originated mainly in the teachings of Confucius and his disciples. Confucius (551–479 BCE) was born around the late period of Spring and Autumn and the early period of Warring States. Throughout his life, he was mostly poor, untitled, and without official position. Probably because of this, he devoted his whole life to learning and teaching. According to Ci Hai (an encyclopedic dictionary of the Chinese language), he had as many as 300 disciples, about 70 of whom became famous (p. 1119). Confucius was a philosopher, a political scientist, an educationalist, and a social critic. His ideas are mostly preserved in the so-called “five classics,” namely, The Book of Songs, The Book of History, The Book of Rites, The Book of Change, and The Spring and Autumn Annals, and four books (i.e., The Great Learning [or Ethics and Politics], the The Golden Medium [or The Book of Mean, or Central Harmony], The Analects [or The Sayings of Confucius], and The Book of Mencius). The book that most directly records his sayings is The Analects. Confucius’s time was an era of instability. It was a time when the objective traditions of the land were being eroded by the influence of a subjective sophistry similar to that in the Greek tradition. “And it was Confucius who inspired a defense against these sophistic innovations by reasserting confidence in old principles and practices” (Ware, 1955, p. 10). Robert Oliver (1971) argues that Confucius set for himself the goal “to change the nature of Chinese civilization with a bloodless revolution” (p. 121). He may be overstating the case here, and such an assertion is obviously arguable, for it was never Confucius’s intention to upset but to preserve the great tradition in Chinese civilization, or more accurately, as Thomas Cleary (1991) has asserted, to revitalize the culture “in its role as a means of cultivating human feelings and maintaining the integrity and well-being of a people” (p. 1).
Confucius’s philosophy was deeply rooted in a concept of social order and harmony. He sought a society of harmony by means of self-purification by individuals, which was to be achieved through increased knowledge, for, “like Socrates, Confucius believed profoundly that one could not renounce what he knew to be right” (Oliver, 1971, p. 132). So, in essence, “Confucianism stood for a rational social order through the ethical approach, based on personal cultivation. It aimed at political order by laying the basis for it in a moral order, and it sought political harmony by trying to achieve the moral harmony in man himself” (Lin, 1938, p. 6). Confucius believed that the cultivation of the self would lead to the regulation of family life, which in turn would lead to the ordering of a national life. Therefore, one major means for attaining such a moral social order is through the education of the individual. Education is for the general enhancement of the individual and the success of groups—family, community, nation—to which the individual belongs (Cleary, 1991, p. 1–2). As Confucius said, “a piece of jade cannot become an object of art without chiseling, and a man cannot come to know the moral law without education” (Lin, 1938, p. 241). Once this piece of jade is “chiseled” and becomes a piece of art, it can help chisel others. However, as Mencius, the most faithful follower and developer of Confucianism, said, “Never has a man who has bent himself been able to make others straight” (Oliver, 1971, p. 169). So, the cultivation of the individual will leads to the cultivation of the family, and then of the community, and then of the nation, until finally we have achieved a moral social order.
However, cultivation of the individual must be based on the moral virtue of the humanness or humanity of human beings, for it is the moral foundation of social order. Though Confucius never clearly defined humanity, his concept of humanity can be understood in social terms: “being respectful at home, serious at work, and faithful in human relations” (Cleary, 1992, p. 3). Cleary identifies five characteristics in Confucius’s conception of humanity, namely, respectfulness, magnanimity, truthfulness, acuity, and generosity (p. 4). Confucius believed that the measure of man is man. The whole philosophy of ritual and music, which Confucius emphasized in his writings as a part of the social order, is but to set the human heart right (Lin, 1938, p. 13).
An important part of this humanism is the concept of jen, variously translated as human, humane, humanitarian, humanity, kindness, benevolence, and true manhood. He considered it the highest human attainment “to find the central clue to our moral being which unites us to the universal order (or to attain central harmony)” (Lin, 1938, p. 185). To Confucius, when a man seeks to establish himself, he establishes others; when he wants to succeed himself, he helps others to succeed. Such a notion of self-improvement and social action is closely related to the notion of jen.
Another important concept in Confucius’s conception of social order is yi (or justice, or duty, or principle). Although Confucius’s notion of duty may seem to some people to be referring to an unquestioning obedience to superior authority, he never meant it to be obedience to dictators or rulers who pretended to advocate justice but really sought profit and advantage. Instead, it refers to an obligation to justice that will only strengthen the moral fiber of society.
One more concept in Confucius’s notion of a moral social order is li, or known in varied translations as etiquette, propriety, or moral discipline. According to Confucius, the meaning of etiquette includes “concepts of mannerly behavior in day-to-day life, proper enactment of social rituals like marriage and mourning, and protocols for international and official occasions” (Cleary, 1992, p. 5). Lin (1938) also sees its close link with social practices and sees it as including folkways, religious customs, festivals, laws, dress, food, and housing. To these original existing practices, he says, should be added a conception of a rational social order, and “you have li in its most complete sense” (p. 225). Confucius considered li to be an indication of the moral strength of a nation. In its highest sense, it means “an ideal social order with everything in its place, and particularly a rationalized feudal order” (Lin, 1938, p. 13).
Knowledge is yet another concept in Confucius’s philosophy. He defined knowledge as knowing people and as seeking to understand human nature in its context and in individual and social lives. Knowledge was regarded by Confucius as a way of self-perfection, of self-cultivation (Oliver, 1971, p. 132). “In its highest development, knowledge was to become wisdom, able to comprehend particulars through a unified insight” (Cleary, 1992, p. 6).
Such is but a very sketchy examination of Confucius’s philosophy. Due to the seemingly unsystematic nature of his writings, it is hard to present a comprehensive picture of his philosophy, but Cleary (1991) has presented us with a good summarizing statement:
The glue that binds everything together in the pragmatic moral universe of Confucius is the virtue of truthfulness or trustworthiness, faithfulness to the ideals exemplified by the sum of the cardinal virtues of humanity, justice, courtesy, and wisdom. Confucius likened trust to the link between a vehicle and its source of power and taught that trust was absolutely essential to the life of a nation. (p. 6)
Confucianism has influenced China for about 2,500 years. Ignoring its influence by any researchers of the history of Chinese thought and culture would be a grave mistake. Lin (1938) attributed three factors to the tremendous impact of Confucianism in Chinese history:
first, the intrinsic appeal of Confucius’s ideas to the Chinese way of thinking; second, the enormous historical learning and scholarship accumulated and practically monopolized by the Confucianists, in contrast to other schools which did not bother with historical learning (and this body of scholarship carried enough weight and prestige of its own); and thirdly, the evident charm of personality and prestige of the Master himself. (p. 24)
The magnitude of the influence of Confucianism is so much so that it has pervaded the speech and actions of almost every ordinary Chinese without him/her necessarily being aware of it.
Of all the aspects of Confucianism, the most relevant to my study is its rhetorical implications. There have been various, sometimes conflicting, studies on Confucian rhetoric. Haixia Wang (1993) provides a succinct summary of these studies. According to Wang, Confucian rhetoric is characterized by three distinctive traits: communal, historical, and dialogical. Wang defines communal as Confucian rhetoric that is based on communal understandings and interpretations of moral notions rather than a specific set of precise criteria. Non-deductive reasoning
