School · 310 BCE–235 BCE
Confucian traditions
Confucian traditions is ritual, ethical, and political traditions organized around cultivation, family roles, exemplary rule, and classical learning.
Shared questions
- How do ritual practice and self-cultivation make ethical and political order possible?
Internal disagreements
- Whether moral authority rests primarily in humane responsiveness, ritual norms, social roles, or reflective understanding.
Key texts
- Analects — Compiled by later followers rather than written by Confucius; its layers are of different dates.
- Xunzi — One of the few early Chinese texts substantially written by the philosopher whose name it carries.