The Pursuit Of Order And Harmony-The Comparison On The Ideas Of Harmonious Society Between Confucius And Plato

"Harmony Society" is the eternal pursuit of human beings. As the dream of Confucius, "Datong world" represents the highest level of an ideal harmonious society in ancient China. In ancient Greece, Plato brought together a numer of subjects written in "Republic" including politics, ethnics, ontology and epistemology, and would be remembered for describing an ideal kingdom beyond the real world. As the different living environment, theoretical backgrounds and different ways of thinking, these two "harmonious society" are different in building ideas and present multiform representation. Put them together to compare, we will come to see the problem in a new light, and draw much inspiration from the comparison.In the "Datong World", Confucius tried to find the enlightement from natural order over human norms. He imagined a harmonious world with the basic priciple of "Benevolence", which is founded on the tolerance among people. The ideal model of "Republic" is rational order with the basic principle of "Justice", and is built up by all the citizens taking their own responsibilities and playing suitable roles and maintaining virtue in each others. These two ideal society models are different in construction ideas, each of them revealed one aspect of the internal order of society and basic principles of harmony.Confucius and Plato not only elaborated the principles of building a harmonious society, but also tried to find policy and approaches to guarantee the stability and hamony of the society. They dealed with the significant issues in the process of building "Harmony Society", including social economy, social policy, education and regime; they actively engaged in the practice of "Harmonious Society", and fully illustrated that the ideal of "Harmony Society" was not just a philosophical argument, but a positive impact on people's living.It is undeniable that, whether the "Datong World" or the "Republic" were the norms to measure and criticized the real world and reflected the desire to the ideal world. Such pursuit of an ideal life often overlooked in human's own real-life, and ultimately would not be achieved.Nevertheless, we could not ignore the Confucius and Plato's ideal of a "Harmonious Society".The "Datong World" and the " Repubilc" demonstrated the philosophers to pursue indefatigably for the truth. Such theories put forward had the guiding significance for the reality in themselves. Confucius and Plato who placed emphasis on human's emotion or sense, had revealed one aspect of social harmony based on a paticular aspect of human nature. This gives us an important revelation that:a harmonious society is inseparable from emotional and rational aspects of moral principles, and should not only be just in the internal order but also embrace all the others in love and forgiveness.