On The Thought Of Attaining Virtue Of Confucius

The ultimate aim of Confucius'academic and education is to attain virtue and come to sage, not only to acquire the knowledge and the skills. The main part and the core of Confucius'thought is the ideology of attaining virtue. It is called the philosophy of enlightening by education or attaining virtue.The Confucius all previous of"Tao"and"Te"were synthesized and brought to the highest development. Firstly, the origin of the ideology of attaining virtue is composed of virtue in Zhou period, traditional patriarchal culture and the propriety and music in Lu State. Secondly, achieving the highest virtue is the ultimate goal. Confucius says:"My Tao has one thread that runs through it."It is said, there is a main thread running through his whole thought. The main thread is the ideology of attaining virtue. This ideology is based on the consciousness of"Xing and Tiandao"."Tiandao"is the highest virtue, by the studies of men below, it is transformed into people's nature. The person's essence depends on his innate virtue character, it is mercy and morality. Attaining virtue is to achieve ideal moral quality, realize the inner virtue nature. So Confucius advocates that one man should study below and come to high level. By the practice of malevolence, an individual can comprehend the heaven, and attain the highest virtue.Confucius pays great attention to practice, his theory is rational and practicable. First, the ideology of attaining virtue is rational. Second, in this rational idea, practice is emphasized especially. The inner sage and the outside empire is the whole content of Confucius'thought. The inner sage is based on practicing by oneself and the outside empire should be socially experienced.The thought of attaining virtue includes: coming to virtue, basing on ethics, depending on mercy, and enjoying art. The virtue, ethics, mercy and art is the total outline of Confucius'thought. Zhutsu explains that logic thinking process of this ideology is"from coming to virtue, to basing on ethic, to depending on mercy, to enjoying art". In the Confucius'thought system of attaining virtue, studying below and coming to high level is the main goal. Therefore, coming to virtue is the highest level among them. It is based on ethic, and the main method of achieving ethic is mercy. At last, enjoying art is the basement. Those items proceed level by level, they are all important. Enjoying art is the start of the logics inside the ideology, depending on mercy and basing on ethic is the main structure, coming to virtue is the ultimate goal, its logic process is from art to mercy, to ethic, to virtue. These contents are unity of opposite, they are dependant each other. The unity of above four items makes up a complete system of attaining virtue thought. The system contains a great deal of connotation and is logic process is very clear.