World Religion And Thoughts
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ConfucianismPowerPoint1.pptxConfucianism
HUM 2633
Jennifer McMahon
Confucianism
Confucianism originated in China during the Qin Period (2300-200 B.C.). It remains most influential there, but is also influential among communities of Chinese in other countries. Though it draws heavily from pre-existing Chinese religions prevalent during the Qin period, it is named for (and is most closely associated with) its founder, Confucius, or Kongzi (551-479 B.C.).
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History and Range of Influence
While Confucianism is not as widely practiced as certain other religions, it is historically significant and remains a highly influential faith system, including it being a significant catalyst to the development of Taoism in China.
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Population
As is the case with Buddhism and Taoism, it is difficult to get exact numbers on the number of individuals who adhere to Confucian principles. It is difficult because Confucianism does not demand exclusivity from its practitioners. Therefore, a high number of individuals who practice it also identify as Taoist or Buddhist. There are at least 6 million practitioners of Confucianism, but millions, indeed billions, are influenced by Confucian ideology and adhere to Confucian principles.
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Philosophy OR Faith? A False Dichotomy
Though some argue that Confucianism is better understood as a political philosophy as opposed to a religion, those familiar with the tradition recognize its ongoing and broader function as a faith system. While its political ideology was a dominant force in China for centuries, and it remains an influential force there despite governmental restrictions on religious activity, Confucian social and political philosophy (e.g., the understanding of the proper relations between individuals and corresponding standards for government) is predicated on Confucian metaphysics, namely, its understanding of the cosmos and humans place in it.
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Confucian Cosmology
On the basis of its cosmology (which extends beyond Earth) and its conception of human nature, Confucianism prescribes standards for good conduct (ethics), and does so on the assumption that adherence to said standards will not only produce the ends of happiness for the individual and peace for society (eschatology), but other potential rewards (soteriology).
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The Three Teachings
Confucianism was one of the most influential ideologies that shaped Chinese culture, and it remains one of the most influential religious ideologies in China. It is revered as one of the Three Teachings (sanjiao), namely, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. See illustration of LaoTzu, The Buddha, and Confucius. Image Credit: © Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institute.
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Even though Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism are now seen as compatible teachings (aggregate), just as Buddhism was an ideological reaction to Hinduism, Taoism is in many respects an ideological reaction to Confucian philosophy. It emerged out of the desire for “reform” to the ritualism and strict enforcement of authoritarian norms that popular Confucianism encouraged.
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The Analects
The primary text of Confucianism is the Analects, by Confucius. This text and other important works in the Confucian canon, articulate central tenets of Confucian thought. For our purposes, they will be outlined under the sub-domains in philosophy that we are studying.
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CONFUCIAN METAPHYSICS:
While it has two levels, Confucianism is anchored in a holistic understanding of the cosmos, one that assumes large-scale connections between different elements in the system and often a tendency for elements at different levels in the system to mirror one another.
The most prominent concept in Confucian thought is the concept of Heaven.
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The Mandate of Heaven
Whereas practitioners of western religions such as Christianity tend to identify heaven as sacred because it is the precinct where God resides (and to which they hope to gain entry), in the Confucian tradition the concept of Heaven stands in the place of the deity. Heaven represents the first cause, or originating force, within the cosmos as well as its sustaining and guiding principle. This explains the metaphysical basis for the claim made by Chinese emperors to rule by the Mandate of Heaven (similar to the notion of Divine Right claimed by European rulers).
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In Confucian metaphysics, Earth not only resides below Heaven in a literal sense, Earth is also subordinate to Heaven. Confucian metaphysics endorses a hierarchical understanding of the cosmos with certain planes being higher (superior) to others. As entities who reside on the Earth, humans exist in a sort of interface between Heaven and Earth. We have the capacity to know the rule of Heaven and enact it on the Earth. This capacity is central to other Confucian ideals, particularly:
the concept of ren, or goodness,
the concept of li, or rites (codified rules and social norms) and ritual practices designed to foster ren
the ideal of the jungzi, or noble person who enacts li and embodies ren
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禮
君子
ORDER IN HIERARCHY
Confucian metaphysics assumes that just as Heaven and Earth exist in hierarchical relation, relations on Earth also should be hierarchical, such as the relation between a leader and their subjects, parents and their children, and teachers and their students.
Importantly, these relations are not presumed to be equal. Instead, there is a clear superior and subordinate in each case. Like the universe more broadly, society is understood to have levels, and not be egalitarian.
Confucian metaphysics assumes that order at all levels in the system is maintained by preserving hierarchies. It assumes that interrupting or challenging them tends to undermine the possibility of harmony and proper function (at all earthly levels – individual, familial, social).
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Confucian Ethics
Flowing directly from its hierarchical metaphysics, Confucian ethics prescribe conduct that reinforces order by reinforcing what are understood to be natural hierarchies. Humans are to understand and willingly reproduce the order that Heaven imbues on the Earth. Those who may be too young to understand the rule of Heaven, or incapable of it, are expected follow the command of those who do.
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Individuals have different duties to one another dependent on their role as superior or subordinate. Superiors have an obligation to guide and provide. Subordinates are obliged to obedience and loyalty. It is understood that widespread adherence to Confucian principles will maintain the social order and will create not only content individuals, but also peaceful and well-functioning societies.
FILIAL PIETY
Central to Confucian ethics are the previously cited principles of ren and li. Ren, or goodness, is the goal sought, and li is understood to be the means through which ren is attained.
Central to Chinese culture during the period in which Confucian philosophy predominated, and even to this day, is the practice of ancestor worship and the associated practice of honoring one’s ancestors by demonstrating filial piety.
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Honoring one’s ancestors both in and through specific ritual practices, but also in one’s conduct and occupation, is known as filial piety. Filial piety is a primary duty, or moral obligation.
An individual’s character is assessed on the basis of their performance of this duty, and it is assumed that individuals who are incapable of honoring their family are unlikely to be able to other more abstract moral obligations (e.g., to community, to nation).
Shame is a consequence of failure to fulfill one’s duty. In Chinese and other Asian societies where the family is the primary unit of society, and less of an emphasis is placed on the individual, the pressure to fulfill social expectation is very strong (e.g., honor culture) and the failure to do so is serious.
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Though the Confucian idea of Heaven might call that understanding of salvation to mind for individuals who already hold that kind of view, Confucianism instead understands salvation primarily as the state of peacefulness or contentedness (equanimity) that the individual, family, and community can achieve by following the codified rules and principles that preserve natural order.
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Like most sects of Buddhism, Confucianism does not understand salvation principally as an otherworldly state attainable only through the transcendence of the material realm (Earth) and the associated transport of the individual soul to another realm of existence.
Confucian Soteriology
However, the animistic beliefs that pervade Chinese society and the longstanding practice of ancestor worship do support popular belief in spirits and ghosts, and related acceptance of the idea of an afterlife in some contexts.
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Confucian Eschatology
With Heaven understood as a circle, Confucianism bears similarity to other traditions that do not endorse belief in a cosmic end time or end of days. Instead, it seems to exhibit faith in the eternality of larger metaphysical structures (e.g., Heaven, Earth) even while admitting that different phases of existence may wax and wane. However, the tradition does endorse more localized “ends” to be sought by individuals and communities, ends achieved through alignment with the natural order of things, which in turn produces peace and harmony.
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Conclusion
Here one can see the alignment between central tenets of the Three Teachings. As we will see as we enter the next module, Taoism emerged not primarily as a challenge to the metaphysical assumptions of Confucianism, but instead as a critique of the entrenchment and corruption of the ideology as it was increasingly used to enable the achievement of political ends. Similar to the way in which proponents of the Reformation argued that the Catholic Church had lost sight of the original teachings and replaced a focus on them with a focus on merely the performance of rites and rituals (often with political implications), Taoists argued that Confucianism had devolved into a strict but ultimately superficial preoccupation with adherence to social norms that no longer fostered ren, or goodness, but instead was merely a tool for certain individuals to hold and maintain power.
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