孔子-Confucius

Confucius ( 孔子), literally "Master Kong” (551–479 BC), was born in the Lu state (South of modern-day Shandong Province) in the later days of the Spring and Autumn Period. Confucius sought to revive the perfect virtue of Huaxia (Chinese civilization) and the classical properties of the Western Zhou Dynasty to build a great, harmonious and humanistic society.

In times of division, chaos, and endless wars between feudal states, he wanted to restore the Mandate of Heaven (天命) that could unify the "world" (天下, "all under Heaven") and bestow peace and prosperity on the people. Because his vision of personal and social perfections was framed as a revival of the ordered society of earlier times: a revival of a unified royal state, whose rulers would succeed to power on the basis of their moral merits instead of lineage; these would be rulers devoted to their people, striving for personal and social perfection.

He was one of the earliest thinkers of the Hundred School of Thoughts, however, the vast empire of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) 600 years later made it necessary to rely on a well organized scholarship elite that also was able to supply administrative officials. Only the well-read Confucian scholars (rujia 儒家 -School of literati) were able to fulfill such an immense task. Their deep knowledge of the old writings provided the emperors with the needed Heaven approved authority to lead the government of the empire. The dynastic calendar and yearly ritual offerings to Heaven and Earth all based upon the old Confucian classical writings. Confucius' thoughts developed into a system of philosophy known as Confucianism (儒家).

Confucius teachings

His teachings may be found in the Analect of Confucius (论语), a collection of "brief aphoristic fragments", which was compiled many years after his death. For nearly 2,000 years he was thought to be the editor or author of all the Five Classics (五经) such as the Classic of Rites (礼记), and the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋)

In the Analects, Confucius presents himself as a "transmitter who invented nothing" He puts the greatest emphasis on the importance of study.

Confucius' principles gained wide acceptance primarily because of their basis in common Chinese tradition and belief. He championed strong familial loyalty, ancestor worship, respect of elders by their children (and, according to later interpreters, of husbands by their wives), and the family as a basis for an ideal government.

The Confucian theory of ethics as exemplified in Lǐ - Rituals (礼)is based on three important conceptual aspects of life: ceremonies associated with sacrifice to ancestors and deities of various types, social and political institutions, and the etiquette of daily behavior.

In early Confucianism, yì (义)and lǐ are closely linked terms. Yì can be translated as righteousness, though it may simply mean what is ethically best to do in a certain context. The term contrasts with action done out of self-interest. While pursuing one's own self-interest is not necessarily bad, one would be a better, more righteous person if one based one's life upon following a path designed to enhance the greater good, an outcome of yì. This is doing the right thing for the right reason. Yì is based upon reciprocity.

Just as action according to Lǐ should be adapted to conform to the aspiration of adhering to yì, so yì is linked to the core value of rén (仁). Rén is the virtue of perfectly fulfilling one's responsibilities toward others, most often translated as "benevolence" or "humaneness". Confucius's moral system was based upon empathy and understanding others, rather than divinely ordained rules. To develop one's spontaneous responses of rén so that these could guide action intuitively was even better than living by the rules of yì. To cultivate one's attentiveness to rén one used another Confucian version of the Golden Rule: “one must always treat others just as one would want others to treat oneself”. Virtue, in this Confucian view, is based upon harmony with other people, produced through this type of ethical practice by a growing identification of the interests of self and other.

Confucius' political thought is based upon his ethical thought. He argues that the best government is one that rules through "rites" (lǐ) and people's natural morality, this is an internalization of duty, which is showed as a “sense of shame”.