Jainism Vs Confucianism

When reading the distinct philosophies of nations form the west to the east, one tends to notice that even though all aspire towards the goal of harmony, they are superficially similar but fundamentally different. They are all visionary thoughts but approached from different perspectives of what is considered right or efficient.

When looking at the philosophy of ancient Greece in the west, we see a kind of renaissance taking place in the philosophical revelation of its learned men. Their thirst for discourse and logic aimed at answering the basic question to the meaning of life and reality. While the philosophy of Plato was based on his concept of reality which to him was an illusion, Aristotle was more inclined to accepting the reality of

He proposed that men needed to be enlightened and emphasized a middle path to achieving it. His method promoted meditation instead of logic and discourse of the west, while going against our innate desires and predispositions by getting rid of them instead of explaining them like Aristotle and eliminating the social structure of the cast system by treating everyone as equals unlike Aristotle. Jainism on the other hand went to an excessive and extreme response towards love for nature to avoid sin. Just like Buddhism it required a personal endeavor to escape the sin that leads to the cycle of death and rebirth. The Chinese philosophy of Confucianism differed in that it did not try to answer the meaning of life but instead dictated how one might live it, by following a more political ideology of governance and the virtue of traditions. Confucianism believes that all men are intrinsically good while Han Fei-Tzu believed that men were evil and needed to be forced into submission, demanding absolute obedience without the emphasis on virtue, with the ruler being an enforcer of laws. Unlike the western philosophy, Dao was mystical and did not seek to know or understand life because it is unknowable. It focused on effortless existence and becoming one with

Aristotle, Confucianism and Han Fei-Tzu, all accepted the need for social structure, submission and rules that man needs to adhere to for harmony and balance in society. Plato and Buddha were also similar in concluding that what is known to man is an illusion and that man needed to search for truth. Plato’s search for truth was through discourse and logic, while Buddha required his followers to pursue the eighth fold path. Plato and Dao both looked to nature for the meaning of life, where Plato explained that nature determined who a person was and answered why man did what he did. Dao sought to work with nature, respecting it reverentially in order to live in harmony. Both Dao, Buddhism and Confucianism promoted a peaceful coexistence that place responsibility on individuals while Aristotle and Han Fei-Tzu accepted a more authoritarian form of governance based on social