Confucianism (儒家 Pinyin: rújiā "The School of the Scholars"), sometimes translated as the School of Literati, is an East Asian belief system formulated in the 6th - 5th century BC and followed by people in China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and other Asian countries for more than two thousand years. (See also Hundred Schools of Thought)
This great ethical and philosophical system is named after its founder, Confucius (Master Kong), who lived in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC, born into a middle class family, although the family was actually in the superior class of the current dynasty. His Chinese name was later latinised to Confucius by Jesuit missionaries. This form became the convention in most western languages, and accordingly we shall refer to him by this westernised name. When grown up, Confucius went state to state teaching rulers of the states. He is credited with a number of books, the best-known of which is the Analects, a collection of his sayings that was compiled and edited to its modern form during the Han dynasty.
It is debatable whether the system he founded should be called a religion. While it prescribes a great deal of ritual, little of it could be construed as worship or meditation in a formal sense. Confucius occasionally made statements about the existence of other-worldly beings that sound distinctly agnostic and humanistic to western ears. Thus it is usually considered an ethical tradition without being considered a religion.
However, its effect on Chinese society and culture was very deep and parallels the effects of religious movements seen in other cultures. Also, one should guard against too narrow a definition of religion. Those who follow the teachings of Confucius are comforted by it; it makes their lives more complete and their sufferings bearable. Finally, consider the fact that religions in Chinese culture are not mutually exclusive entities - each tradition was free to find its specific niche, its field of specialisation. One can be a Taoist, Christian, Muslim, Shintoist or Buddhist and still profess Confucianist beliefs.
Confucianism specialised in ethics, in the orderly arrangement of society and correct relationships between people. Confucius himself lived in an era (The Eastern Zhou dynasty) when China was divided into a number of small states each ruled by a warlord or nobleman who paid little more than lip service to the emperor who in theory still ruled the Middle Kingdom (China) from the capital, Luoyang. The frequent wars between these states disrupted the structure of society. As a result, there was a deeply felt need for a theory of society that would act as a cohesive factor and that could reunite the Chinese nation. A number of philosophies (e.g. Mohism and Legalism) arose to fulfil this need. That of Confucius was eventually the most successful, due largely to the supremacy it achieved during the Han Dynasty.
A simple way to appreciate Confucian thought is as based on varying levels of honesty. The biography of Confucius deals with the origins of this view. In practice, however, rituals of Confucianism accrued over time and matured into the following form:
Between the gentlemen and the "small people" (xiǎorén) was an intermediate class called the shih (仕), commonly translated as "knights", who filled minor administrative posts and served as junior officers in the army. To these, too, Confucius and his
disciples recommended the same virtues prescribed for the gentlemen. In time, the shih were transformed into a class of scholars and bureaucrats who owed their positions to the official civil service examinations. Because these examinations were entirely based on verbatim knowledge of Confucius's books, these people became the staunchest supporters of Confucian orthodoxy.
Confucius considered himself to be little more than a aspirant gentleman; he refused to be addressed as a sage. Confucianism also had a remarkable influence on neighbouring countries such as Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
One of the problems in discussing the history of Confucianism is the question of what Confucianism is. In fact in the book, Manufacturing Confucianism, David Jensen claims that our modern image of Confucius and Confucianism, which is that of a wise symbol of learning and a state-sponsored quasi-religion, did not exist in China from time immemorial, but was manufactured by European Jesuits in order to portray Chinese society to Europeans. The notion of Confucianism was then borrowed back by Chinese who then used the notion of Confucianism for their own purposes.
To simplify this discussion, we shall simply define Confucianism as any system of thinking that has at its basis the works that are regarded as the "Confucian classics," but even this definition runs into problems as it is not clear what are the "Confucian classics."
The origin of this problem lies with the attempt of Qin Shi Huang Di to burn all of the books. After the Qin dynasty was overthrown by the Han, there was the monumental task of recreating all of the knowledge that was destroyed. The method that was undertaken was to find all of the remaining scholars and have them reconstruct from memory the texts that were lost. This produced the "New Script" texts. Afterwards, people began finding fragments of books that had escaped the burning. Piecing those together produced
the "Old Script" texts. One problem that has plagued Confucianism through the ages the question of which set of texts is the more authentic, and the answer has generally been that the "Old Script" texts are.
Another development was neo-Confucianism, which developed in the 11th century AD as an attempt by Confucian scholars to answer questions raised by Buddhist metaphysics. The most important of those scholars was Chu Hsi.
With the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Confucianism become an important part of the attempt by the Qing dynasty to portray themselves as legitimate rulers of China rather than alien invaders. By invoking the ideal of the Confucian sage, the Manchus were able to gain the support of the Chinese gentry and thereby maintain themselves in power for almost 300 years.
The Evidentiary school was a movement in the early Qing dynasty whose goal was to reform society by finding the authentic texts that Confucius wrote. The belief of this movement was that in the distant past, there had been a golden age, of which there were only fragmentary records existent in the writings of Confucius. This fragmentary record was complicated by the fact that the writings were contaminated by Buddhist concepts and ideas. The Evidentiary school believed that by scientifically analyzing the Confucian texts, they could remove what they regarded as Buddhist distortion and find the authentic texts which would lead them to the golden age.
As Imperial China began to fall and China was put under pressure by the Europeans, there came into being several trends in Confucianism. The first was the increasing identification of Confucianism with the Imperial state, in part to counter the argument by Chinese nationalists that the Qing was an alien state. The second was the attempt to recreate Confucianism as a native substitute for Christianity. These pressures increased to the point where he was eventually acknowledged to be a god, and was accordingly worshipped in the state cult.
In the 1960s, it was commonly perceived by Western scholars such as Joseph Levinson that Confucianism was a dead movement forever consigned to the dustbin of history. However, over the next decades, Confucianism underwent a somewhat unexpected resurgence. The various forms of Confucianism that attempt to reconcile it with modernity are known as "New Confucianism" which is not to be confused with "Neo-Confucianism" which is the movement of the Song dynasty.
One of the advocates of "New Confucianism" is Tu Wei-ming, who is a member of the Boston Confucians. This group attempts to develop the humanistic elements of Confucianism as a philosophy that is allied with religious morality, but yet maintains a secular focus.
The novel The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, features a judge with a form of New Confucian training who comes slowly to return to his roots. It is interesting due to its future setting, and contrast with those of another group, the New Victorians, representing Western philosophy. The novel sparked some interest in Confucian ideas in some circles.
See also:
Origins and effects
Some key concepts in Confucian thought
Later developments in Confucianism
Historical development of Confucianism
Was there a Confucianism?
The Script Controversy
Confucianism in the Han Dynasty
Eclipse by Buddhism
Neo-Confucianism
Confucianism in the Ming Dynasty
Confucianism in the Qing Dynasty
The Evidentiary School
The New/Old Script Controversy
The Fall of the Imperial China
Kang You Wei
The New Confucian Movement
External Links
