the teachings of Confucius was undeserved. Since then a number of historians, including Michael J. Hunter, have systematically shown that writers started to demonstrate an acute interest in the Analects only in the late second and first centuries BCE, suggesting that other Confucius-related records from those centuries should also be considered as potentially authoritative sources. Some have suggested this critical approach to sources is an attack on the historicity of Confucius, but a more reasonable description is that it is an attack on the authoritativeness of the Analects that broadens and diversifies the sources that may be used to reconstruct the historical Confucius.

Expanding the corpus of Confucius quotations and dialogues beyond the Analects , then, requires attention to three additional types of sources. First, dialogues preserved in transmitted sources like the Records of Ritual, the Elder Dai’s Records of Ritual ( DaDai Liji 大戴禮記), and Han collections like the Family Discussions of Confucius ( Kongzi jiayu 孔子家語) contain a large number of diverse teachings. Second, quotations attached to the interpretation of passages in the classics preserved in works like the Zuo Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals , or Han’s Intertextual Commentary on the Odes ( Han Shi waizhuan 韓詩外傳) are particularly rich sources for readings of history and poetry. Finally, a number of recently archaeologically recovered texts from the Han period and before have also expanded the corpus.

Newly discovered sources include three recently excavated versions of texts with parallel to the transmitted Analects . These are the 1973 excavation at the Dingzhou site in Hebei Province dating to 55 BCE; the 1990’s excavation of a partial parallel version at Jongbaekdong in Pyongyang, North Korea, dating to between 62 and 45 BCE; and most recently the 2011–2015 excavation of the tomb of the Marquis of Haihun in Jiangxi Province dating to 59 BCE. The Haihun excavation is particularly important because it is thought to contain the two lost chapters of what Han period sources identify as a 22-chapter version of the Analects that circulated in the state of Qi, the titles of which appear to be “Understanding the Way” ( Zhi dao 智道) and “Questions about Jade” ( Wen yu 問玉). While the Haihun Analects has yet to be published, the content of the lost chapters overlaps with a handful of fragments dating to the late first century BCE that were found at the Jianshui Jinguan site in Jinta county in Gansu Province in 1973. All in all, these finds confirm the sudden wide circulation of the Analects in the middle of the first century BCE.

Previously unknown Confucius dialogues and quotations have also been unearthed. The Dingzhou site also yielded texts given the titles “Sayings of the Ru” ( Rujiazhe yan 儒家者言) and “Duke Ai asked about the five kinds of righteousness” ( Aigong wen wuyi 哀公問五義). A significantly different text also given the name “Sayings of the Ru” was found in 1977 in a Han tomb at Fuyang in Anhui Province. Several texts dating to 168 BCE recording statements by Confucius about the Classic of Changes ( Yijing 易經) were excavated from the Mawangdui site in Hunan Province in 1973. Additionally, a number of Warring States period dialogical texts centered on particular disciples, and a text with interpretative comments by Confucius on the Classic of Poetry given the name “Confucius discusses the Odes ” ( Kongzi shilun 孔子詩論), were looted from tombs in the 1990s, sold on the black market, and made their way to the Shanghai Museum. The 59 BCE tomb of the Marquis of Haihun also contains a number of previously unknown Confucius dialogues and quotations on ritual and filial piety, along with materials that overlap with sections of transmitted texts including the Analects , Records of Ritual and the Elder Dai’s Records of Ritual . Another unprovenanced manuscript, now curated by Anhui University, “Zhong Ni said” ( Zhong Ni yue 仲尼曰) has around two dozen sayings, seven of which overlap with the modern Analects . Most recently, initial reports about a 2021 excavation at Wangjiazui 王家嘴 in Hubei province of an unknown number of sayings entitled “Kongzi said,” ( Kongzi yue 孔子曰) indicate it only partially overlaps with the Analects . These new finds suggest that a larger number of sayings attributed to Kongzi once circulated together, with certain ones being selected out for inclusion in works like the Records of Ritual and the Analects .

Some excavated texts, like the pre-Han period “Thicket of Sayings” ( Yucong 語叢) apothegms excavated at the Guodian site in Hubei Province in 1993, contain fragments of the Analects in circulation without attribution to Confucius. Transmitted materials also show some of the quotations attributed to Confucius in the Analects in the mouths of other historical figures. The fluidity and diversity of Confucius-related materials in circulation prior to the fixing of the Analects text in the second century BCE, suggest that the Analects itself, with its keen interest in ritual, personal ethics, and politics, may well have been in part a topical selection from a larger and more diverse set of available Confucius-related materials. In other words, there were already multiple topical foci prior to any horizon by which we can definitively deem any single focus to be authoritative. It is for this reason that the essential core of the teachings of Confucius is historically underdetermined, and the correct identification of the core teachings is still avidly debated. The following sections treat three key aspects of the philosophy of Confucius, each different but all interrelated, found throughout many of these diverse sets of sources: a theory of how ritual and musical performance functioned to promote unselfishness and train emotions, advice on how to inculcate a set of personal virtues to prepare people to behave morally in different domains of their lives, and a social and political philosophy that abstracted classical ideals of proper conduct in family and official contexts to apply to more general contexts.

The Records of Ritual , the Analects , and numerous Han collections portray Confucius as being deeply concerned with the proper performance of ritual and music. In such works, the description of the attitudes and affect of the performer became the foundation of a ritual psychology in which proper performance was key to reforming desires and beginning to develop moral dispositions. Confucius sought to preserve the Zhou ritual system, and theorized about how ritual and music inculcated social roles, limited desires and transformed character.

Many biographies begin their description of his life with a story of Confucius at an early age performing rituals, reflecting accounts and statements that demonstrate his prodigious mastery of ritual and music. The archaeological record shows that one legacy of the Zhou period into which Confucius was born was a system of sumptuary regulations that encoded social status. Another of these legacies was ancestral sacrifice, a means to demonstrate people’s reverence for their ancestors while also providing a way to ask the spirits to assist them or to guarantee them protection from harm. The Analects describes the ritual mastery of Confucius in receiving guests at a noble’s home (10.3), and in carrying out sacrifices (10.8, 15.1). He plays the stone chimes (14.39), distinguishes between proper and improper music (15.11, 17.18), and extols and explains the Classic of Odes to his disciples (1.15, 2.2, 8.3, 16.13, 17.9). This mastery of classical ritual and musical forms is an important reason Confucius said he “followed Zhou” (3.14). While he might alter a detail of a ritual out of frugality (9.3), Confucius insists on adherence to the letter of the rites, as when his disciple Zi Gong 子貢 sought to substitute another animal for a sheep in a seasonal sacrifice, saying “though you care about the sheep, I care about the ritual” (3.17). It was in large part this adherence to Zhou period cultural forms, or to what Confucius reconstructed them to be, that has led many in the modern period to label him a traditionalist.

Where Confucius clearly innovated was in his rationale for performing the rites and music. Historian Yan Buke 閻步克 has argued that the early Confucian ( Ru ) tradition began from the office of the “Music master” ( Yueshi 樂師) described in the Ritual of Zhou ( Zhou Li 周禮). Yan’s view is that since these officials were responsible for teaching the rites, music, and the Classic of Odes , it was their combined expertise that developed into the particular vocation that shaped the outlook of Confucius. Early discussions of ritual in the Zhou classics often explained ritual in terms of a do ut des view of making offerings to receive benefits. By contrast, early discussions between Confucius and his disciples described benefits of ritual performance that went beyond the propitiation of spirits, rewards from the ancestors, or the maintenance of the social or cosmic order. Instead of emphasizing goods that were external to the performer, these works stressed the value of the associated interior psychological states of the practitioner. In Analects 3.26, Confucius condemns the performance of ritual without reverence ( jing 敬). He also condemns views of ritual that focus only on the offerings, or views of music that focus only on the instruments (17.11). Passages from the Records of Ritual explain that Confucius would rather have an excess of reverence than an excess of ritual (“ Tangong, shang ” 檀弓上), and that reverence is the most important aspect of mourning rites (“ Zaji, xia ” 雜記下). This emphasis on the importance of an attitude of reverence became the salient distinction between performing ritual in a rote manner, and performing it in the proper affective state. Another passage from the Records of Ritual says the difference between how an ideal gentleman and a lesser person cares for a parent is that the gentleman is reverent when he does it (“ Fangji ” 坊記, cf. Analects 2.7). In contexts concerning both ritual and filial piety ( xiao 孝), the affective state behind the action is arguably more important than the action’s consequences. As Philip J. Ivanhoe has written, ritual and music are not just an indicator of values in the sense that these examples show, but also an inculcator of them.

In this ritual psychology, the performance of ritual and music restricts desires because it alters the performer’s affective states, and place limits on appetitive desires. The Records of Ritual illustrates desirable affective states, describing how the Zhou founder King Wen 文 was moved to joy when making offerings to his deceased parents, but then to grief once the ritual ended (“ Jiyi ” 祭義). A collection associated with the third century BCE philosopher Xunzi 荀子 contains a Confucius quotation that associates different parts of a ruler’s day with particular emotions. Entering the ancestral temple to make offerings and maintain a connection to those who are no longer living leads the ruler to reflect on sorrow, while wearing a cap to hear legal cases leads him to reflect on worry (“ Aigong ” 哀公). These are examples of the way that ritual fosters the development of particular emotional responses, part of a sophisticated understanding of affective states and the ways that performance channels them in particular directions. More generally, the social conventions implicit in ritual hierarchies restrict people’s latitude to pursue their desires, as the master explains in the Records of Ritual:

The way of the gentleman may be compared to an embankment dam, bolstering those areas where ordinary people are deficient (“ Fangji ”).

Blocking the overflow of desires by adhering to these social norms preserves psychological space to reflect and reform one’s reactions.

Descriptions of the early community depict Confucius creating a subculture in which ritual provided an alternate source of value, effectively training his disciples to opt out of conventional modes of exchange. In the Analects , when Confucius says he would instruct any person who presented him with “a bundle of dried meat” (7.7), he is highlighting how his standards of value derive from the sacrificial system, eschewing currency or luxury items. Gifts valuable in ordinary situations might be worth little by such standards: “Even if a friend gave him a gift of a carriage and horses, if it was not dried meat, he did not bow” (10.15). The Han period biographical materials in Records of the Historian describe how a high official of the state of Lu did not come to court for three days after the state of Qi made him a gift of female entertainers. When, additionally, the high official failed to properly offer gifts of sacrificial meats, Confucius departed Lu for the state of Wei (47, cf. Analects 18.4). Confucius repeatedly rejected conventional values of wealth and position, choosing instead to rely on ritual standards of value. In some ways, these stories are similar to ones in the late Warring States and Han period compilation Master Zhuang ( Zhuangzi 莊子) that explore the way that things that are conventionally belittled for their lack of utility are useful by an unconventional standard. However, here the standard that gives such objects currency is ritual importance rather than longevity, divorcing Confucius from conventional materialistic or hedonistic pursuits. This is a second way that ritual allows one to direct more effort into character formation.

Once, when speaking of cultivating benevolence, Confucius explained how ritual value was connected to the ideal way of the gentleman, which should always take precedence over the pursuit of conventional values:

Wealth and high social status are what others covet. If I cannot prosper by following the way, I will not dwell in them. Poverty and low social status are what others shun. If I cannot prosper by following the way, I will not avoid them. (4.5)

The argument that ritual performance has internal benefits underlies the ritual psychology laid out by Confucius, one that explains how performing ritual and music controls desires and sets the stage for further moral development.

Many of the short passages from the Analects , and the “Thicket of Sayings” passages excavated at Guodian, describe the development of set of ideal behaviors associated with the moral ideal of the “way” ( dao 道) of the “gentleman” ( junzi 君子). Based on the analogy between the way of Confucius and character ethics systems deriving from Aristotle, these patterns of behavior are today often described using the Latinate term “virtue”. In the second passage in the Analects , the disciple You Ruo 有若 says a person who behaves with filial piety to parents and siblings ( xiao and di 弟), and who avoids going against superiors, will rarely disorder society. It relates this correlation to a more general picture of how patterns of good behavior effectively open up the possibility of following the way of the gentleman: “The gentleman works at the roots. Once the roots are established, the way comes to life” (1.2). The way of the gentleman is a distillation of the exemplary behaviors of the selfless culture heroes of the past, and is available to all who are willing to “work at the roots”. In this way, the virtues that Confucius taught were not original to him, but represented his adaptations of existing cultural ideals, to which he continually returned in order to clarify their proper expressions in different situations. Five behaviors of the gentleman most central to the Analects are benevolence ( ren 仁), righteousness ( yi 義), ritual propriety ( li 禮), wisdom ( zhi 智), and trustworthiness ( xin 信).

The virtue of benevolence entails interacting with others guided by a sense of what is good from their perspectives. Sometimes the Analects defines benevolence generally as “caring for others” (12.22), but in certain contexts it is associated with more specific behaviors. Examples of contextual definitions of benevolence include treating people on the street as important guests and common people as if they were attendants at a sacrifice (12.2), being reticent in speaking (12.3) and rejecting the use of clever speech (1.3), and being respectful where one dwells, reverent where one works, and loyal where one deals with others (13.19). It is the broadest of the virtues, yet a gentleman would rather die than compromise it (15.9). Benevolence entails a kind of unselfishness, or, as David Hall and Roger Ames suggest, it involves forming moral judgments from a combined perspective of self and others.

Later writers developed accounts of the sources of benevolent behavior, most famously in the context of the discussion of human nature ( xing 性) in the centuries after Confucius. Mencius (fourth century BCE) argued that benevolence grows out of the cultivation of an affective disposition to compassion ( ceyin 惻隱) in the face of another’s distress. The anonymous author of the late Warring States period excavated text “Five Kinds of Action” ( Wu xing 五行) describes it as building from the affection one feels for close family members, through successive stages to finally develop into a more universal, fully-fledged virtue. In the Analects , however, one comment on human nature emphasizes the importance of nurture: “By nature people are close, by habituation they are miles apart” (17.2), a sentiment that suggests the importance of training one’s dispositions through ritual and the classics in a manner closer to the program of Xunzi (third century BCE). The Analects , however, discusses the incubation of benevolent behavior in family and ritual contexts. You Ruo winds up his discussion of the roots of the way of the gentleman with the rhetorical question: “Is not behaving with filial piety to one’s parents and siblings the root of benevolence?” (1.2). Confucius tells his disciple Yan Yuan 顏淵 that benevolence is a matter of “overcoming oneself and returning to ritual propriety” (12.1). These connections between benevolence and other virtues underscore the way in which benevolent behavior does not entail creating novel social forms or relationships, but is grounded in traditional familial and ritual networks.

The second virtue, righteousness, is often described in the Analects relative to situations involving public responsibility. In contexts where standards of fairness and integrity are valuable, such as acting as the steward of an estate as some of the disciples of Confucius did, righteousness is what keeps a person uncorrupted. Confucius wrote that a gentleman “thinks of righteousness when faced with gain” (16.10, 19.10), or “when faced with profit” (14.12). Confucius says that one should ignore the wealth and rank one might attain by acting against righteousness, even if it means eating coarse rice, drinking water, and sleeping using one’s bent arm as a pillow (7.16). Later writers like Xunzi celebrated Confucius for his righteousness in office, which he stressed was all the more impressive because Confucius was extremely poor (“ Wangba ” 王霸). This behavior is particularly relevant in official interactions with ordinary people, such as when “employing common people” (5.16), and if a social superior has mastered it, “the common people will all comply” (13.4). Like benevolence, righteousness also entails unselfishness, but instead of coming out of consideration for the needs of others, it is rooted in steadfastness in the face of temptation.

The perspective needed to act in a righteous way is sometimes related to an attitude to personal profit that recalls the previous section’s discussion of how Confucius taught his disciples to recalibrate their sense of value based on their immersion in the sacrificial system. More specifically, evaluating things based on their ritual significance can put one at odds with conventional hierarchies of value. This is defined as the root of righteous behavior in a story from the late Warring States period text Master Fei of Han ( Han Feizi 韓非子). The tale relates how at court, Confucius was given a plate with a peach and a pile of millet grains with which to scrub the fruit clean. After the attendants laughed at Confucius for proceeding to eat the millet first, Confucius explained to them that in sacrifices to the Former Kings, millet itself is the most valued offering. Therefore, cleaning a ritually base peach with millet:

would be obstructing righteousness, and so I dared not put [the peach] above what fills the vessels in the ancestral shrine. (“ Waichu shuo, zuo shang ” 外儲說左上)

While such stories may have been told to mock his fastidiousness, for Confucius the essence of righteousness was internalizing a system of value that he would breach for neither convenience nor profit.

At times, the phrase “benevolence and righteousness” is used metonymically for all the virtues, but in some later texts, a benevolent impulse to compassion and a righteous steadfastness are seen as potentially contradictory. In the Analects , portrayals of Confucius do not recognize a tension between benevolence and righteousness, perhaps because each is usually described as salient in a different set of contexts. In ritual contexts like courts or shrines, one ideally acts like one might act out of familial affection in a personal context, the paradigm that is key to benevolence. In the performance of official duties, one ideally acts out of the responsibilities felt to inferiors and superiors, with a resistance to temptation by corrupt gain that is key to righteousness. The Records of Ritual distinguishes between the domains of these two virtues:

In regulating one’s household, kindness overrules righteousness. Outside of one’s house, righteousness cuts off kindness. What one undertakes in serving one’s father, one also does in serving one’s lord, because one’s reverence for both is the same. Treating nobility in a noble way and the honorable in an honorable way, is the height of righteousness. (“ Sangfu sizhi ” 喪服四制)

While it is not the case that righteousness is benevolence by other means, this passage underlines how in different contexts, different virtues may push people toward participation in particular shared cultural practices constitutive of the good life.

While the virtues of benevolence and righteousness might impel a gentleman to adhere to ritual norms in particular situations or areas of life, a third virtue of “ritual propriety” expresses a sensitivity to one’s social place, and willingness to play all of one’s multiple ritual roles. The term li translated here as “ritual propriety” has a particularly wide range of connotations, and additionally connotes both the conventions of ritual and etiquette. In the Analects, Confucius is depicted both teaching and conducting the rites in the manner that he believed they were conducted in antiquity. Detailed restrictions such as “the gentleman avoids wearing garments with red-black trim” (10.6), which the poet Ezra Pound disparaged as “verses re: length of the night-gown and the predilection for ginger” (Pound 1951: 191), were by no means trivial to Confucius. His imperative, “Do not look or listen, speak or move, unless it is in accordance with the rites” (12.1), in answer to a question about benevolence, illustrates how the symbolic conventions of the ritual system played a role in the cultivation of the virtues. We have seen how ritual shapes values by restricting desires, thereby allowing reflection and the cultivation of moral dispositions. Yet without the proper affective state, a person is not properly performing ritual. In the Analects , Confucius says he cannot tolerate “ritual without reverence, or mourning without grief,” (3.26). When asked about the root of ritual propriety, he says that in funerals, the mourners’ distress is more important than the formalities (3.4). Knowing the details of ritual protocols is important, but is not a substitute for sincere affect in performing them. Together, they are necessary conditions for the gentleman’s training, and are also essential to understanding the social context in which Confucius taught his disciples.

The mastery that “ritual propriety” signaled was part of a curriculum associated with the training of rulers and officials, and proper ritual performance at court could also serve as a kind of political legitimation. Confucius summarized the different prongs of the education in ritual and music involved in the training of his followers:

Raise yourself up with the Classic of Odes . Establish yourself with ritual. Complete yourself with music. (8.8)

On one occasion, Boyu 伯魚, the son of Confucius, explained that when he asked his father to teach him, his father told him to study the Classic of Odes in order to have a means to speak with others, and to study ritual to establish himself (16.13). That Confucius insists that his son master classical literature and practices underscores the values of these cultural products as a means of transmitting the way from one generation to the next. He tells his disciples that the study of the Classic of Odes prepares them for different aspects of life, providing them with a capacity to:

at home serve one’s father, away from it serve one’s lord, as well as increase one’s knowledge of the names of birds, animals, plants and trees. (17.9)

This valuation of knowledge of both the cultural and natural worlds is one reason why the figure of Confucius has traditionally been identified with schooling, and why today his birthday is celebrated as “Teacher’s Day” in some parts of Asia. In the ancient world, this kind of education also qualified Confucius and his disciples for employment on estates and at courts.

The fourth virtue, wisdom, is related to appraising people and situations. In the Analects, wisdom allows a gentleman to discern crooked and straight behavior in others (12.22), and discriminate between those who may be reformed and those who may not (15.8). In the former dialogue, Confucius explains the virtue of wisdom as “knowing others”. The “Thicket of Sayings” excavated at Guodian indicates that this knowledge is the basis for properly “selecting” others, defining wisdom as the virtue that is the basis for selection. But it is also about appraising situations correctly, as suggested by the master’s rhetorical question: “How can a person be considered wise if that person does not dwell in benevolence?” (4.1). One well-known passage often cited to imply Confucius is agnostic about the world of the spirits is more literally about how wisdom allows an outsider to present himself in a way appropriate to the people on whose behalf he is working:

When working for what is right for the common people, to show reverence for the ghosts and spirits while maintaining one’s distance may be deemed wisdom. (6.22)

The context for this sort of appraisal is usually official service, and wisdom is often attributed to valued ministers or advisors to sage rulers.

In certain dialogues, wisdom also connotes a moral discernment that allows the gentleman to be confident of the appropriateness of good actions. In the Analects , Confucius tells his disciple Zi Lu 子路 that wisdom recognizes knowing a thing as knowing it, and ignorance of a thing as ignorance of it (2.17). In soliloquies about several virtues, Confucius describes a wise person as never confused (9.28, 14.28). While comparative philosophers have noted that Chinese thought has nothing clearly analogous to the role of the will in pre-modern European philosophy, the moral discernment that is part of wisdom does provide actors with confidence that the moral actions they have taken are correct.

The virtue of trustworthiness qualifies a gentleman to give advice to a ruler, and a ruler or official to manage others. In the Analects , Confucius explains it succinctly: “if one is trustworthy, others will give one responsibilities” (17.6, cf. 20.1). While trustworthiness may be rooted in the proper expression of friendship between those of the same status (1.4, 5.26), it is also valuable in interactions with those of different status. The disciple Zi Xia 子夏 explains its effect on superiors and subordinates: when advising a ruler, without trustworthiness, the ruler will think a gentleman is engaged in slander, and when administering a state, without trustworthiness, people will think a gentleman is exploiting them (19.10). The implication is that a sincerely public-minded official would be ineffective without the trust that this quality inspires. In a dialogue with a ruler from chapter four of Han’s Intertextual Commentary the Odes , Confucius explains that in employing someone, trustworthiness is superior to strength, ability to flatter, or eloquence. Being able to rely on someone is so important to Confucius that, when asked about good government, he explained that trustworthiness was superior to either food or weapons, concluding: “If the people do not find the ruler trustworthy, the state will not stand” (12.7).

By the Han period, benevolence, righteousness, ritual propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness began to be considered as a complete set of human virtues, corresponding with other quintets of phenomena used to describe the natural world. Some texts described a level of moral perfection, as with the sages of antiquity, as unifying all these virtues. Prior to this, it is unclear whether the possession of a particular virtue entailed having all the others, although benevolence was sometimes used as a more general term for a combination of one or more of the other virtues (e.g., Analects 17.6). At other times, Confucius presented individual virtues as expressions of goodness in particular domains of life. Early Confucius dialogues are embedded in concrete situations, and so resist attempts to distill them into more abstract principles of morality. As a result, descriptions of the virtues are embedded in anecdotes about the exemplary individuals whose character traits the dialogues encourage their audience to develop. Confucius taught that the measure of a good action was whether it was an expression of the actor’s virtue, something his lessons share with those of philosophies like Aristotle’s that are generally described as “virtue ethics”. A modern evaluation of the teachings of Confucius as a “virtue ethics” is articulated in Bryan W. Van Norden’s Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy , which pays particular attention to analogies between the way of Confucius and Aristotle’s “good life”. The nature of the available source materials about Confucius, however, means that the diverse texts from early China lack the systematization of a work like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics .

The five virtues described above are not the only ones of which Confucius spoke. He discussed loyalty ( zhong 忠), which at one point is described as the minister’s behavior toward a ritually proper ruler (3.19). He said that courage ( yong 勇) is what compels one to act once one has seen where righteousness lies (2.24). Another term sometimes translated as “virtue” ( de 德), is usually used to describe the authority of a ruler that grows out of goodness or favor to others, and is a key term in many of the social and political works discussed in the following section. Yet going through a list of all the virtues in the early sources is not sufficient to describe the entirety of the moral universe associated with Confucius.

The presence of themes in the Analects like the ruler’s exceptional influence as a moral exemplar, the importance of judging people by their deeds rather than their words (1.3, 2.10, 5.10), or even the protection of the culture of Zhou by higher powers (9.5), all highlight the unsystematic nature of the text and underscore that teaching others how to cultivate the virtues is a key aspect, but only a part, of the ethical ideal of Confucius. Yet there is also a conundrum inherent in any attempt to derive abstract moral rules from the mostly dialogical form of the Analects , that is, the problem of whether the situational context and conversation partner is integral to evaluating the statements of Confucius. A historically notable example of an attempt to find a generalized moral rule in the Analects is the reading of a pair of passages that use a formulation similar to that of the “Golden Rule” of the Christian Bible (Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31) to describe benevolence: “Do not impose upon others those things that you yourself do not desire” (12.2, cf. 5.12, 15.24). Read as axiomatic moral imperatives, these passages differ from the kind of exemplar-based and situational conversations about morality usually found in the Analects . For this reason, some scholars, including E. Bruce Brooks, believe these passages to be interpolations. While they are not wholly inconsistent with the way that benevolence is described in early texts, their interpretation as abstract principles has been influenced by their perceived similarity to the Biblical examples. In the Records of Ritual , a slightly different formulation of a rule about self and others is presented as not universal in its scope, but rather as descriptive of how the exemplary ruler influences the people. In common with other early texts, the Analects describes how the moral transformation of society relies on the positive example of the ruler, comparing the influence of the gentleman on the people to the way the wind blows on the grass, forcing it to bend (12.19). In a similar vein, after discussing how the personal qualities of rulers of the past determined whether or not their subjects could morally transform, the Records of Ritual expresses its principle of reflexivity:

That is why the gentleman only seeks things in others that he or she personally possesses. [The gentleman] only condemns things in others that he or she personally lacks. (“ Daxue ” 大學)

This is a point about the efficacy of moral suasion, saying that a ruler cannot expect to reform society solely by command since it is only the ruler’s personal example that can transform others. For this reason, the ruler should not compel behaviors from his subjects to which he or she would not personally assent, something rather different from the “Golden Rule”. Historically, however, views that Confucius was inspired by the same Natural Theology as Christians, or that philosophers are naturally concerned with the generalization of moral imperatives, have argued in favor of a closer identification with the “Golden Rule,” a fact that illustrates the interpretative conundrum arising from the formal aspects of the Analects .

Early Zhou political philosophy as represented in the Classic of Odes and the Classic of Documents centered on moral justification for political authority based on the doctrine of the “Mandate of Heaven” ( tianming 天命). This view was that the sage’s virtue ( de ) attracted the attention of the anthropomorphized cosmic power usually translated as “Heaven” ( tian 天), which supported the sage’s rise to political authority. These canonical texts argued that political success or failure is a function of moral quality, evidenced by actions such as proper ritual performance, on the part of the ruler. Confucius drew on these classics and adapted the classical view of moral authority in important ways, connecting it to a normative picture of society. Positing a parallel between the nature of reciprocal responsibilities of individuals in different roles in two domains of social organization, in the Analects Confucius linked filial piety in the family to loyalty in the political realm:

It is rare for a person who is filially pious to his parents and older siblings to be inclined to rebel against his superiors… Filial piety to parents and elder siblings may be considered the root of a person. (1.2)

This section examines Confucius’s social and political philosophy, beginning with the central role of his analysis of the traditional norm of filial piety.

Just as Confucius analyzed the psychology of ritual performance and related it to individual moral development, his discussion of filial piety was another example of the development and adaptation of a particular classical cultural pattern to a wider philosophical context and set of concerns. Originally limited to descriptions of sacrifice to ancestors in the context of hereditary kinship groups, a more extended meaning of “filial piety” was used to describe the sage king Shun’s 舜 (trad. r. 2256–2205 BCE) treatment of his living father in the Classic of Documents . Despite humble origins, Shun’s filial piety was recognized as a quality that signaled he would be a suitable successor for the sage king Yao 堯 (trad. r. 2357–2256 BCE). Confucius in the Analects praised the ancient sage kings at great length, and the sage king Yu 禹 for his filial piety in the context of sacrifice (8.21). However, he used the term filial piety to mean both sacrificial mastery and behaving appropriately to one’s parents. In a conversation with one of his disciples he explains that filial piety meant “not contesting”, and that it entailed:

while one’s parents were alive, serving them in a ritually proper way, and after one’s parents died, burying them and sacrificing to them in a ritually proper way. (2.5)

In rationalizing the moral content of legacies of the past like the three-year mourning period after the death of a parent, Confucius reasoned that for three years a filially pious child should not alter a parent’s way (4.20, cf. 19.18), and explains the origin of length of the three-year mourning period to be the length of time that the parents had given their infant child support (17.21). This adaptation of filial piety to connote the proper way for a gentleman to behave both inside and outside the home was a generalization of a pattern of behavior that had once been specific to the family.

Intellectual historian Chen Lai 陈来 has identified two sets of ideal traits that became hybridized in the late Warring States period. The first set of qualities describes the virtue of the ruler coming out of politically-oriented descriptions of figures like King Wen of Zhou, including uprightness ( zhi 直) and fortitude ( gang 剛). The second set of qualities is based on bonds specific to kinship groups, including filial piety and kindness ( ci 慈). As kinship groups were subordinated to larger political units, texts began to exhibit hybrid lists of ideal qualities that drew from both sets. Consequently, Confucius had to effectively integrate clan priorities and state priorities, a conciliation illustrated in Han’s Intertextual Commentary the Odes by his insistence that filial piety is not simply deference to elders. When his disciple Zengzi 曾子 submitted to a severe beating from his father’s staff in punishment for an offense, Confucius chastises Zengzi, saying that even the sage king Shun would not have submitted to a beating so severe. He goes on to explain that a child has a dual set of duties, to both a father and ruler, the former filial piety and the other loyalty. Therefore, protecting one’s body is a duty to the ruler and a counterweight to a duty to submit to one’s parent (8). In the Classic of Filial Piety ( Xiaojing 孝經), similar reasoning is applied to a redefinition of filial piety that rejects behaviors like such extreme submission because protecting one’s body is a duty to one’s parents. This sort of qualification suggests that as filial piety moved further outside its original family context, it had to be qualified to be integrated into a view that valorized multiple character traits.

Since filial piety was based on a fundamental relationship defined within the family, one’s family role and state role could conflict. A Classic of Documents text spells out the possible conflict between loyalty to a ruler and filial piety toward a father (“ Cai Zhong zhi ming ” 蔡仲之命), a trade-off similar to a story in the Analects about a man named Zhi Gong 直躬 (Upright Gong) who testified that his father stole a sheep. Although Confucius acknowledged that theft injures social order, he judged Upright Gong to have failed to be truly “upright” in a sense that balances the imperative to testify with special consideration for members of his kinship group:

In my circle, being upright differs from this. A father would conceal such a thing on behalf of his son, and a son would conceal it on behalf of his father. Uprightness is found in this. (13.18)

In this way, too, Confucius was adapting filial piety to a wider manifold of moral behaviors, honing his answer to the question of how a child balances responsibility to family and loyalty to the state. While these two traits may conflict with one and other, Sociologist Robert Bellah, in his study of Tokugawa and modern Japan, noted how the structural similarity between loyalty and filial piety led to their both being promoted by the state as interlinked ideals that located each person in dual networks of responsibility. Confucius was making this claim when he connected filial piety to the propensity to be loyal to superiors (1.2). Statements like “filial piety is the root of virtuous action” from the Classic of Filial Piety connect loyalty and the kind of action that signals the personal virtue that justifies political authority, as in the historical precedent of the sage king Shun.

Of the classical sources from which Confucius drew, two were particularly influential in discussions of political legitimation. The Classic of Odes consists of 305 Zhou period regulated lyrics (hence the several translations “songs”, “odes”, or “poems”) and became numbered as one of the Five Classics ( Wujing ) in the Han dynasty. Critical to a number of these lyrics is the celebration of King Wen of Zhou’s overthrow of the Shang, which is an example of a virtuous person seizing the “Mandate of Heaven”:

This King Wen of ours, his prudent heart was well-ordered. He shone in serving the High God, and thus enjoyed much good fortune. Unswerving in his virtue, he came to hold the domains all around. (“ Daming ” 大明)

The Zhou political theory expressed in this passage is based on the idea of a limited moral universe that may not reward a virtuous person in isolation, but in which the High God ( Shangdi 上帝, Di 帝) or Heaven will intercede to replace a bad ruler with a person of exceptional virtue. The Classic of Documents is a collection that includes orations attributed to the sage rulers of the past and their ministers, and its arguments often concern moral authority with a focus on the methods and character of exemplary rulers of the past. The chapter “Announcement of Kang” (“ Kanggao ” 康誥) is addressed to one of the sons of King Wen, and provides him with a guide for behaving as sage ruler as well as with methods that had been empirically proven successful by those rulers. When it comes to the mandate inherited from King Wen, the chapter insists that the mandate is not unchanging, and so as ruler the son must always be mindful of it when deciding how to act. Further, it is not always possible to understand Heaven, but the “feelings of the people are visible”, and so the ruler must care for his subjects. The Zhou political view that Confucius inherited was based on supernatural intercession to place a person with personal virtue in charge of the state, but over time the emphasis shifted to the way that the effects of good government could be viewed as proof of a continuing moral justification for that placement.

Confucius himself arguably served as a historical counterexample to the classical “Mandate of Heaven” theory, calling into question the direct nature of the support given by Heaven to the person with virtue. The Han period Records of the Historian biography of Confucius described him as possessing all the personal qualities needed to govern well, but wandering from state to state because those qualities had not been recognized. When his favorite disciple died, the Analects records Confucius saying that “Heaven has forsaken me!” (11.9). Wang Chong’s 王充 (27–c.97 CE) Balanced Discussions ( Lunheng 論衡) uses the phrase “uncrowned king” ( suwang 素王) to describe the tragic situation: “Confucius did not rule as king, but his work as uncrowned king may be seen in the Spring and Autumn Annals ” (80). The view that through his writings Confucius could prepare the world for the government of a future sage king became a central part of Confucius lore that has colored the reception of his writings since, especially in works related to the Spring and Autumn Annals and its Gongyang Commentary . The biography of Confucius reinforced the tragic cosmological picture that personal virtue did not always guarantee success. Even when Heaven’s support is cited in the Analects , it is not a matter of direct intercession, but expressed through personal virtue or cultural patterns: “Heaven gave birth to the virtue in me, so what can Huan Tui 桓魋 do to me?” (7.23, cf. 9.5). As Robert Eno has pointed out, the concept of Heaven also came to be increasingly naturalized in passages like “what need does Heaven have to speak?” (17.19). Changing views of the scope of Heaven’s activity and the ways human beings may have knowledge of that activity fostered a change in the role of Heaven in political theory.

Most often, in dialogues with the rulers of his time, references to Heaven were occasions for Confucius to encourage rulers to remain attentive to their personal moral development and treat their subjects fairly. In integrating the classical legacy of the “Mandate of Heaven” that applied specifically to the ruler or “Son of Heaven” ( tianzi 天子), with moral teachings that were directed to a wider audience, the nature of Heaven’s intercession came to be understood differently. In the Analects and writings like those attributed to Mencius, descriptions of virtue were often adapted to contexts such as the conduct of lesser officials and the navigation of everyday life. Kwong-Loi Shun notes that in such contexts, the influence of Heaven remained as an explanation of both what happened outside of human control, like political success or lifespan, and of the source of the ethical ideal. In the Analects , the gentleman’s awe of Heaven is combined with an awe of the words of the sages (16.8), and when Confucius explains the Zhou theory of the “mandate of Heaven” in the Elder Dai’s Records of Ritual, he does so in order to explain how the signs of a well-ordered society demonstrate that the ruler’s “virtue matches Heaven” (“ Shaojian ” 少閒). Heaven is still ubiquitous in the responses of Confucius to questions from rulers, but the focus of the responses was not on Heaven’s direct intercession but rather the ruler’s demonstration of his personal moral qualities.

In this way, personal qualities of modesty, filial piety or respect for the elders were seen as proof of fitness to serve in an official capacity. Qualification to rule was demonstrated by proper behavior in the social roles defined by the “five relationships” ( wulun 五倫), a formulation seen in the writings of Mencius that became a key feature of the interpretation of works associated with Confucius in the Han dynasty. The Western Han emperors were members of the Liu clan, and works like the Guliang Commentary ( Guliang zhuan 穀梁傳) to the Spring and Autumn Annals emphasized normative family behavior grounded in the five relationships, which were (here, adapted to include mothers and sisters): ruler and subject, parent and child, husband and wife, siblings, and friends. Writing with particular reference to the Classic of Filial Piety , Henry Rosemont and Roger Ames argue that prescribed social roles are a defining characteristic of the “Confucian tradition”, and that such roles were normative guides to appropriate conduct. They contrast this with the “virtue ethics” approach they say requires rational calculation to determine moral conduct, while filial piety is simply a matter of meeting one’s family obligations. Just as the five virtues were placed at the center of later theories of moral development, once social roles became systematized in this way, selected situational teachings of Confucius consistent with them could become the basis of more abstract, systematic moral theories. Yet this could not have happened without the adaptation of the abstract classical political theory of “Heaven’s mandate”, a doctrine that originally supported the ruling clan, to argue that Heaven’s influence was expressed through particular concrete expressions of individual virtue. As a result of this adaptation in writings associated with Confucius, the ruler’s conduct of imperial rituals, performance of filial piety, or other demonstrations of personal virtue provided proof of moral fitness that legitimated his political authority. As with the rituals and the virtues, filial piety and the mandate of Heaven were transformed as they were integrated with the classics through the voices of Confucius and the rulers and disciples of his era.

Earlier, the usage of “Confucius” as a metonym for Chinese traditional culture was introduced as a feature of the modern period. Yet the complexity of the philosophical views associated with Confucius—encompassing ethical ideals developed out of a sophisticated view of the effects of ritual and music on the performer’s psychology, robust descriptions of the attitudes of traditional exemplars across diverse life contexts, and the abstraction of normative behaviors in the family and state—is due in part to the fact that this metonymic usage was to some degree already the case in the Han period. By that time, the teachings of Confucius had gone through several centuries of gestation, and dialogues and quotations fashioned at different points over that time circulated and mixed. Put slightly differently, Confucius read the traditional culture of the halcyon Zhou period in a particular way, but this reading was continuously reflected and refracted through different lenses during the Pre-Imperial period, prior to the results being fixed in diverse early Imperial period sources like the Analects , the Records of Ritual , and the Records of the Historian. What remains is the work of the hand of Confucius, but also of his “school”, and even sometimes of his opponents during the centuries that his philosophy underwent elaboration and drift. This process of accretion and elaboration is not uncommon for pre-modern writings, and the resulting breadth and depth explains, at least in part, why the voice of Confucius retained primacy in pre-modern Chinese philosophical conversations as well as in many modern debates about the role of traditional East Asian culture.

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Confucianism

The Research Institution of Confucianism in China. (kanegen/flickr)

Confucianism is often characterized as a system of social and ethical philosophy rather than a religion. In fact, Confucianism built on an ancient religious foundation to establish the social values, institutions, and transcendent ideals of traditional Chinese society. It was what sociologist Robert Bellah called a "civil religion," (1) the sense of religious identity and common moral understanding at the foundation of a society's central institutions. It is also what a Chinese sociologist called a "diffused religion"; (3) its institutions were not a separate church, but those of society, family, school, and state; its priests were not separate liturgical specialists, but parents, teachers, and officials. Confucianism was part of the Chinese social fabric and way of life; to Confucians, everyday life was the arena of religion.

The founder of Confucianism, Master Kong (Confucius, 551-479 B.C.E.) did not intend to found a new religion, but to interpret and revive the unnamed religion of the Zhou dynasty, under which many people thought the ancient system of religious rule was bankrupt; why couldn't the gods prevent the social upheavals? The burning issue of the day was: If it is not the ancestral and nature spirits, what then is the basis of a stable, unified, and enduring social order? The dominant view of the day, espoused by Realists and Legalists, was that strict law and statecraft were the bases of sound policy. Confucius, however, believed that the basis lay in Zhou religion, in its rituals (li). He interpreted these not as sacrifices asking for the blessings of the gods, but as ceremonies performed by human agents and embodying the civilized and cultured patterns of behavior developed through generations of human wisdom. They embodied, for him, the ethical core of Chinese society. Moreover, Confucius applied the term "ritual" to actions beyond the formal sacrifices and religious ceremonies to include social rituals: courtesies and accepted standards of behavior-- what we today call social mores. He saw these time-honored and traditional rituals as the basis of human civilization, and he felt that only a civilized society could have a stable, unified, and enduring social order.

Thus one side of Confucianism was the affirmation of accepted values and norms of behavior in primary social institutions and basic human relationships. All human relationships involved a set of defined roles and mutual obligations; each participant should understand and conformto his/her proper role. Starting from individual and family, people acting rightly could reform and perfect the society. The blueprint of this process was described in "The Great Learning," a section of the Classic of Rituals:

Only when things are investigated is knowledge extended; only when knowledge is extended are thoughts sincere; only when thoughts are sincere are minds rectified; only when minds are rectified are the characters of persons cultivated; only when character is cultivated are our families regulated; only when families are regulated are states well governed; only when states are well governed is there peace in the world.(3)

Confucius' ethical vision ran against the grain of the legalistic mind set of his day. Only under the Han Emperor Wu (r. 140-87 B.C.E.) did Confucianism become accepted as state ideology and orthodoxy. From that time on the imperial state promoted Confucian values to maintain law, order, and the status quo. In late traditional China, emperors sought to establish village lectures on Confucian moral precepts and to give civic awards to filial sons and chaste wives. The imperial family and other notables sponsored the publication of morality books that encouraged the practice of Confucian values: respect for parents,loyalty to government, and keeping to one's place in society—farmers should remain farmers, and practice the ethics of farming. This side of Confucianism was conservative, and served to bolster established institutions and long-standing social divisions.

There was, however, another side to Confucianism. Confucius not only stressed social rituals (li), but also humaneness (ren). Ren, sometimes translated love or kindness, is not any one virtue, but the source of all virtues. The Chinese character literally represents the relationship between "two persons," or co-humanity—the potential to live together humanely rather than scrapping like birds or beasts. Ren keeps ritual forms from becoming hollow; a ritual performed with ren has not only form, but ethical content; it nurtures the inner character of the person, furthers his/her ethical maturation. Thus if the "outer"side of Confucianism was conformity and acceptance of social roles, the "inner" side was cultivation of conscience and character. Cultivation involved broad education and reflection on one's actions. It was a lifetime commitment to character building carving and polishing the stone of one's character until it was a lustrous gem. Master Kong described his own lifetime:

At fifteen, I set my heart on learning. At thirty, I was firmly established. At forty, I had no more doubts. At fifty, I knew the will of heaven. At sixty, I was ready to listen to it. At seventy, I could follow my heart's desire without transgressing what was right. Analects, 2:4

The inner pole of Confucianism was reformist, idealistic, and spiritual. It generated a high ideal for family interaction: members were to treat each other with love, respect, and consideration for the needs of all. It prescribed a lofty ideal for the state: the ruler was to be a father to his people and look after their basic needs. It required officials to criticize their rulers and refuse to serve the corrupt. This inner and idealist wing spawned a Confucian reformation known in the West as Neo-Confucianism. The movement produced reformers, philanthropists, dedicated teachers and officials, and social philosophers from the eleventh through the nineteenth centuries.

The idealist wing of Confucianism had a religious character. Its ideals were transcendent, not in the sense that they were other worldly (the Confucians were not interested in a far-off heavenly realm), but in the sense of the transcendent ideal—perfection. On the one hand, Confucian values are so closely linked with everyday life that they sometimes seem trivial. Everyday life is so familiar that we do not take its moral content seriously. We are each a friend to someone, or aparent, or certainly the child of a parent. On the other hand, Confucians remind us that the familiar ideals of friendship, parenthood, and filiality are far from trivial; in real life we only rarely attain these ideals. We all too often just go through the motions, too preoccupied to give our full attention to the relationship. If we consistently and wholeheartedly realized our potential to be the very best friend, parent, son, or daughter humanly possible, we would establish a level of caring, of moral excellence,that would approach the utopian. This is Confucian transcendence: to take the actions of everyday life seriously as the arena of moral and spiritual fulfillment.

The outer and inner aspects of Confucianism—its conforming and reforming sides—were in tension throughout Chinese history. Moreover, the tensions between social and political realities and the high-minded moral ideals of the Confucians were an ongoing source of concern for the leaders of this tradition. The dangers of moral sterility and hypocrisy were always present. Confucianism, they knew well, served both as a conservative state orthodoxy and a stimulus for reform. Great Confucians, like religious leaders everywhere, sought periodically to revive and renew the moral, intellectual, and spiritual vigor of the tradition. Until the 1890s, serious-minded Chinese saw Confucianism, despite its failures to realize its ideal society, as the source of hope for China and the core of what it meant to be Chinese.

Although since the revolution, the public ideology of the People's Republic has abandoned Confucian teachings, one can say that there is a continuity of form: like Confucianism before it, Maoism teaches a commitment to transforming the world by applying the lessons of autopian ideology to the actions and institutions of everyday life. This is not to claim that Mao was a "closet Confucian," but to emphasize that the Confucian way was virtually synonymous with the Chinese way.

Robert Neelly Bellah, The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in a Time of Trial , New York: Seabury Press, 1975. C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961, pp. 20-21. Excerpted and adapted from de Bary, Sources, I: 115-16. For a somewhat fuller philosophical (but readable) discussion, see Herbert Fingarette, Confucius — The Secular as Sacred , New York: Harper and Row, 1972, chapter one.

Note: This article and the one on Dao/Taoism were written during the Indiana Religion Studies Project Institute for Teaching about Religion in the Secondary Social Studies Curriculum. The drafts were critiqued by the social studies teachers who attended with an eye to supplementing and correcting the information in textbooks and other materials used by teachers. The two articles should read as a pair; they complement each other in much the same way these two religions complemented each other throughout Chinese history.

Author: Judith A. Berling.

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Confucianism is a philosophy developed in 6th-century BCE China , which is considered by some a secular-humanist belief system, by some a religion , and by others a social code. The broad range of subjects touched on by Confucianism lends itself to all three of these interpretations depending on which aspects one focuses on.

The philosophy is based on the belief that human beings are essentially good, that they engage in immoral behavior through lack of a strong moral standard, and that adherence to an ethical code, and rituals which encourage it, enabled one to live a productive and tranquil life of peace which would translate to a strong, ethical, and prosperous state.

It was founded by Confucius (K'ung-fu-Tze, Kong Fuzi, “Master Kong”, l. 551-479 BCE), a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period (c. 772-476 BCE). Confucius is considered among the greatest philosophers of the Hundred Schools of Thought (also given as the Contention of the Hundred Schools of Thought) which references the time during the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period (c. 481-221 BCE) when various philosophical schools contended with each other for adherents. He is, without a doubt, the most influential philosopher in China's history whose views, precepts, and concepts have informed Chinese culture for over 2,000 years.

Confucius himself claimed to have written nothing and offered nothing new, insisting his views were taken from older works (known as the Five Classics) he was just popularizing through his school. The later Confucian philosopher and scholar Mencius (Mang-Tze, l. 372-289 BCE), however, attributed the Five Classics to Confucius, a view that continued to be held until the mid-20th century CE. These works, three others on Confucian thought, and one by Mencius make up The Four Books and Five Classics which have been the foundational texts of Chinese culture since the time of the Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE) when Confucianism was made the state philosophy. The Four Books and Five Classics are:

• The Book of Rites (also given as The Book of Great Learning)
• The Doctrine of the Mean
• The Analects of Confucius
• The Works of Mencius
• The I-Ching
• The Classics of Poetry
• The Classics of Rites
• The Classics of History
• The Spring and Autumn Annals

The Five Classics are attributed to writers of the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE) which was in a period of decline during Confucius' lifetime. It may be that he did edit or revise the Five Classics, as tradition has held, but, even if he did not, he certainly popularized their concepts. His Analects , Books of Rites , and Doctrine of the Mean were written by his students based on his lectures and class discussions.

The Warring States Period concluded with the victory of the state of Qin over the others and the establishment of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE) which adopted the philosophy of Legalism and banned all others. Confucian works were outlawed and burned along with those of any other non-Legalist philosophers. Copies of the banned works only survived because they were hidden by intellectuals at great personal risk. The Han Dynasty, which succeeded the Qin, encouraged greater freedom of speech, established The Four Books and Five Classics as required reading for administrative positions which led to a wider dissemination of Confucian thought which would seamlessly blend with Chinese culture after the Han declared it the state philosophy.

Historical Background & Career in Lu

Shortly after its founding, the Zhou Dynasty decentralized the Chinese government by sending lords, loyal to the king, to establish their own states throughout the vast territory. This policy worked well at first, but eventually, the states grew more powerful than the king, and the old loyalties were forgotten. By c. 771 BCE, the Zhou Dynasty was already weakened almost to the point of irrelevancy when barbarian invasions forced the government to move east for better defense. This was the end of the so-called Western Zhou period (1046-771 BCE) and the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period (771-256 BCE) which corresponds to the Spring and Autumn Period and early Warring States Period during which Confucius lived and taught.

Confucius was born in September 551 BCE in the village of Qufu, State of Lu (Shandong Province), the son of a military commander named Kong He who was of noble descent. Confucius' birth name was Kong Qui, but he would later be addressed as Master Kong (Kong Fuzi) which was Latinized by 16th-century CE Christian missionaries to Confucius. His father died when he was three years old and the resultant loss of income led to a life of poverty. He later attended school while working various jobs to support himself and his mother until she died when he was around 23 years old. By this time, he was already married and had at least one son and possibly two daughters.

He had been provided with basic education, as defined by the Zhou Dynasty, in the Six Arts – Rites, Music , Archery, Charioteering, Calligraphy, and Mathematics – but had taken it upon himself to improve on his knowledge in all of these through private study. Scholar Forrest E. Baird notes, “possessed of a deep love of learning by age fifteen, Confucius became one of the best-educated men of the day by his mid-twenties” (284). Married, and with a family to support, Confucius took the qualifying exam for government work as a teacher and, as Baird notes, pursued his goal of a meaningful life in a worthy profession:

His threefold professional goal crystalized early – to serve in government, to teach others, and to transmit to posterity the splendid culture of the Zhou Dynasty…He had a special fondness for poetry and music and was skilled in the performance of the latter. His reputation for excellent teaching was established by the age of thirty. As a teacher, Confucius rejected vocationalism while pioneering a liberal education that was strong in ethics, history, literature , and the fine arts. He admitted any student who could afford the token tuition – a bundle of dried meat. (284)

Confucius taught and also was involved in government at the local level, at one point serving as magistrate (or governor) of his town under the administration of the Duke of Lu. A political struggle among three of the leading families and the Duke of Lu's personal failings caused Confucius to lose interest in his work in Lu. He had attempted to teach the ruling class that they could live happier, more fulfilling lives by observing right conduct in accordance with a moral code which would result in effective and just government, but the upper class was not interested in following his advice. He resigned from his position and left the state of Lu to try making converts elsewhere.

This was a chaotic era in which the states fought each other for supremacy and many of the long-established aspects of government, including bureaucratic positions, lost cohesion. Administrators, advisers, scholars, and teachers who once held government posts, found themselves jobless and so established their own schools based on their personal philosophies. Some of these were actual schools in which students would enroll and attend classes while others were more “schools of thought” or movements but, collectively, their efforts to attract students to their system while discrediting others' would later become known as the time of the Hundred Schools of Thought.

Confucius & the Hundred Schools

The term Hundred Schools of Thought should be understood figuratively to mean “many”, not literally one hundred. Among the ones which were recorded by later historians, such as Sima Qian (l. 145-135-86 BCE), were:

• School of Names
• Yin - Yang School
• School of Minor Talks
• School of Diplomacy
• Agriculturalism
• Yangism (Hedonist School)
• School of the Military
• School of Medicine

At this time, then, Confucianism was only one of many establishing a philosophical belief system which, for the most part, they then tried to popularize. After Confucius left his position in Lu, he traveled through other states vying with proponents of the different schools for acceptance of his vision over theirs. Baird comments:

Confucius wandered through the neighboring states in the company of a small band of students, whom he continued to teach. He offered advice on government matters to local rulers and sometimes accepted temporary posts in their service. There were hardships to be endured – rejection, persecution, even attempted assassination. (284)

He had no more luck convincing the upper class of these other states of the value of his system than he had had in Lu and so returned home at the age of 68 and set up his own school. He based his curriculum on the Five Classics of the Zhou Dynasty and continued teaching until his death , of natural causes, five years later. His philosophy, at the time of his death, remained no more than one school of thought among many and was influenced, to greater or lesser degrees, by these others.

Taoism influenced Confucianism through its concept of the Tao, the creative and binding force of the universe; Legalism through its insistence on law and ritual as the means of maintaining order and controlling people's negative impulses; the School of Names through its focus on how closely the word for an object or concept corresponded to it (how well words represented the reality they referenced); the School of Medicine through its emphasis on the importance of diet in maintaining health and a clear mind. Confucius was influenced by all of these, and no doubt many others, but streamlined the thought, eliminating what he felt was non-essential or problematic, to develop a philosophical system which, if observed, could help people make better choices, lead more peaceful lives, and avoid the kind of suffering everyone at the time was enduring due to the wars between the states.

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His philosophical vision was very simple: human beings were innately good, 'good' being defined as understanding the difference between right and wrong, and inclined naturally to choose what is right. This claim could be proven by how people reacted to others in times of trouble. The best-known example of this concept (given by the later Confucian Mencius) is a person coming across a young boy who has fallen into a well. One's first impulse is to save the boy – either by direct action or by running to find someone to help – even though one does not know the boy or his parents and might be risking one's own safety in trying to help him.

In cases where one did neither of these things – in other words, where one chose wrong over right – it was due to ignorance of what was right owing to a lack of a moral code and standard of conduct. Someone who would allow the boy to drown in the well would most likely have done so out of an overly developed sense of self-interest. If such a person were educated in right action and a proper understanding of the world and their place in it, they would choose right over wrong.

This is where the theological aspect comes in which encourages some to interpret Confucianism as a religion. Confucius believed in the Chinese concept of Tian (Heaven) which should be understood in this case as something quite close to the Tao. Tian is the source of and sustainer of all life which created the ordered world out of chaos. One needed to recognize the existence of Tian , a constant flux of Yin and Yang (opposite) forces, in order to understand one's place in the world. Sacrifices made to the various gods made no difference to those gods, who were all aspects of Tian , but made a significant difference to the one offering the sacrifice because belief in a higher power, whatever form it took, helped to check one's concept of self-importance, reduced one's ego, and encouraged one to move from self-interest to consider the interests and welfare of others.

A belief in a higher power alone was not enough to encourage right action, however, nor to control one's baser instincts. Confucius advocated a strict code of ethics one should adhere to in order to maintain the middle way in life of peace and prosperity. These are known as the Five Constants and Four Virtues:

• Ren – benevolence
• Yi – righteousness
• Li – ritual
• Zhi – knowledge
• Xin – integrity
• Xiao – filial piety
• Zhong – loyalty
• Jie – contingency
• Yi – justice/righteousness

All of these were equally important, but they began with filial piety. People were encouraged to honor and respect their parents and observe a hierarchy of authority where a son obeyed his father's wishes, a younger brother respected and deferred to his older brother, and women did the same with men. In this way, the family would live harmoniously and, if enough families embraced filial piety, one would soon have a whole community of contented people, then a state, and then an entire country. There would be no need of oppressive governments or laws because people would, essentially, be governing themselves through recognition of the benefits of virtuous behavior. Confucius writes:

If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame and, moreover, will become good. ( Analects , 2.3; Tamblyn, p. 3)

By embracing filial piety, one was taking the initial step toward the other constants and virtues because one was subjecting one's self to a policy of behavior that did not elevate the self. Even the head of the household, the father, was expected to be humble, in his case in the face of Tian . No one was above observance of filial piety in accordance with righteousness. In responding to a question regarding government and control of unruly subjects, Confucius is reported as saying:

Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it. ( Analects 12.19; Tamblyn, p. 38)

Filial piety (and the rest) was informed by Ren which means not only 'benevolence' but that which makes a human truly human, one's basic humanity, which understands right from wrong and instinctively leans toward what is right. Expressed in behavior, Confucius coined the so-called Silver Rule, a much earlier version of the Golden Rule attributed to Jesus Christ ('silver' because the concept is expressed in the negative), when he said, "whatsoever you do not want done to you, do not do to another" ( Analects 12:2) which appears in his response to a question on defining perfect virtue:

It is, when you go abroad, to behave to every one as if you were receiving a great guest; to employ the people as if you were assisting at a great sacrifice; not to do to others as you would not wish done to yourself; to have no murmuring against you in the country, and none in the family. ( Analects 12:2; Tamblyn, p. 36)

By adhering to these precepts, in accordance with the rituals which encouraged them, one would attain the state of junzi (literally “lord's son”) which meant a superior individual and is usually translated as 'gentleman'. A junzi recognized the order of the world and his – or her – place in it (since Confucius understood women as in need of as much instruction as men, although his era did not allow for it formally) and, through adherence to Confucius' teachings would behave well, in the interests of all involved, and live in peace with one's self and others.

Confucius' philosophy was reformed and popularized by the philosopher and Confucian scholar Mencius who, like Confucius himself, traveled state-to-state preaching Confucian ideals in an effort to end the chaos of the Warring States Period. His efforts at converting the ruling class were no more successful than those of Confucius but he did introduce Confucian precepts to a wider audience than it had at Confucius' death. Confucianism's cause was furthered by another scholar-philosopher, the last of the Five Great Sages of Confucianism, Xunzi (also given as Xun Kuang, l. c. 310 - c. 235 BCE) who reformed the system further, offering a much more pragmatic (or pessimistic) vision of the philosophy, closer in some aspects to Legalism, but still retaining the basic precepts, which he expressed in his work Xunzi .

Confucianism was rejected by the Qin Dynasty because it was critical of Qin policy. The first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Shi Huangdi (r. 221-210 BCE), established a repressive regime, completely at odds with Confucian ideals, and adopted Legalism as the state philosophy in order to strictly control the populace. Confucianism was almost erased from history during the time known as the Burning of the Books and the Burying of Scholars c. 213-210 BCE, but the books were preserved by adherents who hid them from authorities.

The philosophy was revived by the Han Dynasty under its first emperor Gaozu (r. 202-195 BCE) who reestablished the values of the Zhou Dynasty. Confucianism was later made the national philosophy under Wu the Great. By the time of his reign, 141-87 BCE, Confucianism had already gained a substantial following, but Wu's decree would solidify and expand its influence.

For the next 2,000 years, Confucianism would be the dominant philosophy of China, even during periods – such as the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) – when Taoism was more popular. In the 20th century CE, Confucianism was rejected by Chinese cultural reformers who felt it was outdated and by the Chinese Communist Party because of its insistence on a social hierarchy at odds with the communist ideal. Mohism, with its vision of universal love regardless of social standing, was advocated instead.

By this time, however, Confucian ideals had become so closely interwoven with Chinese culture that there was no way of separating the two. Confucianism continues to be observed, whether directly as a belief-system-of-choice or simply culturally in the present day and continues to gain adherents around the world. Of the many philosophies of the so-called One Hundred Schools of Thought, Confucius' vision ultimately triumphed by providing a specific way to live toward a greater good to live for.

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• Baird, F. & Heimbeck, R. S. Philosophic Classics: Asian Philosophy. Routledge, 2005.
• Confucius & Giles, L. The Analects of Confucius. The Easton Press, 1986.
• Confucius & Tamblyn, N. The Complete Confucius. Golding Books, 2016.
• Ebrey, P. B. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Koller, J. M. Asian Philosophies. Prentice Hall, 2007.
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• Waley, A. Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China. Stanford University Press, 2010.

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What is Confucianism?

A short introduction to the Chinese ethical system.

Stressing the importance of correct behaviour, loyalty and obedience to hierarchy, Confucianism is a system of ethics devised by the Chinese scholar K’ung Fu-tzu (Latinised to Confucius) in sixth century BC China. An itinerant teacher, Confucius (551–479 BC) essentially systematised elements of ancient Chinese philosophy, which were later compiled by his disciples in two authoritative volumes known as the  Four Books  and the  Five Classics .

Confucianism focused on education as a means of attaining worth and status and was adopted as an official philosophical school under the Han Emperor Wu Ti in the second century BC. The Chinese system of non-hereditary mandarins – high-ranking officials appointed through a rigid imperial examination system – was inspired by Confucian teachings. By the first century AD, Confucius had become an object of veneration across China. Confucianism spread to Vietnam with Chinese occupation. Built in Hanoi in 1070, Vietnam’s first university is located in a temple of Confucius known to English- speaking visitors as ‘the Temple of Literature’.

Based on the Chinese model, the Confucian court examination system for entry into the civil service was introduced in Vietnam in 1075 and lasted until 1919, when it was abolished by the French. Confucian ideals – as well as those of Taoism and Buddhism – remain strong in Vietnam, where deference and obedience to family is central to society.

Christopher Goscha  is Professor of History at the University of Quebec at Montreal. He is the author of  The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam  (Penguin, 2016). 

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Confucianism in Chinese Society in the First Two Decades of the 21st Century

The Cambridge History of Confucianism, ed. Kiri Paramore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

This chapter will be published in the forthcoming Cambridge History of Confucianism edited by Kiri Paramore (forthcoming 2022 or 2023). This ahead of print version has been uploaded on Academia.edu with the authorization of the publisher.

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Beginning in the 1980s, a very important development for Confucianism took place in the People’s Republic of China: in what was known as the Culture Fever, many experts on Confucianism who lived outside of mainland China, such as Tu Weiming, were invited by prestigious universities of continental China to give lectures on Confucianism. This fact increased the interest of mainland Chinese scholars in this ancient philosophy, and its study flourished in academia. However, the boom of Confucianism also spread to the PRC’s authorities, who abandoned their distrust of the Master of Lu, and found inspiration in some of his teachings. Moreover, this Confucian boom also spread to the areas of education and society. This phenomenon has been called the “Confucian revival”, and it has become stronger than ever in the present century. Having a huge interest in Confucianism, I decided to research the Confucian revival of the 21st century to show how the revival has changed, and how we can perceive elements of this system of thought in contemporary China. Therefore, this master’s thesis is the result of an investigation of the comeback of Confucianism in mainland Chinese society in this century. The topic of this research will be divided into the areas of politics, academia, and education and society, which I consider to be the realms where the Confucian revival is most visible.

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Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology

Confucianism Introduction

Religions of the World and Ecology Series

Confucianism and ecology volume.

Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Berthrong, eds.

“ Introduction: Setting the Context” Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Berthrong

Confucian Ecology Confucianism has significant intellectual and spiritual resources to offer in the emerging discussions regarding attitudes toward nature, the role of the human, and environmental ethics. Its dynamic, organismic worldview, its vitalist understanding of ch’i (material force), its respect for the vast continuity of life, its sense of compassion for suffering, its desire to establish the grounds for just and sustainable societies, its emphasis on holistic, moral education, and its appreciation for the embeddedness of life in interconnected concentric circles are only some examples of the rich resources of the Confucian tradition in relation to ecological issues. A more detailed discussion follows of some of the key ideas of Confucianism regarding cosmology and ethics.

It should be noted that we are using the term Confucianism broadly, to cover the entire tradition. In a historical framework, however, Confucianism generally refers to the early part of the tradition in the Classical era (first millennium BCE) through the Han (206 BCE–220 CE) and T’ang (618–907 CE) dynasties up until the ninth century. Neo-Confucianism is a later development of the tradition that arose in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries and continued down to the twentieth century. A twentieth-century form of Confucianism, arising in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States, is known as the New Confucianism.

Naturalistic Cosmology Chinese naturalism as a primary ingredient of Confucianism in its broadest sense is characterized by an organic holism and a dynamic vitalism. The organic holism of Confucianism refers to the fact that the universe is viewed as a vast integrated unit, not as discrete mechanistic parts. Nature is seen as unified, interconnected, and interpenetrating, constantly relating microcosm and macrocosm. This interconnectedness is already present in the early Confucian tradition in the I Ching, or Book of Changes, and in the Han correspondences of the elements with seasons, directions, colors, and even virtues.

This sense of naturalism and holism is distinguished by the view that there is no Creator God; rather, the universe is considered to be a self-generating, organismic process. 1 Confucians are traditionally concerned less with theories of origin or with concepts of a personal God than with what they perceive to be the ongoing reality of this self-generating, interrelated universe. This interconnected quality has been described by Tu Weiming as a “continuity of being.” 2 This implies a great chain of being, which is in continual process and transformation, linking inorganic, organic, and human life-forms. For the Confucians this linkage is a reality because all life is constituted of ch’i, the material force or psycho-physical element of the universe. This is the unifying element of the cosmos and creates the basis for a profound reciprocity between humans and the natural world.

This brings us to a second important characteristic of Confucian cosmology, namely, its quality of dynamic vitalism inherent in ch’i. It is material force as the substance of life that is the basis for the continuing process of change and transformation in the universe. The term, sheng sheng (production and reproduction), is used in Confucian and Neo-Confucian texts to illustrate the ongoing creativity and renewal of nature. Furthermore, it constitutes a sophisticated awarenessthat change is the basis for the interaction and continuation of the web of life systems—mineral, vegetable, animal, and human. And finally, it celebrates transformation as the clearest expression of the creative processes of life with which humans should harmonize their own actions. In essence, human beings are urged to “model themselves on the ceaseless vitality of the cosmic processes.” 3 This approach is an important key to Confucian thought in general, for a sense of holism, vitalism, and harmonizing with change provides the metaphysical basis on which an integrated morality can be developed. The extended discussions of the relationship of li (principle) to ch’i (material force) in Neo-Confucianism can be seen as part of the effort to articulate continuity and order in the midst of change. Li is the pattern amidst flux which provides a means of establishing harmony.

The Ethics of Self-Cultivation For the Confucian tradition as a whole, the idea of self-cultivation implies a “creative transformation” 4 such that one forms a triad with Heaven and Earth. This dynamic triad underlies the assumption of our interconnectedness to all reality and acts as an overriding goal of self-cultivation. Thus, through the deepening of this creative linkage with all things, human beings may participate fully in the transformative aspects of the universe. In doing so, they are participating in an anthropocosmic worldview rather than in an anthropocentric one. Tu Weiming uses this term to indicate that the human is a microcosm situated in the macrocosm of the universe itself. 5 This calls for a sense of relational resonance of the human with the cosmos rather than domination or manipulation of nature.

In cultivating their moral nature within this triad, then, human beings are entering into the cosmological processes of change and transformation. Just as the universe manifests this complex pattern of flux and fecundity, so do human beings nurture the seeds of virtue within themselves and participate in the human order in this process of ongoing transformation. This is elaborated especially by the Han Confucians and Sung Neo-Confucians through a specific understanding of a correspondence between virtues practiced by humans as having their natural counterpart in cosmic processes. For example, in his “Treatise on Humaneness” chu Hsi (1130–1200) speaks of the moral qualities of the mind of Heaven and Earth as four, namely, origination, flourish, advantage, and firmness. These correspond to the four moral qualities of humans, namely, humaneness, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. The cosmological and the human virtues are seen as part of one dynamic process of transformation in the universe. In Han Confucian thought these virtues are coordinated with seasons, directions, and colors.

The anthropocosmic view, then, of the human as forming a triad with Heaven and Earth and, indeed, affecting the growth and transformation of things through human self-cultivation and human institutions originates in Classical Confucianism, especially in Hsün Tzu (310–213 BCE), and finds one of its richest expressions in Chang Tsai’s Western Inscription (Hsi ming) in the eleventh century. This relationship of Heaven, Earth, and human becomes expressed as a parental one, and central to this metaphor is the notion of humans as children of the universe and responsible for its care and continuation.

To summarize, then, Confucianism may be a rich source for rethinking our own relationships between cosmology and ethics in light of present ecological concerns. Its organic holism and dynamic vitalism give us a special appreciation for the interconnectedness of all life-forms and renews our sense of the inherent value of this intricate web of life. The shared psycho-physical entity of ch’i becomes the basis for establishing a reciprocity between the human and nonhuman worlds. In this same vein, the ethics of self-cultivation and the nurturing of virtue in the Confucian tradition provide a broad framework for harmonizing with the natural world and completing one’s role in the triad. This is only suggestive of the rich possibilities available within the Confucian tradition for creating a more comprehensive ecological worldview and effective environmental ethics. The essays in this volume point toward such a range of intellectual resources in Confucianism for rethinking human-earth relations. This volume is but a beginning for future exploration.

Volume Overview In order to demonstrate the past, present, and potential Confucian contributions to contemporary ecological discussions, this volume is thematically organized into five major sections. The first section presents two leading Confucian scholars’ analyses of the present ecological crisis in relation to Enlightenment values. The second section outlines the context of Confucianism’s response to the contemporary debate on ecology in terms of worldviews, ethics, and philosophical reconceputalization. The third section presents a partial catalogue of conceptual resources for the task of critique and reconstruction. These materials are drawn from the long history of Confucianism within the East Asian cultural matrix. The fourth section presents a series of philosophic reflections on how Confucianism can add its distinctive voice to the growing global conversation about ecology. The fifth section demonstrates how Confucianism can cope with some very specific contemporary issues, critiques, and case studies.

The volume begins with a foreword to the entire series on religions of the world and ecology, in which the series editors remind us that Confucianism is only one of a number of religious traditions struggling to come to grips with contemporary environmental degradation. Religions have been continually challenged historically to respond to crisis and change. Yet the modern ecological crisis is unique in its scope and destructiveness. Never before has humankind had to question, as Tu Weiming warns, whether or not the human is a viable species. Furthermore, it is now clear that any long-term solution to the ecological crisis will be based on reformulating human values to include the relation of humans to nature. Consequently, religions, as one of the principle civilizational repositories of shared human values, must find ways individually and collectively to address the ecological crisis as a matter of fundamental moral principles and attitudes.

This volume on Confucianism and ecology focuses on the specific contributions of Confucianism to the present debate. The five sections address the ecological crisis in three overlapping modes. These are historical, dialogical, and engaged. A number of the essays approach the question of Confucianism from a historical perspective and describe how Confucianism in East Asia developed views of nature, social ethics, and cosmology, which may now shed light on contemporary problems. Chapters with a dialogical approach link the history of Confucianism to other philosophic and religious traditions. The most pertinent dialogue is that of Confucianism and modernity as embodied in the Enlightenment project. The third mode displays how Confucianism has been and is now involved in concrete ecological issues ranging from economic and industrial development to the role of women as agents of ecological transformation.

The volume begins with Tu Weiming’s critique of the Enlightenment mentality. Tu argues that the modern Enlightenment project is the dominant human ideology for any analysis of the present ecological crisis. In fact, according to Tu, there has never been a more pervasive human ideology. The Enlightenment project created the modern world, which has become slowly aware that its technology has let the genie of ecological disaster out of the bottle of modernity. What began in the West as a search for liberty, equality, and fraternity has led to unrestrained industrialization and unsustainable urban sprawl on both sides of the Pacific Rim and beyond.

Wm. Theodore de Bary’s response to Tu Weiming isolates two of Tu’s main points, the need for rootedness and localization. From de Bary’s point of view, one of the main problems of the Enlightenment is that our easy sense of being rooted in the cosmos was one of the casualties of modernization. We have lost a feeling of connectedness with our world and with humanity. De Bary reminds us that many modern Western thinkers have lamented the loss of community and cosmic solidarity as well. To prove his point, de Bary cites a long passage from Wendell Berry, the American poet-farmer turned ecological activist. Berry himself was stimulated by readings from the Confucian tradition. In the end, de Bary argues that both Berry and Tu follow the classic teaching of the Great Learning (Ta hsüeh) that moves from the cultivation of the self to the proper ordering of the world. In this context, any ordering of the world begins with relearning to protect our local bioregion, cherish our families, and find a way to live in a harmonious manner with the larger cosmos.

The second group of essays, by Rodney Taylor, P. J. Ivanhoe, and Michael Kalton, situates the Confucian response to the ecological crisis within the larger discussion of religion and the environment. Taylor, by reviewing how Confucians such as Tu Weiming and Okada Takehiko look at humanity’s place in the cosmos, comes to the conclusion that Confucianism has the resources for serving as a modern environmental philosophy. Although Confucianism is traditionally considered to be humanistic in focus, Confucians such as Chang Tsai (1020–1077) always viewed human beings as part of the larger cosmos. Taylor locates Confucianism’s contribution both in its historical past and as a dialogue partner for Western philosophers and theologians. Ivanhoe extends the discussion to relate early Confucian reflections on nature to contemporary theories of environmental philosophy. Ivanhoe shows how it is possible to link the thought of Hsün Tzu to the analytical side of modern philosophy. Here again we see how Confucianism, although deeply committed to human flourishing, is always embedded in a primordial cosmic reality. Ivanhoe explains how Hsün Tzu was deeply impressed with the coordination of nature and how human beings must learn to play a role within the larger web of life. This is described in the Confucian cosmology of the interaction of Heaven, Earth, and humans.

Kalton moves on from the historical richness of the Confucian tradition to ask how it can be reconceptualized for the twenty-first century. Kalton builds on the history of Confucian thought and envisions what a modern Confucian philosophy would have to look like in order to be sensitive to the ecological crisis. He shows how this can be done by taking key Neo-Confucian ideas such as principle (li), material force (ch’i), and self-cultivation and applying them to the contemporary situation. He underscores the importance of Confucian reflections on principle and the vital matrix of material force for constructively reconceptualizing our relations with the natural world.

The next section deals in greater detail with various conceptual resources drawn from the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese contexts. Tu Weiming begins with a classic statement of the Confucian concern for the continuity of being. It is this Chinese Confucian focus on the relatedness of being that Tu holds up as the foundation for future Confucian ecological speculations. It is a statement of Tu’s vision of the anthropocosmic nature of Confucianism as an inclusive humanism that is rooted in the regenerative rhythms of the cosmos.

Joseph Adler returns to one of the founding figures of Neo-Confucianism, Chou Tun-i (1017–1073). Adler attends to a key cosmological metaphor of responsiveness (ying) as a method to unlock Chou’s vision of nature and humanity. Adler provides us with careful readings of some of Chou’s texts that reveal how this seminal thinker demonstrated that Confucian social ethics ought to be expanded to include the natural world as well. As Adler reminds us, the Neo-Confucians were famous for their sensitive understanding of living things, so much so that it was reported that Chou was worried about cutting the grass outside the window of his study.

Toshio Kuwako focuses his attention on the thought of Chu Hsi (1130–1200), the grand synthesizer of the Northern and Southern Sung Neo-Confucian philosophy. According to Kuwako, Chu’s genius lay in his ability to take the more random reflections of his Sung colleagues and weave them into a coherent philosophic whole. One of Chu’s chief concerns was to demonstrate that the virtue of humaneness (jen) not only refers to humanity but to the correlation of all living beings and nature.

The next two essays, by Young Chan Ro and Mary Evelyn Tucker, continue the historical discussion of the Confucian resources for ecology through the exploration of the crucial concept of material force (ch’i). In addition to being one of the paramount concepts in the pan-East Asian philosophic lexicon, ch’i functions as a prime resource for reflections on nature and cosmology. Ro guides us through an examination of the Korean Yi Yulgok (1536–1584), one of the most famous of the Yi dynasty Neo-Confucian philosophers. As Ro explains, Yulgok was known for his balanced presentation of ch’i as the connective cosmological link between all beings. Ch’i operates as a foundation for all ecosystems and allows for a place for both humanity and all other entities. In fact, if we consider Yulgok’s arguments seriously, then we must attend to nature as an interconnected web of nature that we disregard at our own peril. Tucker’s essay surveys the broad theme of ch’i in key Chinese Neo-Confucian figures. She then discusses how the Japanese Neo-Confucian Kaibara Ekken (1630–1714) developed an ecological philosophy based on ch’i theory. As with Kuwako and Ro, Tucker makes the case that reflection on ch’i is not only important for our understanding of the East Asian development of Neo-Confucianism but may also provide us with a way to think about humanity and nature in a global context.

The next three chapters are broad-ranging philosophic reflections on contemporary ecological concerns. Chung-ying Cheng attempts a complex interweaving of cosmology, ecology, and ethics. Cheng argues that at the heart of the Confucian vision lies an inclusive humanism based on the relational patterns of the Book of Changes (I Ching). Cheng believes that if we can revive this kind of relational, processive axiology, then we have an opportunity to reverse the dualistic and agonistic patterns of thought that have dominated Western philosophy since the Enlightenment. In much the same spirit, John Berthrong tries to show how Classical Confucian metaphors can be employed by modern New Confucians as they seek to respond to the ecological crisis. Building on the work of Mou Tsung-san, one of the most important of the New Confucians, Berthrong illustrates how the fundamental trait of concern-consciousness can guide the tradition into a strengthened understanding of nature. Robert Neville concludes the trio of philosophic studies by advancing the notion of “posture,” or “orientation,” as important for Confucian ecological reflection. For Neville, posture is related to the notion of ritual or habit, namely, how a human being relates effectively and reciprocally to the wider world, including both humans and nature. Clearly, one of the pressing concerns of the modern world is for humanity to find a balanced way or structure, such as is suggested in the Doctrine of the Mean (Chung yung), that allows for the intrinsic value of nature to be preserved and enhanced as it pertains to human flourishing.

The final triad of essays, by Huey-li Li, Seiko Goto and Julia Ching, and Robert Weller and Peter Bol, move from the theoretical to the practical. As Li notes, whatever rich resources the Confucian tradition might have to contribute to contemporary concerns, many feminists remain unconvinced. Feminists often charge that Confucianism is incurably patriarchal in structure. Li underscores the inevitable contradictions between theories and practices. She observes that despite numerous Taoist and Confucian texts focusing on the unity of nature and humanity, modern East Asia is as highly industrialized and polluted as many other parts of the world. However, Li argues that if we pay proper attention to the notion of heaven (t’ien), we might find a means to address ecofeminist critiques of Confucianism in a constructive manner.

Goto and Ching remind us that not all cultural exchanges occur exclusively through the medium of ideas. They provide us with a study of two famous parks, Kosihikawa Korakuen Park in Japan and the Würlitzer Park in Germany. In outlining some of the Confucian influences on landscape gardening, Goto and Ching underscore the broader cultural and aesthetic matrix in which Confucianism spread beyond China to East Asia and even to the West.

In the final chapter, Robert Weller and Peter Bol directly address the present ecological crisis by asking: How is it possible to promote sound ecological attitudes and policies in contemporary China? They point out that Chinese cosmology is based on a theory of cosmic resonances that shows nature is best understood in terms of pulsating harmonies. Another feature of the Weller and Bol essay is an exploration of popular culture as illustrated by the continued use of traditional almanacs and the persistence of feng shui, or geomancy. The authors note that, as modern Taiwanese try to deal with ecological degradation, they often resort to the language of kinship and cosmic resonance. Whatever ideological means the Chinese may involve in formulating sound ecological policies, some of the underlying motivations and explanations will, no doubt, continue to rely on traditional sources. 6

The essays in this volume, then, show a living Confucian tradition seeking to find a useful retrieval of resources to respond adequately to the growing destruction of the environment in Asia and beyond. Of course, the Confucian world is not alone in this task. All the major religious traditions have become more aware in recent years of the challenge presented by unrestrained development and subsequent pollution. Moreover, they are ever more conscious that, although they may have resources to construct better attitudes and policies toward nature, they have not done so adequately in the past. While further research and discussion is vital, this volume is meant to be an initial step toward lessening the divide between rich conceptual resources and efficacious environmental practices in the contemporary world.

1 Frederick F. Mote, Intellectual Foundations of China (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971) 17–18. Return to text

2 See Tu Weiming’s article, included in this volume, “The Continuity of Being: Chinese Visions of Nature,” originally published in Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation, Tu Weiming (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1985) Return to text

3 Tu Weiming, Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation, 39. Professor Tu notes, “For this reference in the Chou I, see A Concordance to Yi-Ching, Harvard Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series Supplement no. 10 (reprint; Taipei: Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center, Inc., 1966), 1/1.” Return to text

4 See Tu Weiming’s essays in Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation. Return to text

5 Tu Weiming uses the term “anthropocosmic” widely. See especially, Weiming, Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation and Centrality and Commonality. Return to text

6 The understanding of the ecological role of traditional sources, such as geomancy and Chinese medicine, is discussed by E. N. Anderson in Ecologies of the Heart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Return to text

    Copyright © 1998 Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School. Reprinted with permission.

Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Confucianism — The Significance of the Concepts of Confucianism

The Significance of The Concepts of Confucianism

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Confucianism: Its Components and Relation to the Society Essay

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Introduction

Components of confucius’s thought, the society that confucius envisioned, why confucianism is popular with the chinese rulers.

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Confucius (K’ung-fu-Tzu, 551-479 BC) is one of the most prominent sages -at the same time dominating also- of ancient time who have swayed the political and moral arenas of different nations over the world. His scholarly teaching and thoughts emerged as the most dominant philosophy over the vast east of Asia. Throughout the passage of the upheaval of different dynasties his moral and political doctrines shaped and had been manipulated to shape the people’s life of this region. Through the adoption of Confucius’s doctrines in the Han Dynasty Confucianism grew into one of the three religions, (Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism) though Confucianism is more of a philosophy than a religion.

But why Confucianism was adopted by the Han Dynasty is probably the sole reason for its survival and popularity with the ruling class throughout the centuries. The instant success of the doctrine was to present a stable and sustaining society. But at the same time, it was able to compose a society unquestionably submissive to the rulers. Consequently, it retained its appeal to them. The causes of the success of Confucianism lie beneath the context in which he composed this philosophy. The misery of the war-torn society of his age worked as an inspiration for him to preach his moral and political doctrine. The society that he envisioned is illustrated in different approaches. His primary focus was on social relations, proper code of conduct, and social peace and harmony. As a result, his teachings were widely accepted by the Chinese rulers as a state education for the citizens to make them loyal. One of Confucius’s Quotations -“ Let a father be a father, a son a son, and a king a king ” -( A Misfit: The LTA in Our Confucian Society)went well with the rulers as it asserts the role of king to be the king of the people without any clear-cut answer what the people should do in case of their rulers’ delinquency.

The primary concern of Confucius is the misery and the distress prevailing in the society because of the immorality of its people. He presents ideas and thoughts to remove these immoralities. He was concerned with the improvement of the government’s and society’s level of morality. “He was convinced that the problem with government and society was a lack of virtue.”

Almost all the virtuous qualities of Confucius’ consideration are stated in the above description. Sincerity, a willingness to learn, restrained desire for material things, and loyalty’ are the key terms of the moral life of man. He also advocated a form of moral life that includes filial piety, knowledge of ritual and poetry, humility, self-cultivation, and a code of conduct. Confucius argued,

“If you are virtuous, people will be attracted to you (and, if you are a ruler, your government), willing to provide you with help and information, and happily follow orders.”

The stages of Confucius’ moral doctrine can be defined, according to the ethical pattern of western philosophy, as Being, Doing and Ends’. (Confucius K’ung fu-Tzu or Kongfuzi ) His philosophy bears similarity to that of Immanuel Kant. Through these fundamental virtues benevolence, charity, humanity, love,’ a human being exists. Confucius defines it as “Aì rén,” “love others.” A human being exists as a corporate part of society by his Doing or Means. This is the Yì ‘ in Confucian thought. Morality, the duty to one’s neighbor, and righteousness are its features. Confucius said, “The gentleman ( chün Tzu ,) understands yì . The small/mean man ( Hsiao-Jen ,) understands lì .” Again the master says, “what you don’t want yourself, don’t do to others”.

‘Profit, gain, advantage’ are not considered to be a proper motive for life. In Confucian thought longings for material gain is the mother of all wrong. This is the source of temptation therefore it is to be checked. Indeed the essence of Confucian morality is the restraint of self-interest. But this is not complete self-denial as the limitation is clearly marked by the necessity of the self so far as it is not harmful to others.

The society that Confucius envisions completely pivots on morality. As a result of Confucius’ focus is on virtuosity, stable social relation, and proper conduct as prerequisites of social harmony. Huanyin states that “[w’hat he considers as the problem of his society is the lack of virtue.

Confucius’s pupil Zizhang stated: “A public servant who on confronting danger is prepared to lay down his life, who on confronting gain concentrates on what is right, who when sacrificing concentrates on reverence,..”

Five types of relationships in society have been explained by Confucius. The harmony and proper feedback to these cardinal relationships are considered to compose his society. These are the relationship between dominant and dominated, between spouses classification is mainly based on the fact of superiority and inferiority. For social peace and harmony, Confucius stresses loyalty and complete submission, the obedience of the inferior to the superior. As in an ideal Confucian family, authority rested with the elderly male members the power of a country comes down on the elder and elite of the society. “Filial piety (obedience to parents) was one of the most important virtues emphasized by later Confucians”.

The drive of Confucian society is Be humble, obedient, trustworthy, and loyal’ to whom you should be. Though ironical enough, it is true that his loyalty’ (zhong) often turns to be blind loyalty’ or absolute obedience. As a result at one point Confucius society becomes absolutely obedient to the authority regardless of their right or wrong. After all Confucius’ society lays importance on the educational and cultural cultivation of the mind of its people. Self-cultivation, ritual, education, and filial piety are the keywords of Confucian sZhongy.

The popularity of Confuciani, Confucius’s Chinese rulers over the centuries is due to its political instructions much of which other dominating isms of this continent devoid. First, it was adopted by the Han dynasty in as “the official moral and political doctrine of the State”.

Since then through the ups and downs of human history Confucianism prevailed over the continent till 1911. After the upheaval of Communism in China the popularity of Confucianism was choked by the communist rulers of the country. Being adopted by the Han dynasty around 200 BC Confucianism had retained its popularity with both the people and the rulers for about 2500 years. One thing that is remarkable in the adoption and the application of Confucianism by the ruler is that it was adopted as a process of examining and culturing the state official. It is stated in the following line:

“As for the recruitment of officials, examinations based on Confucianism, as applied in China, were organized over….eleven centuries (from 788 to 1893 AD).”

Firstly the reason for the popularity of Confucius with the Chinese rulers lies in the fact that it was able to compose a society loyal to its superiors. Secondly, Confucianism was able to establish a stable and harmonious society. According to Confucius a ruler who is to apply force is a total failure as a ruler’, but at the same time when he says,” Your job is to govern, not to kill” ( Analects XII:19) people are to keep their faith in the royal pocket of the society. Ages after ages over Confucianism fed back the loyalty of the society to its authority and in return, it had enjoyed the utmost favor of the rulers.

Indeed the moral terminologies of Confucianism, its effectiveness in building a harmonious and loyal society, and its popularity among the Chinese rulers over the centuries are intertwined with one another. The thoughts of Confucius attempt to make them loyal and trustworthy to the superior, whether the superior is of the country or of the family. When it makes people loyal and submissive to the elder’s family or of a community, it is fully successful to build a harmonious and peaceful society but it is more successful in creating a loyal environment in the society. Consequently, it has enjoyed the favor of the rulers.

China-Window, (n.d.). Philosophies & Religions- Confucianism Chines . Web.

Encyclopedia of Myths. (2007). Chinese Mythology . Web.

Huanyin, Yang. CONFUCIUS (K’UNG TZU). Review of Comparative Education . Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol. XXIII, no. 1/2, 1993. p.211-19.

Lorenz, Megaera. (2007). What Confucius Thought. Web.

Ross, L. Kelley. (2007). Confucius- K’ung-fu-Tzu or Kongfuzi. Web.

The Analects of Confucius.

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