Confucius
This article contains Chinese
text. Without proper rendering
support, you may see question
marks, boxes, or other symbols
instead of Chinese characters.
Confucius
Chinese philosophy
Ancient philosophy
???
Full name
?? Kong Qiu
Born
September 28, 551 BC
Qufu, China
Died
479 BC
Qufu, China
School/
tradition
Founder of Confucianism
Main
interests
Moral philosophy, Social
philosophy, Ethics
Notable
ideas
Confucianism
Influenced by
Zhou Era Chinese Thought
Influenced
Many Eastern philosophers, Christian Wolff,
Robert Cummings Neville
Confucius (Chinese: ???; pinyin: Kǒng Fūzǐ;
Wade-Giles:
K’ung-fu-tzu),
lit.
"Master
Kong,"[1] (traditionally September 28, 551 BC
– 479 BC) was a Chinese thinker and social
philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy
have deeply
influenced Chinese, Korean,
Japanese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese thought
and life.
His philosophy emphasized personal and
governmental morality, correctness of social
relationships, justice and sincerity. These val-
ues gained prominence in China over other
doctrines, such as Legalism (??) or Taoism (?
?) during the Han Dynasty[2][3][4] (206 BC –
220 AD). Confucius’ thoughts have been de-
veloped into a system of philosophy known as
Confucianism
(??).
It was introduced to
Europe by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who was
the first to Latinise the name as "Confucius."
His teachings may be found in the Ana-
lects of Confucius (??), a collection of "brief
aphoristic fragments", which was compiled
many years after his death. Modern histori-
ans do not believe that any specific docu-
ments can be said to have been written by
Confucius,[5][6] but for nearly 2,000 years he
was thought to be the editor or author of all
the Five Classics[7][8] such as the Classic of
Rites (editor), and the Spring and Autumn
Annals (??) (author).
Personal life and family
According to tradition, Confucius was born in
551 BC, in the Spring and Autumn Period, at
the beginning of the Hundred Schools of
Thought philosophical movement. Confucius
was born in or near the city of Qufu, in the
Chine