Education in Confucius and Plato

Education in Confucius and Plato

After long time of their death we still remember these philosophers – Plato and Confucius. We know Plato by his work “Republic”. Plato was born in Ancient Greece in 428. And Confucius was born in 551 in Ancient China. He tried to serve to rulers, often he was criticized. He was persecuted but, nevertheless, was famed by his wisdom. Confucius had a lot of followers and died in 479. He created Analects, which for more then 2 thousand years became ideological basis of China’s Empire. Life and teaching of the Confucius are paradoxical. It consist lot of things which firstly seem simple, even trivial, and at the same time make sense of mystery and deep. Despite both of them lived in different places they definitely have some similarities and differences in their way of education. Because of their place of living, maybe, they had different vision of education. For example, Plato divided his education into three principal subdivisions: reading and writing, physical education, and literary education (page67). And I think that in Plato’s education we can see laconic and exactness. While in Confucius’s education there are his Analects which taught his students to life (1.13, 1.12). Unlike Plato, Confucius’s education is directed to teaching how to behave in the society, not for getting particular knowledge. There is no any exactness in his education as in Plato’s. Every Confucius’s Analects need a deep understanding of it and it formulates character. Every his Analects consist certain vagueness (1.1). Plato’s way of education oriented to certain period of certain person while Confucius’s way of education oriented for every person till the end of his life. Plato’s and Confucius’s way of teaching are different. Plato’s way is that his Guardian should be brought up from childhood and he started his education with training mind and character before training body (377c). Besides, Plato precisely chose tales and stories on which children’s minds would be mold (bk2). Also he paid huge attention to physical training. While Confucius believed that for getting wisdom or being a gentleman there are three ways: the first one is by reflection which is noblest – it is really good when people not only learn something but also when they develop it in mind, develop their thinking; second is by imitation which is easiest – it is really easy to learn and repeat someone’s words but do not understand the meaning of them (2.15); and the third one is by experience which is bitterest – he meant that our experiences are not always good (17.10). But the main sources of knowledge of Confucius are environment and society. And the main principle of his teaching is learning everywhere and every time because he thought that we should strive for perfection. Confucius (1979) The Analects London: Penguin Books