History
Confucianism
Confucianism is a philosophical and ethical system based on the teachings of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher who lived during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. It emphasizes the importance of moral values, social harmony, and the cultivation of virtues such as benevolence, righteousness, and filial piety. Confucianism has had a profound influence on Chinese culture, society, and governance throughout history.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
11 Key excerpts on "Confucianism"
- Jingyuan Ma, Mel Marquis(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Lewis, China: Its History and Culture, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2004). 26 Chan and Young, ‘Confucian Principles of Governance’, at 10–11. As noted in Chapter 1 (Section 1.2), the principle of righteousness, or yi (also sometimes translated as ‘appro- priateness’) was of particular importance in the development of Korean Confucianism. See Chen Lai, ‘Historical and Cultural Features of Confucianism in East Asia’, in Roger T. Ames and Peter D. Hershock (eds.), Confucianisms for a Changing World Cultural Order (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2017) 102–111, at 109–110. 27 See Cynthia Ho and Kylie A. Redfern, ‘Consideration of the Role of Guanxi in the Ethical Judgments of Chinese Managers’ (2010) 96 Journal of Business Ethics 207, 208. 28 See Ip, ‘Is Confucianism Good for Business Ethics in China?’, 465. 29 See ibid. at 466. between individuals, within a family, and between the State and its subjects, resulting in a peaceful and prosperous society for all human beings. 30 2.2 The Impact of Confucian Culture in East Asia Starting from the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), Confucian doctrines began to dominate the ideological system in imperial China. 31 The seventh Han emperor, Han Wu Di (156–87 BCE), took the advice of Tung Chung-Shu (179–104 BCE) and adopted Confucianism as the ideological compass by which to steer the State. 32 The influence of Confucian thinking was thus explicitly extended beyond cultural and social life to political systems. 33 In later years, Confucian thinking spread to Korea and Japan. 34 Most scholars agree that Confucianism has been one of the most influential schools of thought underlying the value systems in East Asia 35 and that it has had a profound impact not only on individuals and societies but also on modern business conduct.
eBook - PDF- Edward Jabra Jurji(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
Confucianism L E W I S HODOUS THE Confucian group has had a continuous history for about twenty-five centuries. For almost twenty centuries it has been the ruling group. During these years the Chinese built up and held together the largest social-political structure in history. While many forces cooperated in this process Confucianism was the formative one. Today at Chu-fu the descendants of Confucius are carrying on the cult to their great ancestor and the great teacher of China. According to Y. C. Yang all Chinese are basically Confucianists with a leaning toward Buddhism and Taoism. Confucianism is a modern term coined by the Catholic mis- sionaries. The Chinese employ the term Ju-chia, literati, mean- ing the followers of the teaching of Confucius which was in- herited from the sages of antiquity, embodied in the classics, interpreted by the commentators and philosophers, and now is in process of adjustment to the modern world. Confucius (551-479 B.C.) lived in an age when the feudal system and its institutions were dying and a new China was emerging. He was of humble origin. Up to the age of thirty-five he was unknown. He studied the ancient governments and cere- monies and established a school in which he trained a few dis- ciples. In the latter half of his life he visited different states seeking an opportunity to put his teaching into practice, but the rulers of these states were too much occupied in holding their insecure positions to pay much attention to him. The China of his day consisted of a number of states under the Chou emperor. In the early years of the dynasty, when the royal prestige was high, the emperor was able to settle quarrels between claimants for political power in the various states. But after 800 B.C. the authority of the ruler was disregarded by the vassals. Strife and confusion followed. The strong conquered I Confucianism and absorbed the weak. The cement which held the feudal social order was cracking and disintegrating.
eBook - PDFFrom the Great Wall to Wall Street
A Cross-Cultural Look at Leadership and Management in China and the US
- Wei Yen(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
133 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 W. Yen, From the Great Wall to Wall Street, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33008-2_8 8 While core Chinese values have remained substantially intact, some have been challenged by modern ways of life. Let’s see how they fare below. Confucianism as the Official School of Thought The Qin Dynasty fell apart shortly after the emperor died. Although it lasted for only 15 years, it was one of the most spectacular dynasties in Chinese history. In the end, high taxes and brutality led to a peasant revolt that toppled the regime. The new Han Dynasty took its place. At around 140 BC, Emperor Han Wudi resurrected Confucianism and mandated it as the official school of thought. The new Confucianism attempted to define a perfect social order—one that was derived from nature and existed in harmony with it. It also tied human behavior with Heaven’s Way. This implies a basic sense of fairness that is universal and non-violable, regardless of who is in power. Contemporary Expressions of Tradition Pillars of Confucianism Confucianism encapsulates the beliefs of the ancient Chinese. It presupposes that humans possess four basic virtues: Ren ( ӱ) for empa- thy and benevolence; Yi ( ѹ) for righteousness and justice; Li ( ⽬) for etiquette and respect for others; and Zhi ( Ც) for wisdom and intellect. Besides the four virtues, moderation ( ѝᓨ), frugality ( ᓹ) and humil- ity ( 㙫) are considered important qualities. Although these are consid- ered innate qualities, they must be embellished with education. Confucius holds that the four virtues are the qualities of a gentleman, which in feudal times literally meant a prince. A Confucian gentleman is the polar opposite of the despicable petty person, who has no fine qualities and is selfish, full of self-pity, jealous of others’ success and lacking in self-discipline. Mencius (372–289 BC) also provided significant insights into human nature.
eBook - PDFThe East Asian Region
Confucian Heritage and Its Modern Adaptation
- Gilbert Rozman(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
The Analects, Classic of Filial Piety, and other texts were part of the reading of every courtier. Confucian rituals were practiced within the court. Confu- cian ideas of hierarchy under heaven were used with Shinto and Buddhism to buttress imperial authority. The Confucian emphasis on man as a social being and on morality as fundamentally social and hierarchical, expressed in observance of the five cardinal relation- ships (ruler-subject, father-son, husband-wife, elder and younger brother, and friends), had been introduced. So too had the Confu- cian emphasis on duties to superiors and society and the disregard for assertions of "rights." Some efforts had been made to impose Confucian values from above in the area of kinship and family life. 124 COLLCUTT Values of filiality, loyalty, and ordered hierarchy important to Con- fucians had come to influence the family life of the nobility. These influences persisted and, as suggested by the Nihon ryoiki, probably trickled down slowly to other strata of society. But at the same time, recognizing the interplay of complementary currents of thought, it is difficult to conclude that Japan was Confucianized in this period, or even that the nobility was influenced exclusively by Confucianism. Confucian values were advocated most vigorously in the Nara and early Heian periods. Thereafter, they tended to be diluted, as Bud- dhism and the amalgam of Buddhism and Shinto known as honji sui- jaku thought gained greater sway. THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD: Confucianism AND THE "UNITY OF THE THREE CREEDS" Confucian influences persisted in medieval Japan—the Kamakura and Muromachi eras—but they were weaker than they had been in the ancient period and were contained more in the realm of intellec- tual life than in that of ritual or family values. With the decline of the state-sponsored daigakuryd and the provincial colleges, study of Con- fucianism was restricted to a few families among the lesser nobility.
eBook - PDFConfucianism in Context
Classic Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, East Asia and Beyond
- Wonsuk Chang, Leah Kalmanson, Wonsuk Chang, Leah Kalmanson(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- SUNY Press(Publisher)
Surely, the origins of Confucianism could be traced back much farther than Confucius himself. In ancient East Asia, the Han culture in central China flourished and interacted with peripheral “barbarian” cultures in eastern China. The Analects 9.14 records: “The Master wanted to go and live in the area of nine clans of the Eastern Yi barbarians. Someone asked, ‘What would you do about their crudeness?’ The Master replied, ‘Were an exemplary person to live among them, what crudeness could there be?’ ” 2 This gives proof that the nine clans of Yi barbarians in sixth century BCE 35 The History of Confucianism in Korea were recognized as a civilization in which an exemplary person could live. The Kojosŏn or “Old Chosŏn” kingdom (2333 BCE–57 CE), the earliest state in Korean history (not to be confused with the Chosŏn dynasty founded in 1392), seems to be located in the lands of the eastern Yi barbarians. If Confucianism emerged in ancient times through the interactions of diverse cultures such as the Han and the other nine clans of Yi, then the culture of Kojosŏn should be included in the history of Confucianism. The following passage by Ch’oe Ch’iwon (b. 875), a prominent politician and philosopher of his day, confirms this point: The country has a way of mystery, p’ungnyu . . . . In fact, [ p’ungnyu ] includes the three teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism and transforms people in touch with it. Thus, filial piety at home and doing one’s utmost for the country are teachings of the Justice Minister in Lu; non-verbal teachings with non-coercive action are the essential tenets of librarians in Zhou; and practicing what is good without committing wrongdoing is a precept of princes in India. 3 This incomplete passage may be a noteworthy record describing the origins of Korean thought.
eBook - PDFInside Japanese Business: A Narrative History 1960-2000
A Narrative History 1960-2000
- Makota Ohtsu, Tomio Imanari(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Fourth, learning is regarded as essential in gaining virtues, and government by learned rnen is considered ideal. Confucianism quickly spread after Confucius's death, and during the Han dynasty (202 B.C. to A.D. 220), it became the official teaching at the National University and thousands of local schools run by the government. Succes-sive dynasties promoted Confucianism to varying degrees. Confucianism in Tokugawa Japan Although Confucianism was introduced into Japan in A.D. 285, it was not until the Tokugawa era (1600-1868) that serious attention was given to it by political leaders and intellectuals. The Tokugawa era was preceded by the Warring Period of more than a century characterized by aseries of wars and power politics among the regional warlords and by the complete collapse of 32 INSIDE JAPANESE BUSINESS: A NARRATIVE HISTORY, 1960-2000 political authority and social norms . The biggest problem for the founder of the Tokugawa military govemment, Ieyasu (1542-1616), therefore, was how to maintain the national unity and peace that he had achieved with his mili-tary power. Aware of the role of Confucianism during the Han dynasty, Ieyasu quickly tumed to Confucianism as a means of legitimizing his regime and as a set of principles for goveming the nation (Hwang 1982: 316, 325). For it to become a practical political ideology, however, certain modifica-tions were needed to fit Chinese Confucianism to Japan's realities at the time. Hayashi Razan (1583-1657), a follower of the Neo-Confucianism of Cheng -Chu,undertook the task of the Japanization of Confucianism and created the Japanese version of Neo-Confucianism. Thereafter, the Hayashi family became the official Confucian advisors to the military govemment. Under Razan the basic Confucian values mentioned earlier were reinter-preted or modified. First, harrnony,' the basic Confucian social goal, was reinterpreted to mean the maintenance of national unity and peace under Tokugawa rule.
eBook - PDFChina's Great Transformation
Selected Essays on Confucianism, Modernization, and Democracy
- Ambrose Yeo-chi King(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- The Chinese University of Hong Kong(Publisher)
The Individual and Group in Confucianism: A Relational Perspective 1 Confucius developed a humanistic ethics in a man-centered world. 1 For a Confucian, the basic concern is the social life here and now. How to establish a secular harmonious world is the basic theoretical and practical question the Confucians have to address. Confucians focus on the organic relation-ship between the individual and society and consider the two inseparable and interdependent. As we shall see, the prob-lem is that “society” is only vaguely defined, as is the idea of “group” if one is referring to a unit larger than the family. Ren , “perfect virtue” (James Legge), or “benevolence” (D. C. Lau), is the highest attainment of moral cultivation. 2 In Confucian ethics, ren can only be achieved by the efforts of the individual self ( ji ). This means that Confucius regards the individual as an active self which is capable of reaching a state of moral autonomy and achieving sagehood. The cornerstone of Confucian ethics, shu , or “reciprocity,” in the last analysis can only be accomplished or performed by the individual self. 3 According to Confucius, shu means that “what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to oth-ers.” In fact, shu , or the emphatic capacity to take the role of others, is the architectonic concept in Confucian ethics. 4 china’s great transformation 2 In this sense, Confucian ethics is heavily characterized by what may be called “self-centered voluntarism,” which we will discuss later. Not surprisingly, Confucianism is distinctly concerned with the con-cept of self-cultivation. 5 Indeed, the moral autonomy of the self is unequivocally affirmed by Confucians. To be a gentleman ( junzi ), one must be able to assert oneself against all kinds of pressure, from both within and without. Let us turn our attention to the relationship between the individual and the group.
eBook - PDFConfucian Role Ethics
A Vocabulary
- Roger T. Ames(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- The Chinese University of Hong Kong(Publisher)
II · An Interpretive Context for Understanding Confucianism 47 David Keightley in his lifetime study of Shang-dynasty divination practices provides us with considerable insight into the substance of the cultural legacy that was transmitted to Confucius from earlier times. Keightley claims that “the origins of much that is thought to be characteristically Chinese may be identified in the ethos and world view of its Bronze Age diviners.” 13 Indeed, ... it is possible for the modern historian to infer from the archaeological, artistic, and written records of the Shang some of the theoretical strategies and presuppositions by which the Bronze Age elite of the closing centuries of the second millennium BC ordered their existence. 14 Keightley would insist that certain presuppositions of the Shang culture evolved to become further articulated in what we take to be the formative period of classical Chinese philosophy: The glimpse that the oracle-bones inscriptions affords us of metaphysical conceptions in the eleventh and tenth centuries B.C. suggests that the philosophical tensions that we associate primarily with the Taoism [Daoism] and Confucianism of Eastern Chou [Zhou] had already appeared, in different form, in the intellectual history of China, half a millennium earlier. 15 Keightley, like Nietzsche before him, perceives the invested structure of language itself to be a resource that can be mined to reveal a vein of cultural assumptions and importances: Without necessarily invoking the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, one can still imagine that the grammar of the Shang inscriptions has much to tell us about Shang conceptions of reality, particularly about the forces of nature.
eBook - PDFEast Asian Confucianisms
Texts in Context
- Chun-chieh Huang(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- V&R Unipress(Publisher)
Chapter Seven: The Confucian World of Thought in Eighteenth-Century East Asia: A Comparative Perspective 1 Introduction Having traced over the last chapters the central role played by Zhu Xi’s work in the later history of Confucianism, now as we arrive at the eighteenth century we discover a significant change in Zhu Xi scholarship. In the various contexts of East Asia, growing national subjectivity now begins to shape local interpretations of Confucianism and, with it, give rise to new avenues of critique on Zhu Xi’s work and its socio-political implications. The history of different strands of Confucianism in eighteenth-century China, Japan and Korea highlights a period when Confucian learning underwent radical changes all across East Asia. During the eighteenth century, there was a growth in trilateral cultural exchanges between China, Japan and Korea. Zhu Xi’s thought, which originally occupied a commanding position of “orthodoxy”, suddenly attracted spirited criticism from scholars on every side. These developments laid the foundation for the transition from the early modern to the modern period in each country’s Confucian traditions, and paved the way for the stormy in- tellectual crises that would confront nineteenth-century Confucianism. The diverse developments of these traditions in China, Japan and Korea prompts us to speak more accurately of various “Confucianisms.” Nevertheless, in the eighteenth-century these various Confucianisms featured two major trends in common: opposition to Zhu Xi’s thought and his metaphysical ap- proach, and a desire to seek “reality” or “substance” in actual “existence.” However, when we come to consider the development of subjectivity in Chinese, Japanese and Korean Confucians, we find that they each displayed their own distinctive national tendencies. In this chapter, we will examine the salient similarities and differences between eighteenth-century Confucians in China, Japan and Korea.
eBook - PDFSingapore
The Unexpected Nation
- Edwin Lee(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- ISEAS Publishing(Publisher)
540 • Singapore: The Unexpected Nation the level of the schools as well as the society, with the mass media and the family also involved. The government had in the works a scheme to teach moral values in schools. Moral education became a matter of concern to the government because of the switch in enrolment from Chinese-medium to English-medium schools. The plan was to have students imbibe moral values through religious knowledge courses. Confucianism was included as one of the options. Beginning in 1984, it was compulsory for students in secondary schools to do one of these courses: Islamic religious knowledge (in Malay or English), Bible Knowledge (in English), Buddhist studies (in Mandarin or English), Hindu studies (in English). Sikh studies (in English) and Confucian ethics (in Mandarin or English) were later additions. The take-up rate of these courses was revealed in a survey in 1989. It was 17.8 per cent for Confucian ethics as against 44.4 per cent for Buddhist studies and 21.4 per cent for Bible knowledge. These were the three courses that ethnic Chinese students were likely to enroll in, and so it was glaringly obvious that their response to Confucian ethics was disappointing. The other courses registered the expected numbers: Islamic religious knowledge 13.4 per cent, Hindu studies 2.7 per cent and Sikh studies 0.37 per cent. As by now all national schools were using English as the first language, it may be assumed that the English-educated Chinese students were avoiding Confucian ethics. In the society as a whole, the English-educated Chinese were just as unenthusiastic. They readily pointed out “the anti-democratic tendency of Confucian ideology, and were not convinced that this ideology component of Confucianism could be separated from its ethical doctrines”.
- Sor-hoon Tan(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
CHAPTER FIVE Studies of Chinese Philosophy from a Transcultural Perspective: Contextualization and Decontextualization MING-HUEI LEE In the preface to his well-regarded two-volume 2003 book Zhu Xi’s Historical World: A Study on the Political Culture of the Scholar-officials in the Song Dynasty , Yu Yingshi 余英時 provides an explanation of his motive behind writing the book. According to him, the very reason for his emphasis on “political culture” is that he intends to take aim at the approach of “modern historians of philosophy” to the “School of Principle” ( daoxue 道學 ). In his view, “modern historians of philosophy” take European philosophy as their model, and their research of the “School of Principle” has undergone a process of dual “extraction”: first to extract the “School of Principle” from Confucianism, and then to extract the “Principle as Reality” ( daoti 道體 ) from the “School of Principle.” The relation of the Confucians of the “School of Principle” to their ways of life has never entered into the vision of those historians of philosophy from the very beginning (Yu 2003: 33). With regard to this erroneous deviation, Yu (2003: 170) claims, he would like to “make a Copernican turn in concept.” For Yu Yingshi, the approach adopted by “modern historians of philosophy” is a “modern embodiment” of the “ ‘grand narrative’ of Confucian orthodoxy after the Song Dynasty,” often shortened as the “grand narrative of Confucian orthodoxy.” He explicitly points out the two ways in which the “grand narrative” differs essentially in approach from his own book Zhu Xi’s Historical World : First, in the “grand narrative,” “moral nature” or “inner sageliness” refers to a sort of spiritual reality which transcends time and space, and consequently it is sometimes also dubbed “ Dao as reality.” This spiritual reality is an eternal 116 MING-HUEI LEE existence; it does not matter whether it is perceptible or not.
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
