Confucius vs Socrates
Confucius and Socrates are the two most important pre-systematic ethical philosophers in their respective traditions, and they were near contemporaries — Confucius died around 479 BC, Socrates was born around 470 BC. Comparative philosophy has often paired the two as the founders of Eastern and Western moral inquiry.
At a glance
| Confucius | Socrates | |
|---|---|---|
| Dates | 551 BC – 479 BC | 470 BC – 399 BC |
| Nationality | Chinese | Greek |
| Era | Ancient | Ancient |
| Movements | Confucianism | Ancient Greek Philosophy |
| Profile | Confucius → | Socrates → |
Where they agree
Both held that the central question of philosophy is how a human being should live, both rejected sophistical rhetoric and the merely persuasive in favor of careful inquiry, and both wrote nothing themselves — their teachings come down through devoted students. Both held that the genuine teacher is also the genuine moral exemplar.
Where they disagree
Socrates' philosophical method is the elenchus: questioning interlocutors until the contradictions in their beliefs become apparent, with the result often being that no positive doctrine is established. Confucius's method is the cultivation of conduct through ritual, study of the classics, and emulation of the ancient sages — a positive doctrine of how to become a person of complete virtue. Where Socrates' inquiry tends to disrupt received opinion in the name of a knowledge no one quite has, Confucius's teaching reinforces and refines the received tradition of right conduct. Socrates' philosophy is corrosive to convention; Confucius's is constitutive of it.
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。
Socrates
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“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
Variant: The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. | Socrates II: xxxi . Original Greek: ἓν μόνον ἀγαθὸν εἶναι, τὴν ἐπιστήμην, καὶ ἓν μόνον κακόν, τὴν ἀμαθίαν -
“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
Plato, Phaedo 115e -
“I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed ... from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.”
Plato , Symposium , 175d
Continue reading
- Full profile: Confucius
- Full profile: Socrates
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