1001Philosophers

Confucius vs Mencius

Confucius and Mencius are the two foundational figures of the Confucian tradition. Mencius, born more than a century after Confucius's death, claimed direct succession to Confucius's teaching and developed it in the systematic philosophical form in which it would be transmitted thereafter.

At a glance

ConfuciusMencius
Dates551 BC – 479 BC372 BC – 289 BC
NationalityChineseChinese
EraAncientAncient
Movements Confucianism Confucianism
Profile Confucius → Mencius →

Where they agree

Both held that human beings are perfectible through self-cultivation, both held that the proper aim of government is the moral cultivation of the people, and both treated humanness (ren) and ritual propriety (li) as central virtues. Mencius's Confucianism is recognizably Confucius's, deepened and systematized.

Where they disagree

Confucius is reticent about human nature itself; the Analects offer guidance for cultivation without much explicit theory of why cultivation is possible. Mencius made the explicit case that human nature is fundamentally good — that the four sprouts of compassion, shame, deference, and the sense of right and wrong are present in all human beings and need only be cultivated. Mencius's politics is also more confrontational with rulers: he argues that a tyrannical ruler forfeits the mandate of heaven and may legitimately be deposed, a doctrine more revolutionary than anything explicit in the Analects.

Representative quotes

Confucius

  • “Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself.”

    己所不欲，勿施於人

  • “Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.”

    學而不思則罔，思而不學則殆。

  • “The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”

    君子欲訥於言而敏於行。

Mencius

  • “The great man is he who does not lose his child's-heart.”

    大人者，不失其赤子之心者也

  • “He who exerts his mind to the utmost knows his nature.”

    7A:1, as translated by Wing-tsit Chan in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963), p. 62

  • “The feeling of compassion is the beginning of benevolence; the feeling of shame is the beginning of righteousness; the feeling of deference is the beginning of propriety; the feeling of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom.”

    2A:6, as translated by Wing-tsit Chan in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963), p. 65 | Variant translation: The sense of compassion is the beginning of benevolence; the sense of shame the beginning of righteousness; the sense of modesty the beginning of decorum; the sense of right and wrong the beginning of wisdom. Man possesses these four beginnings just as he possesses four limbs. Anyone p

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