The Love of the Two Great Educators: Socrates and Confucius

Abstract

Socrates and Confucius are two great men whose philosophy or doctrines respectively shaped Western and Eastern civilizations. As educators, they share similarities and at the same time differ in significant ways. Both of them love knowledge, believing the starting point of learning is to have correct self-knowledge, and having faith in the attainability of knowledge, but their belief on the location of the source of knowledge and the ways to get it differ. Both of them value virtue, and made themselves examples of virtue before exhorting others to love and practice it, but their conceptions of the relations between virtue and knowledge differ. Both of them have concern for others and are willing to shoulder their missions to improve the societies they live, but their ways to love others and their missions differ. However, all these differences cannot eclipse and obscure the two great educator's major similarities: their genuine love and concern for the fate of the humanity. Knowledge and virtue hold the promise to improve human condition, and love for others and dedication to the society could further improve the wellbeing of human beings.