Confucius

Without question, the most famous and influential Chinese philosopher is Confucius, who lived from 551 B.C. to 479 B.C., and shaped social and philosophical thought for several centuries. Typifying non-Western thought, he places less emphasis on logical and mathematical topics and methods; his metaphysical thought is driven more by social and ethical concerns than by rationalist or empiricist considerations. Central in his thought is the Chinese word “Tian” which can be translated variously, but names a Supreme Being in the universe. Jeff Richey writes:

Consistent throughout Confucius’ discourses on Tian is his threefold assumption about this extrahuman, absolute power in the universe: (1) its alignment with moral goodness, (2) its dependence on human agents to actualize its will, and (3) the variable, unpredictable nature of its associations with mortal actors.

It is obvious that this cosmology will have ethical implications:

While Confucius believes that people live their lives within parameters firmly established by Heaven — which, often, for him means both a purposeful Supreme Being as well as ‘nature’ and its fixed cycles and patterns — he argues that men are responsible for their actions and especially for their treatment of others. We can do little or nothing to alter our fated span of existence but we determine what we accomplish and what we are remembered for.

Here begin, then, the famous social directives for which Confucius is known. His moral-political propositions are not the inductive products of experience, but rather rationally founded on his ontology, which in turn, however, may possibly be the product of empirical induction. In any case, however, the basis for his ethics is immediately his theodicy, and at most only mediately any a posteriori considerations.