Kong Zi or Kong Fu Zi, who is today more known by the Latin version of his name (Confucius), is one of the classic philosophers of Chinese tradition of thought. The precise year of his birth and death are unknown, different sources agree, however, that he was creating in the period that the book of Li Buwei named Spring and Autumn.

The anchorages of Confucius’s philosophy are morality (ren) and Rite (li). Ren represents, so to speak, the queen of virtues, combining a range of meanings, which makes it impossible to find the perfect equivalent in non Chinese languages. It can merely be described by words like goodness, benevolence, good faith, love, etc.. Morality (ren) is in close association with rituals (Li), since the latter confers a form to morality, allowing at the same time its social realization: through rituals, morality becomes a social virtue.

The social dimension of morality is of great importance to Confucianism, since the moral upbringing that renounces any public character cannot be taken in consideration.  However, Rite is not only the possibility of the existence of morality, but also vice versa. If the Rite gives form and social character to morality, morality fills Rite with content. Or in words of Confucius: "A man without morality, how can rituals help him?" (Confucius 2005).

Confucius’s philosophy consists of learning, teaching, meditation and the philosophical traditions of China (among which we count Confucius’s comments on Yi Jing).  The classic works in addition to Confucius’s theorems (Lun Yu) also include  a work by Confucius’s follower Mencius (Meng Zi), The doctrine of the middle (Zhong Yong), and Great lesson(Da xue).. Despite Confucius’s warning that a noble man is not a tool, his teachings were often used for particular political goals, which led to the fact that today we can also talk of Confucianism as a political theory, which has very little in common with the original teachings of Confucius.

 
(Source: Maja Milčinski, four books, youth books, Ljubljana, 2005.)

quotations