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Confucianism/Ruism (c. 551–479 BCE)

A comparative analysis with the CoD

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cod-thesis-c0050-confucianism-ruism-02 'Zengzi Kills a Pig' (æ›Ÿć­æ€çŒȘ) the Confucian disciple (Zeng Shen) honors the bond of trust with his young son by fulfilling a mother’s casual promise, slaughtering the family pig to demonstrate that a parent’s word is sacrosanct, rendered as a photorealistic scene of domestic moral instruction, courtesy of Nano Banana.

Note: For first-time readers: This comparative analysis assumes familiarity with the Conference of Difference (CoD) ontological model. For a concise introduction to its central claim, see Central claim

I. Abstract

This analysis examines the implicit ontology within classical Confucianism/Ruism[1] and contrasts it with the explicit ontological model of the Conference of Difference (CoD). Classical Ruism, as articulated in the Warring States period, is foremost a social-ethical system focused on cultivating virtuous relationships through li (ritual propriety) and ren (humaneness). Its ontology is pragmatic and embedded: a meaningful, harmonious existence (Dao) is constituted through ritually structured social order, understood to reflect broader patterns in nature (Tian).[2] The comparative assessment reveals a fundamental divergence on the criterion of relationship between multiplicity and unity. Where Ruism's ethical framework implies a normative, pre-existing harmony as the telos of relations, the CoD posits relationality itself (the 'conference of difference') as the primitive, a-teleological process from which all orders temporarily emerge. This demonstrates the CoD's capacity to reframe the core relational insight of classical systems without recourse to their implicit or explicit normative unities.

II. Overview of Confucianism/Ruism

Rusim, emerging from the Warring States period in China, offers a philosophy where ontology is inextricable from ethics and social order. Its primary concern was not abstract metaphysics but the concrete question of how to achieve a flourishing, stable society.

The system is built on the cultivation of humaneness (ren) expressed through socially defined ritual conduct (li). The system was derived empirically, not metaphysically: Confucius observed that the family—with its natural hierarchies and reciprocal duties between parent and child, elder and younger—was the fundamental unit of human harmony. He generalized this model outward to the state and society, formalizing it as the Five Cardinal Relationships (ruler-subject, father-son, husband-wife, elder-younger brother, friend-friend).

Development of Classical Confucian Thought

flowchart TD
    A[Empirical Observation
Family Unit
父-歐, 慄-ćŒŸ] --> B[Generalization & Systematization
Five Cardinal Relationships
Li 瀌 & Ren 仁]
    
    B --> C[Ethical-Social Theory
Harmonious, Hierarchical Society
Modeled on Family Roles]
    
    C --> D[Naturalistic Justification
Alignment with Tian 怩 & Dao 道
“Cosmic Mirroring”]
    
    D --> E[Classical Ruist Framework
Social Ethics with Implicit Ontology]
    
    style A fill:#8f868a, color:#fff,stroke:#393537
    style B fill:#504a4c, color:#fff,stroke:#393537
    style C fill:#72696d, color:#fff,stroke:#393537
    style D fill:#aba4a7, color:#fff,stroke:#393537
    style E fill:#443f42, color:#fff,stroke:#393537

For classical Ruists, this social order was then understood as aligning with the observable patterns of nature, referred to as Tian (Heaven) or the Dao (the Way). The Dao in this context is the proper path for human life and governance—a normative, cultivated standard of harmonious conduct that brings human affairs into coherence with the perceived regularity of the cosmos. This 'mirroring' is ethical and metaphorical, not astronomical; it provides a naturalistic justification for Ruist ethics rather than a detailed cosmological theory.

In Confucianism / Ruism: a CRUP-OMAF case study, its ontology is assessed as follows:

III. Overview of the CoD

The CoD model claims that as the 'condition of being', existence is, by extension, the 'process of declaring together of action to be'. The CoD model claims further that this process of declaring together is, in functional terms, a conference of difference, symbolized as {Δ} and defined as a 'condition of bearing together' transforming the 'condition of bearing apart'.[3] The author has not been able to reduce this expression any further and thus concludes that the conference of difference is the process primitive of existence. For instance, whether we infer the condition of an elementary particle as a discrete corpuscle, a quantum wave packet, or an excitation of a field, each can only realize via the process primitive: the conference of difference. The fundamental implication is that the 'conference of difference' is not a property of any single physical theory, but the universal constant expression of existence itself—one through which every abstracta (construct) is revealed and every existent is transformed. The CoD model asserts that the conference of difference is not only universally observable throughout existence and thus in 1:1 correlation with existence but is the root process of transformation itself and thus cause to all existence.[4]

IV. Comparison

Criterion 1: Primacy-of-Existence

Criterion 2: Manner-of-Existence

Criterion 3: Relationship-Between-Multiplicity-and-Unity

V. Implications

This comparison with classical Ruism sharply illuminates the CoD's philosophical project. The central lesson is that it is possible to construct a coherent ontology of relation that is ground-up and a-teleological, without positing a pre-existing normative unity (like the Dao) as its foundation.[5]

This comparison strengthens the thesis by demonstrating the CoD's capacity to absorb the core relational strength of a classical system—its focus on interconnectedness and role-based stability—while solving the problem of its static normative cosmology. The CoD reframes harmony not as the default state of the cosmos to which one must return, but as the functional output of a CoD operating in co-petitive mode—a precious, hard‑won, and inherently temporary achievement.

This opens a significant line of inquiry: if ethics are not derived from conformity to an external, pre-existing order, can they be derived from the immanent dynamics of the CoD itself? Having seen how the CoD re-grounds a harmony-based system, the next logical step is to examine its interaction with a philosophy that takes conflict and perpetual change as its fundamental principle.

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Contents

Footnotes

  1. The term commonly known in the West as Confucianism is derived from the Latinized name Confucius—but more accurately called Ruism, from the Chinese rĂș (愒). While ru was not originally exclusive to Confucius’ school, it had, by the Han dynasty become the standard self-designation for what we now call Confucianism or Ruism. ↩

  2. Tian functions as the ultimate referent or guarantor of the Ruist Dao, whether understood more naturalistically as 'patterns' or more metaphysically as 'Heaven'. ↩

  3. Note the set notation {...} here is adapted to mean conference with the Delta symbol Δ denoting difference. Additionally, every difference is itself a conference of difference. ↩

  4. To be elaborated on in Section 4.1 The CoD as a Universal Constant. ↩

  5. In a purely functional sense, the conference of difference as process primitive could be seen as the Dao of existence — the 'way' things are and transform — but without Ruism’s normative, hierarchical, and cosmic-moral teleology. This reframes the Dao from a pre‑given harmony to the constitutive process of all becoming. ↩

Last updated: 2026-02-05
License: JIML v.1