Confucius is perhaps the most famous philosopher to come from China. He is credited with having founded a school of thought based on personal, moral ethics, duty and filial piety (i.e. loving and respecting one's parents). However, much of what is attributed to Confucianism has really been added to his real life thinking and teaching under the guise of what has been called neo-Confucianism. In this article, the facts that we have about Confucius and his ideas is reviewed.
His Life and Times
Confucius is the westernised names given by much later Jesuit Priests to the teacher and philosopher known as Master Kung (or Kung Fu). The traditional dates given for his life are 551-479 BCE. His career was initially rather undistinguished, having been born into a small state whose rulers relentlessly refused to listen to the advice he wished to offer them. China at this time was struggling through the Warring States period, in which a patchwork of small, rival states were fighting each other for temporal and military supremacy. A general breakdown of law and order as a result of the fighting, therefore, led many to complain that the whole world had been turned upside down and things had been much better in the past.
Disappointed, he turned to a peripatetic life in which he wandered from state to state, offering advice, teaching those who wished to learn from him and practicing his own virtues. He is renowned to have been an excellent teacher and it is believed that he was responsible at least in part for many of the text that he required his students to learn by heart.
The Confucian Philosophy
Most of what we know of the philosophy of Confucius is based on the loosely-structured collection of his sayings, Lun-yu, which we know as the Analects. Certain other texts are believed to have been created by him or by his followers.
In contrast to other schools of thought of the time, Confucius dealt with the moral and ethical development of the individual - this contrasted with the idea that virtue was innate in the nobility. Confucius argued that every individual had the responsibility to study moral philosophy and to develop important virtues personally. These included jen, which relates to demonstrating a kindly disposition, i, which means following the rules of society and shu, which is concerned with the sense of reciprocity and respect for others. The essence of Confucianism is the interconnectedness of individuals and society and the need for each to respect the other. It was an ideal philosophy, therefore, for helping to maintain control during times of social disorder and this helps to explain its great popularity in China throughout the centuries.
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