School
Confucianism
Also known as Ru, Rujia
The tradition descending from Confucius, which holds that personal cultivation of virtue and proper ritual conduct are the basis of a harmonious society.
Confucianism centres on the cultivation of virtues such as benevolence (ren) and ritual propriety (li), practised within family and social relationships. After becoming the state orthodoxy of the Han dynasty, it remained the dominant intellectual tradition of China, and later of Korea and Japan, and was renewed as Neo-Confucianism from the eleventh century.
- Tradition
- Chinese
Philosophers
- Confuciusc. 551 – c. 479 BCE
- Menciusc. 372 – c. 289 BCE
- Xunzic. 310 – after 238 BCE
- Lu Jia240–170 BCE
- Jia Yi200 – c. 169 BCE
- Yang Xiong53 BCE – 18 CE
- Ban Zhaoc. 45 – 116 CE
- Wang Fu82–167 CE
- Xu Gan170–217 CE
- Shao Yong1011–1077
- Zhou Dunyi1017–1073
- Zhang Zai1020–1077
- Cheng Hao1032–1085
- Cheng Yi1033–1107
- Zhu Xi1130–1200
- Lu Xiangshan1139–1193
- Ye Shi1150–1223
- Wang Yangming1472–1529
- Wang Gen1483–1541
- Luo Rufang1515–1588
- Li Zhi1527–1602
- Hayashi Razan1583–1657
- Huang Zongxi1610–1695
- Gu Yanwu1613–1682
- Wang Fuzhi1619–1692
- Itō Jinsai1627–1705
- Kaibara Ekken1630–1714
- Ogyū Sorai1666–1728
- Dai Zhen1724–1777
- Xiong Shili1885–1968
- Zhang Junmai1887–1969
- Liang Shuming1893–1988
- Feng Youlan1895–1990
- Xu Fuguan1903–1982
- Mou Zongsan1909–1995
- Tang Junyi1909–1978
- Tu Weimingborn 1940
Terms on this page
- ren
- Humaneness or benevolence (仁), the cardinal Confucian virtue. Cheng Hao treated it as the whole of human nature, by which a person forms one body with all things and feels their pain as their own.
Sources
- Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Confucius, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Bryan W. Van Norden, Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy, Hackett Publishing