Confucius
Confucius was a Chinese teacher and official whose thought shaped the government, education and family life of East Asia for more than two thousand years. Born Kong Qiu in the state of Lu in 551 BC to an impoverished family of the lower nobility, he lost his father at three and was raised in poverty by his mother, working as a granary keeper and herdsman while educating himself. He lived during the Spring and Autumn period, when the Zhou order had collapsed into competing states, and his central concern was how to restore social harmony without force. He held minor office in Lu and rose to a senior position before resigning around 497 BC, and then spent some thirteen years travelling between states offering his services to rulers, none of whom employed him seriously. His teaching centres on ren, usually rendered as humaneness or benevolence, and li, ritual propriety — the forms of conduct that make relationships work. He held that government by moral example is more effective than government by punishment, that the ruler must deserve loyalty, and that a person's worth lies in cultivation rather than birth. He accepted students regardless of social class, which was itself radical. He formulated a version of the golden rule negatively: do not impose on others what you would not choose for yourself. He wrote nothing that survives as his own. The Analects is a collection of sayings compiled by disciples after his death in 479 BC, and much of the tradition attached to him accumulated later. His thought became state orthodoxy under the Han and the basis of the imperial examinations, which lasted until 1905.
- Lived: 551 BCE – 479 BCE
- Nationality: Chinese
- Roles: philosopher, teacher
