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| Confucius' names | |
|---|---|
| Chinese name: | 孔夫子 or 孔子 |
| Pinyin: | Kǒng Fūzǐ or Kǒng Zǐ |
| Wade-Giles: | K'ung Fu-tzu |
| Actual name | 孔丘, Kǒng Qiū: |
| Courtesy name | 仲尼, Zhòng Ní |
Confucius (traditionally 551 BC - 479 BC) was a famous sage and social philosopher of China. His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, and gained popularity mostly due to its firm grounding in traditional Chinese attitudes. His influence on Chinese civilization cannot be overestimated; it has also spread widely over Japan, Korea and Vietnam, especially through Confucianism, the doctrine developed by his disciples and commentators. The Analects of Confucius is a short book relating his discussions with disciples and is where one can closely discover his thinking.
According to tradition, Confucius was born in 551 BC (during the Spring and Autumn Period, at the begining of the Hundred Schools of Thought philosophical momentum) in the Chinese State of Lu (魯國) (the area is now part of present-day Shandong Province and was culturally and geographically close to the royal mansion of Zhou). He was the son of a waned noble family who had recently fled from the State of Song. His father died when he was three and he grew up in very poor conditions with his mother. His social ascendancy links him to the growing class of Shi (士), between old nobility and common people, which became later the prominent class of Literati because of the cultural and intellectual skills they shared.
When he was a child, he is said to have liked placing ritual vases on the sacrifice table. As a young man he was a minor administrative manager in the State of Lu and gained the position of minister of Justice. It is said that, after several years, disapproving of the politics of his Prince, he resigned. At about age fifty, seeing no way to improve the government, he gave up his political career in Lu, and began a twelve year journey around China, seeking the "Way" and trying unsuccessfully to convince many different rulers to share his political beliefs and to push them into reality. Around sixty, he came back to his motherland and spent the last years of his life teaching an increasing number of disciples, trying to share with them his experiences and to transmit the old wisdom via a set of books called the Five Classics.
In the Analects, where one can find the closest descriptions of him, Confucius presents himself as a transmitter who invented nothing and his greatest emphasis may be the one on study, the Chinese character that opens the book. In this respect, he is mostly seen by Chinese people as a Great Teacher, or a Master. Far from trying to build a systematic theory of life and society, he wanted his disciples to both think deeply by themselves and study relentlessly the outside world, mostly through the old scriptures relating past political events (like in the Annals) or past feelings of common people (like in the Book of Odes). In these times of division, chaos and endless wars between feudal states, he wanted to restore the Mandate of Heaven that could unify the "world" (i.e. China) and give peace and prosperity to the people. In this respect, Confucius is considered as a great proponent of conservatism. But a closer look at what he proposes often shows that he used (and maybe twisted) past institutions and rites to push a new political agenda of his own : He wanted rulers to be chosen regarding their merit, not their parentage. He wanted the rulers to be devoted to their people. He wanted the ruler to reach perfection for himself, thus spreading the virtues he had to the people, instead of impose proper behaviors by the mean of laws and rules.
One of the deepest teaching of Confucius, and one of the hardest to understand from a Western point of view, may have been the superiority of exemplarity over explicit rules of behavior. His ethics may be considered as one of the greatest virtue ethics. This kind of "indirect" way to achieve a goal is used widely in his teachings, where allusions, innuendo, even tautology are common ways he express himself. That a reason why his sentences have to be commented and put into proper context to be accessed by Westerners. A good example can be found in this famous anecdote :
What seems to be a matter of tiny importance has been long commented and shows another of the confucian specificities that have to be underlined. When one knows that at his times horses were maybe ten times more expensive than stablemen, one can understand that, by "not asking for the horses", Confucius showed his priorities, his great priority : Human beings. Thus, when one get a little bit of the great shape, according to many ancient or recent Eastern and Western commentators, Confucius' teaching can be considered as a noteworthy Chinese variant of Humanism.
However, Confucius also emphasised heavily on what he calls "rites and music", referring to this couple of social conventions as two poles able to balance order and harmony. While rites are, in short, showing off social hierarchies, music is unifying the hearts in the same enjoyment. He obviously added that rites aren't only the proper to arrange sacrificial tools, and music isn't only the sounds off stick on bells. Both are ways back and forth between the inside of someone and his social context. Both are feeding social relationships, like the five prototypical ones : between father and son, husband and wife, prince and subject, and between friends. Duties are always balanced and if a subject must obey to his ruler, he has to tell him when he's wrong.
Confucius' teachings have been turned later into a corps de doctrine by his numerous disciples and followers. In the centuries after his death, Mencius and Xun Zi both wrote prominent books on those, and with time a philosophy has been elaborated, which is known in the West as Confucianism.
See main article : Confucianism
Although Confucianism is usually followed in a religious manner by the Chinese, argument continues over whether to refer to it as a religion because it makes little reference to theological or spiritual matters (God(s), the afterlife, etc.).
Confucius's principles gained wide acceptance primarily because of their basis in common Chinese opinion. He championed strong familial loyalty, ancestor worship, and respect of elders by their children and of husbands by their wives, and used the family as a basis for an ideal government. He expressed the well-known principle to not do to others what you do not want done to yourself (the Golden Rule). He also looked nostalgically upon earlier days, and urged the Chinese, particularly the politicians, to model themselves on earlier examples – although whether or not older rulers had governed by Confucian standards is dubious.
The Confucian theory of ethics is based on three important concepts:
While Confucius grew up, li (禮) referred to three aspects of life, that of sacrificing to the gods, social and political institutions, and daily behaviour. It was believed that li originated from the heavens. Confucius redefined li arguing it flowed not from heaven but from humanity. He redefined li to refer to all actions committed by a person to build the ideal society. Li to Confucius became every action by a person aiming at meeting the person's surface desires. These can be either good or bad. Generally attempts to obtain short term pleasure are bad while those that in the long term try to make your life better are generally good.
To Confucius, yi (義) was the origin of li. Yi can best be translated as righteousness. While doing things because of li, your own self interest, was not necessarily bad, you would be a better, more righteous person if you base your life upon following yi. This means that rather than pursuing your own selfish interests you should do what is right and what is moral. Yi is based upon reciprocity. An example of living by yi is how you must mourn your father and mother for three years after their death. Since they took care of you for the first three years of your life you must reciprocate by living in mourning for three years.
Just as li flows out of yi, so yi flows out of ren (仁). Ren can best be translated as human heartedness. His moral system was based upon empathy and understanding others, rather than divinely ordained rules. To live by ren was even better than living by the rules of yi. To live by ren one used another Confucian version of the Golden Rule: he argued that you must always treat your inferiors just as you would want your superiors to treat you. Virtue under Confucius is based upon harmony with others, very different from the Aristotelian view of virtue being personal excellence.
Confucius' political thought is based upon his ethical thought. He argues that the best government is one that rules through "rites" and people's natural morality, rather than using bribery and force. He explained this in one of the most important analects : 1. "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." (Translated by James Legge) This "sense of shame" is somewhat an internalization of duty, where the punishment precedes the evil action, instead of following it in the form of laws as in Legalism.
While he supported the idea of the all-powerful Emperor, probably because of the chaotic state of China at his time, his philosophies contained a number of elements to limit the power of the rulers. He argued for according language with truth - thus honesty was of the most paramount importance. Even in facial expression, one sought always to achieve this. In discussing the relationship between a son and his father (or a subject and his King), he underlined the need to give due respect to superiors; this demanded that the inferior must give advice to his superior if the superior was considered to be taking the wrong course of action in a given situation.
This was built upon by his disciple Mencius to argue that if the King was not acting like a King, he would lose the Mandate of Heaven and be overthrown. Therefore, tyrannicide is justified because a tyrant is more a thief than a King (but attempted tyrannicide is not).
In many ways his political theory resembles that of Roman Stoicism.
China's political history is remarkable for its continuity and stability, in a large part due to Confucianism.
Confucius' philosophical school was first continued by his direct disciples and by his grandson Zisi. Mencius and Xun Zi are his two great followers, one on each "side" of his philosophy, perhaps simply described as optimism and pessimism. They built upon and expanded his ethico-political system.
His descendants were identified and honored by the imperial government. They were honoured the rank of a marquis 35 times since Gaozu of the Han Dynasty, and they were promoted to the rank of duke 42 times from the Tang Dynasty to 1935. One of the most common titles is Duke Yansheng (衍聖公 Yǎnshèng gōng), which means "overflowing with sainthood." The latest descendant is K'ung Te-ch'eng (孔德成 Kǒng Déchéng) (born 1920), who is the 77th generation and a professor in the National Taiwan University.
Since early after Confucius' death, Qufu, his hometown, has been the place for devotions and remembrance of the master. It is still a main destination for cultural tourism, and many Chinese people go to visit his grave and the surrounding temples. In China, there are many temples where one can find together representations of Buddha, Lao Zi and Confucius. However, there are also many temples dedicated to him that have been used for Confucianist ceremonies.
The following is a list of temples that are dedicated to Confucius:
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