1001Philosophers

Confucius vs Plato on Knowledge

Plato treats knowledge as the soul's grasp of the eternal Forms, accessible to those who undertake the long dialectical ascent from sensible particulars. Confucius is reticent about theoretical knowledge of metaphysical ultimates and concentrates instead on knowing how to act within properly ordered social roles, sustained by ritual and the study of the classics. The Platonic knower contemplates what is universal and unchanging; the Confucian knower cultivates the practical discernment of the cultivated person within community.

About this topic

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge. Philosophers have asked what distinguishes knowledge from mere opinion, whether it requires certainty or can be probabilistic, and how perception, reason, memory, and testimony each contribute. Ancient skeptics challenged the possibility of knowledge altogether, while rationalists located its source in reason and empiricists in experience. Contemporary epistemology investigates justification, reliability, and the social conditions under which beliefs count as knowing.

For a side-by-side overview of the two philosophers more broadly, see the full Confucius vs Plato comparison. To browse philosophy more widely on this theme, see the Knowledge quotes hub.

Representative quotes on knowledge

Confucius on knowledge

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

    學而不思則罔，思而不學則殆。

  • “The Morals of Confucius , 2nd edition (London, 1724), Maxim X, p. 114”

    He that in his studies wholly applies himself to labour and exercise, and neglects meditation, loses his time, and he that only applies himself to meditation, and neglects labour and exercise, only wanders and loses himself.

  • “Men do not stumble over mountains , but over molehills”

    Reported in United States Congress House Committee on Agriculture (1973) Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Ninety-second Congress , p. 21

  • “Reported in United States Congress House Committee on Agriculture (1973) Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Ninety-second Congress , p. 21”

    Men do not stumble over mountains , but over molehills

  • “Man has three ways of acting wisely. First, on meditation; that is the noblest. Secondly, on imitation ; that is the easiest. Thirdly, on experience ; that is the bitterest.”

    The Analects , as reported in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 279

All 9 Confucius quotes on knowledge →

Plato on knowledge

  • “Philosophy begins in wonder.”

    155d, The Dialogues of Plato , Volume 3, 1871, p. 377

  • “I shall assume that your silence gives consent .”

    435b

  • “If the very essence of knowledge changes, at the moment of the change to another essence of knowledge there would be no knowledge, and if it is always changing, there will always be no knowledge, and by this reasoning there will be neither anyone to know nor anything to be known. But if there is always that which knows and that which is known —if the beautiful, the good, and all the other verities exist— I do not see how there is any likeness between these conditions of which I am now speaking and flux or motion.”

    440a–b

  • “155d, The Dialogues of Plato , Volume 3, 1871, p. 377”

    Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

  • “Perception and knowledge could never be the same.”

    186e

All 12 Plato quotes on knowledge →

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