What might be called the bible of Confucianism is The Analects, and contains the wisdom of Confucius as written down by his students while he was alive and after he was alive. "Confucius" is the latinized name of Kun'g Fu-Tzu or "Great Master Kung."
Although he had a great education and became a teacher, teaching earned him little money and he was forced to take on other jobs. Before he died, there is evidence that he had many students who traveled around with him. However Confucius himself never achieved a very high office in government. He spent many years of his life trying to achieve a change in society through the right leadership, but he was never able to find a leader who would listen to him.
Confucius' Priorities
It's clear that Confucius prioritized certain principles over others. He was not concerned with the ingenuity of humanity, with what's been invented or thought up. He was not concerned with who is more intelligent than whom. He would have been unimpressed by Einstein. For Confucius, human society begins with (and is sustained by) society, government, custom, and personal virtue.
Follow the Old Ways
Confucius was more active as a teacher than was the sage Lau-Tzu. Confucius was probably the most obvious humanistic philosopher. He emphasized the idea that humans could change and better their present circumstances through their own intelligence and effort. Confucius was, in modern terminology, a down-to-earth philosopher. He reasoned that we shouldn’t think about things outside of the realm of immediate human existence. Confucius stressed the social over the individual.
Due the moral and cultural decline of the China Confucius was born into, he saw himself as the preserver of a dying culture. He taught his students about the old ways. He thought that the social hierarchies of the ancients were what kept society intact. To us, this might seem a conservative position--keep the old, reject the new--but during his time it was a more radical position. This is partly because Confucius advocated moving away from worshipping spirits and ghosts, and embracing that part of Chinese wisdom that focused on ceremony and personal virtue.
Confucius' ideas were also very paternalistic, unfortunately. That is, he taught that everyone should know their place in social hierarchies. This implies that the status of women as inferior to men should be maintained. By most accounts this is a negative point to Confucius.
But Confucius gives a liberal face to the conservative notion of sticking with the old ways. Confucius was not saying that we should keep the old ways simply because they're the old ways, but because some of the old ways are eternally true. He puts it this way: "He who by reanimating the old can gain knowledge of the new is fit to be a teacher." Understanding the way to apply the old to the new is the key.
Sometimes past realities can be improved by reflecting on their utility in the present. This was Confucius' line of thought. How can we actualize the wisdom of our ancients so that it works in our current society? Confucius was almost like a prophet to the Chinese people, bringing them something they'd had all along. As philosopher Karl Jaspers put it, "The Jewish prophets proclaimed God's revelation, Confucius the voice of antiquity."
The Golden Mean (Chung Yung)
As noted, Confucius was not coming up with new ideas, but figuring out ways to preserve the old. Confucius preached and practiced what’s known as the golden mean or “chung-yung.”
One of the many interesting things Confucius said about the way, or the Tao, is that “the intelligent go beyond and the stupid to not come up to it.” In our society, we often think ignorance is limiting, but we rarely think this of intelligence. Confucius thinks that being too smart can be an impediment. What do you think of this?
Confucius also talked about "jen." In Chinese, jen is translated as "the nature of man." But the Chinese ideogram we derive the translation from implies that to be human means to be in communion. A person actively shapes his life in relation to the world around him. This idea, jen, is the source of all other virtues for Confucius. For people to reach jen, they must follow the golden mean (chung-yung). There is a similarity here to the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who had the idea that happiness is a mean between extremes.
One of the many artist-conceptions of Confucius is above. The video below shows a talking statue of Confucius, delivering some of his sayings from The Analects.
Confucius said that all people must choose between a solitary life and an active life of trying to shape the world. He chose to shape the world, but the father of Taoism, Lau-Tzu, chose solitude. This marks a great difference between Taoism and Confucianism.
Confucius saw music as a significant aspect of education. He even went so far as to recommend that certain types of music of his time be supported by the government and other types rejected.
Confucius said: "If out of one of the 300 songs I had to take one phrase to cover all my teachings, I would say, 'Let there be no evil in your thoughts'."
As a culture, Americans certainly value ceremony and custom, whether it's a wedding or Christmas day. For Confucius, such things are of extreme importance. When one of his contemporaries, Tzu-Kung, wanted to do away with a monthly custom of sacrifice, Confucius responded by telling him: "My dear Tzu, you are concerned with the sheep, I with the custom (li)."
For Confucius, death was simply something that occurred, life was more important. He said, "If you do not know life, how should you know death?" Life after death and other metaphysical concerns were simply irrelevant to Confucius. Not because he thought such concerns were base or uninteresting, but because human living was more important.
The Importance of Ceremony (li)
Confucius felt that ceremony or “li” was extremely important, insofar as it establishes and maintains harmony. We can stray from the way or “Tao” if we do not follow ceremony and its many forms. This marks a difference in the interpretation of “Tao” from Lau-Tzu to Confucius. Tao for Confucius was more wedded to human action than to some force underlying everything. You might be thinking that this sounds very superficial: who cares about ceremony and good manners? But Confucius felt that following the way and following ceremony were inextricably linked. Think about ceremony in our culture, such as Christmas or birthdays. Do these occasions not bring people together?
It is significant that being born into a noble family or being of noble blood have no place in Confucius’ philosophy. Say what you want about his system, Confucius was concerned with pure virtue of thought and of action. If you are a leader or a king, you can just as easily (perhaps more easily) fail to be a respectable person, or fall into the category of the inferior man (as discussed below).
Confucius said, "When parents are alive, they should be served according to the rules of propriety (social custom). When they are dead, they should be buried according to the rules of propriety. After they are buried, they should be sacrificed to according to the rules of propriety." Here we see the importance Confucius placed on following custom and ceremony. Even practices such as sacrifice should be maintained because they are so embedded in the culture. After all, Confucius saw himself as a preserver of the old ways, and some of the old ways involved sacrifice.
It's important to note that the li is not an absolute concept. Confucius did not recommend following li at all costs. For if a person does not have a love for humanity, what good is following the li? Confucius thought that human social change had to occur from the inside out. First, you cultivate a love for humanity, then you work on having good family relations, then good friend relations, then good town relations, etc. Eventually all these good relations can lead to a good society. Even if a perfect society isn't ultimately possible, Confucius thought that it would be an improvement just to try.
Confucius thought that a good government grows out of right conduct, which begins at the level of one-on-one pleasantries (like smiling and saying "thank you"), particularly within a family.
The Superior Man (Chun-Tzu) vs. The Inferior Man (Hsiao-Jen)
"Perhaps others can do it the first time; I must do it ten times; perhaps others can do it the tenth time; I must do it a thousand times. But he who really has the perserverance to go all this way--be he foolish he will become clear headed; be he weak, he will become strong." This quote gives us as insight into Confucius idea of a fully developed person.
By contrasting the superior man to the inferior man in Confucius' eyes, we can get a better picture of each type of person. The superior man is concerned with justice of the people around him, while the inferior man is concerned with profit. The superior man wants those around him to live in happiness and harmony, the inferior man sees those around him only in terms of how he can use them. In some sense, the superior man sees people as ends in themselves and the inferior man sees people as a means (this forshadows the later Western philosopher, Immanuel Kant). The superior man is quiet and serene, he speaks only about what he knows and the rest he is very cautious about. The inferior man is always anxious and pretends to know what he actually does not know. The inferior man has no control over himself while the superior man is in control. The superior man is independent. If he needs to, he can undergo long periods of poverty or long periods of prosperity. The superior man does not search for faults in other people, but only within himself.
Confucius' Limits and Confucianism Today
Confucius himself was aware of the limits of his entire system, of the limits of education, of the limits of knowledge and learning. Our efforts to produce a well functioning society can never produce an ideal, perfect society, but it's still worth the effort. Confucius thought that by following the old ways, things would simply be better. Not perfect, but better. Like Socrates (as we will see), Confucius acknowledged that there were things he didn't know. Confucius thought complete knowledge was impossible, even for a fully developed individual.
Like many other teachers, Confucius has been (mis?)interpreted differently by different periods of Chinese culture. In some cases, Confucius' idea of following the li was followed at all costs--something that Confucius would completely disagree with. Remember, he thinks that without a love for humanity, what's the point of following the li in the first place?
Confucius thought that learning goes hand in hand with application. He said, "If a man can recite (a book) and, entrusted with the government, is unable to perform his duties... where is the good of all his learning?"
Like Confucius, Mexican culture places a high value on ceremony, from a girl's 15th birthday (Quinceañera) to the day of the dead (dia de los muertos). The Mexican philosopher, Octavio Paz, discusses the idea that the Mexican's love of ceremony is one of the major things that distinguishes Mexicans from Americans in his book, The Labyrinth of Solitude.
Mencius (371 - 289 b.c.e.) is renowned as the second greatest Confucian philosopher. Mencius believed in the inherent goodness of humanity. His famous work is Book of Mencius.