'Confucianism' Articles
Confucianism is humanistic and focused on human concerns. That humans are innately good.
We progress and regress and always have. There have been enlightened ages, and these ages often prove later to be mixed blessings if not outright misguided. The legalist schools of Confucianism did practice book burnings. They felt that many Taoist texts and more “arcane” knowledge encourages public disharmony.
“The superior man cannot be known in little matters, but he may be entrusted with great concerns. The small man may not be entrusted with great concerns, but he may be known in little matters.”
“When a man’s knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again.”
Confucius, The Confucian Analects
Backdrop of Confucianism
There were two broad schools of thought in Chinese belief, naturalistic and legalistic. The Taoists were an example of the naturalistic school using nature and allegorical stories to focus on observations of the way the world works in general. Confucianism was more humanistic. Confucius focused on ethics and human concerns with the basic premise that human beings were innately good and would cooperate well with universal education and support. His teaching methods were reminiscent of Plato in that he saw a teachers role was to educe or “draw out” the qualities of thought that supported them and society in general.… Seek More
Confucianism Q&A
What were some of the fundamentals about his thoughts or ideas? The analects of Confucius are a collection of works of his basic socio-political doctrines, and his teaching on social justice and compassion. He spoke of the need for loyalty and centralized authority, but not blind obedience. This is why his teachings would later result in a variety of tests for lower level political officials. He had guidelines for who was a fit leader, and they didn’t relate to military might. These guidelines are still being used to this day. When exactly did it end being influent in Chinese society?… Seek More
Intuition and Logic
It would likely be very helpful for westerners to study Confucianism, but many western thinkers decry the eastern fusion of intuition and logic. To the western mind, logic is good, but intuition is bad. To my observation, logic being given primacy has created some down right deranged policies and beliefs. It’s too bad the Greeks made this separation between east and west that still exists today. It does originate in the Greek philosophical schools and was perpetuated. Descartes was and is a very popular binary thinker, and Nietzche didn’t help the matter. Materialistic thinking has done us serious harm. It seems… Seek More
