Confucius and Plato
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This study will compare and contrast the teachings of Confucius and Plato. On first glance, one would suspect that the two teachers have little if anything in common, considering that one is so thoroughly Eastern and the other is just as thoroughly Western. In fact, there are significant differences in the systems of thought and life delineated by the two, but at the same time the thought of East and West definitely meet at a number of important points in the teachings of these two philosophers. For all their emphasis on reason (Plato) and individual propriety (Confucius), it will finally be argued here that both Confucius and Plato believe together in the indoctrination of people in order to have them behave obediently and to create an orderly state or society. Graham might suggest that Confucius "anticipated St. Augustine's 'love and do as you please'" (Graham 84), but in fact Confucius' philosophy was based not on laissez-faire tenets but on thorough inculcation of traditional virtue by any means necessary. Similarly, Plato may have written at length in the most glowing terms about reason and the role of the Socratic method in education, but when he designed the blueprint for his ideal society in the Republic, he relied on the most blatant of deceptions. Both Confucius and Plato favor the method of dialogue as a means of teaching, asking questions and inquiring layer-by-layer into the matter at hand. Confucius employs this method in person, while Plato focuses on suc
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the desire for things of the body; the spirit is the drive toward action; and the reason is the awareness of a goal or action. Reason, to Plato, is the force which must be in control of the desire and the appetite:
The peculiar function of the rational part of the soul is to seek the true goal of human life. . . . It is the unique role of reason to discover the true world and thereby direct the passions to objects of love that are capable of producing true pleasure and true happiness.
. . . Confusion occurs . . . when the passions override the reason. This is why . . . moral evil is the result of ignorance (Stumpf 67).
This ignorance, to Plato, can be overcome through the restoration of reason through education: "Only knowledge can produce virtue because it is ignorance or false knowledge that has produced evil" (Stumpf 70). Included in this process of education is the notion of "recollection," which implies that there is an internal knowing in the individual which is merely awakened by the teaching of reason-based knowledge, rather than actually created out of ignorance in the individual (Stumpf 70). This is where the process of the dialogue as method of teaching enters the picture, for this method gives the "sleeping" i
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Approximate Word count = 1598
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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