3261 AM · 500 BCE · world history
Confucius
Master Kong sets out an ethic of duty and ritual that will define Chinese civilisation.
In an age of political fragmentation, Confucius argues that order rests not on force but on cultivated character. His key terms are ren, humaneness, and li, ritual propriety. He sees the state as a family in which everyone knows their duties. His recorded sayings later become the foundation of Chinese education and the imperial exams.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the Chinese dynastic histories — the life of Confucius in Sima Qian and the Analects recorded by his disciples
Scholarship
- archaeology of China — the Spring and Autumn period — the collapse of Zhou authority, the background to his teaching
Basis: documents and evidence.