A main idea of Confucianism is the cultivation of virtue and the development of moral perfection.

The core of Confucianism is humanism, the belief that human beings are teachable, improvable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour especially including self-cultivation and self-creation.

Although Confucius the man may have been a believer in Chinese folk religion, Confucianism as an ideology is humanistic and non-theistic, and does not involve a belief in the supernatural or in a personal god.

Strictly speaking, there is no term in Chinese which directly corresponds to " Confucianism.

In this context, it is more readily construed as meaning " school of thought ", since it is also used to construct the names of philosophical schools contemporary with Confucianism: for example, the Chinese names for Legalism and Mohism end in jiā.

Humanism is at the core in Confucianism.

In practice, the primary foundation and function of Confucianism is as an ethical philosophy to be practiced by all the members of a society.

It is important to note that, although li is sometimes translated as " ritual " or " rites ", it has developed a specialized meaning in Confucianism, as opposed to its usual religious meanings.

The term jūnzǐ () is crucial to classical Confucianism.

It is postulated that certain elements of Leibniz's philosophy, such as " simple substance " and " preestablished harmony ", were borrowed from his interactions with Confucianism.

Especially the works of Liu Zhu such as Tiānfāng Diǎnlǐ （ 天方典禮 ） sought to harmonize Islam with not only Confucianism but Daoism and is considered to be one of the crowning achievements of the Chinese Muslim culture.

There is consensus among scholars that, whether or not it is religious, Confucianism is definitively non-theistic.

Confucianism is humanistic, and does not involve a belief in the supernatural or in a personal god.

" With the latter definition, Confucianism is religious, even if non-theistic, in the sense that it " performs some of the basic psycho-social functions of full-fledged religions ", in the same way that non-theistic ideologies like Communism do.

The Analects stress the importance of ritual, but also the importance of ' ren ', which loosely translates as ' human-heartedness, Confucianism, along with Legalism, is responsible for creating the world ’ s first meritocracy, which holds that one's status should be determined by education and character rather than ancestry, wealth, or friendship.

Confucianism is a philosophical school developed from the teachings of the sage collected in the Analects of Confucius.

Although it serves as a rival to Confucianism, a school of active morality, this rivalry is compromised and given perspective by the idiom " practise Confucianism on the outside, Taoism on the inside.

New Confucianism is an intellectual movement of Confucianism that began in the early 20th century in Republican China, and revived in post-Mao era contemporary China.

The Hundred Schools of Thought of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period, and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Mohism were founded, partly in response to the changing political world.

Cultures and countries strongly influenced by Confucianism include mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, as well as various territories settled predominantly by Chinese people, such as Singapore.

Most Chinese emperors used a mix of Legalism and Confucianism as their ruling doctrine, often with the latter embellishing the former.

Important military and political figures in modern Chinese history continued to be influenced by Confucianism, like the Muslim warlord Ma Fuxiang.

Lu Xun also criticised Confucianism heavily for shaping Chinese people into the condition they had reached by the late Qing Dynasty: his criticism are well portrayed in two of his works, A Madman's Diary and The True Story of Ah Q.

However, recent reexaminations of Chinese gender roles suggest that many women flourished within Confucianism.

It was during the Warring States era that the major philosophies of China, Confucianism, Mohism, Legalism, and Taoism, arose, along with philosophies that later fell into obscurity, like Agriculturalism, Chinese Naturalism, and the Logicians.

Confucianism represents the collected teachings of the Chinese sage Confucius, who lived from 551 to 479 BCE.

Confucianism was and continues to be a major influence in Chinese culture, the state of China and the surrounding areas of Southeast Asia.

In the post-Chinese economic reform era, modern Chinese philosophy has reappeared in forms such as the New Confucianism.

Although Confucianism is often followed in a religious manner by the Chinese, arguments continue over whether it is a religion.

The text is fundamental to both philosophical and religious Taoism ( Daojia,, Pinyin: Dàojiā ; Daojiao,, Pinyin: Dàojiào ) and strongly influenced other schools, such as Legalism, Confucianism and Chinese Buddhism, which when first introduced into China was largely interpreted through the use of Daoist words and concepts.

As Confucianism became the preferred philosophy of later Chinese dynasties, starting from the Emperor Wu of Han, Mohism and other non-Confucian philosophical schools of thought were suppressed.

Two philosophical underpinnings of love exist in the Chinese tradition, one from Confucianism which emphasized actions and duty while the other came from Mohism which championed a universal love.

He focused on the issues of Chinese urban development, Chinese patrimonialism and officialdom and Chinese religion and philosophy ( primarily, Confucianism and Taoism ), as the areas in which Chinese development differed most distinctively from the European route.

Here, Mao was taught the value systems of Confucianism, one of the dominant moral ideologies in China, but he would later admit that he did not enjoy reading the classical Chinese texts which preached Confucian morals, instead favouring popular novels such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin.

During the Han Dynasty, Confucianism developed from an ethical system into a political ideology used to legitimize the rule of the political elites.

In the 16th and the 17th centuries, the earliest European arrivals in China, the Christian Jesuits, considered Confucianism to be an ethical system, not a religion, and one that was compatible with Christianity.

In Confucianism and religious forms of Taoism these are often explicitly moral / ethical arguments about proper behavior, while Buddhism and more philosophical forms of Taoism usually refer to the natural and mercurial outcomes of action ( comparable to karma ).

Some scholars make sharp distinctions between moral or ethical usage of the word Dao that is prominent in Confucianism and religious Daoism and the more metaphysical usage of the term used in philosophical Daoism and most forms of Mahayana Buddhism ; others maintain that these are not separate usages or meanings, seeing them as mutually inclusive and compatible approaches to defining the concept.

The book, Training the Samurai Mind: A Bushido Sourcebook, gives an insider's view of the samurai world: " the moral and psychological development of the warrior, the ethical standards they were meant to uphold, their training in both martial arts and strategy, and the enormous role that the traditions of Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism had in influencing samurai ideals.

Christianity also was legalized, and Confucianism remained an important ethical doctrine.

Ninomiya combined three strands of traditional teachings Buddhism, Shintōism and Confucianism and transformed them into practical ethical principles which matured out of his experiences.

Neo-Confucianism ( often shortened to 理學 ) is a moral, ethical, and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, and originated with Han Yu and Li Ao ( 772-841 ) in the Tang Dynasty, and became prominent during the Song and Ming dynasties.

New Confucianism is a political, ethical, and social philosophy using metaphysical ideas from both Western Philosophy and Eastern.

Confucianism, sometimes translated as the School of Literati, is an East Asian ethical and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of Confucius.

Showing a surprising broad-mindedness, his ethical teachings drew on elements from Confucianism, ancient Japanese traditions, and traditional Buddhist teachings.

Thus in Ge ’ s view, Daoism and Confucianism both possess an ethical and political dimension by bringing order to the human and natural world.