know your philosophers

CONFUCIUS / CHINA / 551BC–479BC Also known as China’s great master or Master Kong Qiu, Confucius has more or less been reduced to a fortune-cookie caricature by a lot of non-Asian countries. But historians and philosophers regard the man as the Socrates of the East, who espoused ideas about ethics, politics and democracy before the Greeks started talking about the same things. Confucius’s teachings were more based on morality than reasoned ethics, focusing on how people and society should behave and think, emphasising altruism, community and the importance of family. While Confucius’s most enduring ideas centred on how people should treat one another, he was also a political commentator. In an era of feudal princes and civil war, Confucius