What is the Difference Between Daoism and Confucianism?

The two great indigenous philosophical and religious traditions of China, Daoism and Confucianism, originated about the same time (6th–5th century BCE) in what are now the neighboring eastern Chinese provinces of Henan and Shandong, respectively. Both traditions have permeated Chinese culture for some 2,500 years. Both are associated with an individual founder, though in the case of Daoism the figure, Laozi


(flourished 6th century BCE), is extremely obscure, and some aspects of his traditional biography are almost certainly legendary. A conventional but unlikely story has it that Laozi and Confucius (551–479 BCE), the founder of Confucianism, once met and that the former (older) philosopher was not impressed. Be that as it may, their respective traditions share many of the same ideas (about humanity, society, the ruler, heaven, and the universe), and, over the course of millennia, they have influenced and borrowed from each other. Even since the end of the dynastic period (1911) and the establishment of the communist People’s Republic (1949), which was often violently hostile to religion, the influence of both Daoism and Confucianism in Chinese culture remains strong. 


Daoism and Confucianism arose as philosophical worldviews and ways of life. Unlike Confucianism, however, Daoism eventually developed into a self-conscious religion, with an organized doctrine, cultic practices, and institutional leadership. In part, because the doctrines of religious Daoism inevitably differed from the philosophy from which they arose, it became customary among later scholars to distinguish between the philosophical and the religious versions of Daoism, some taking the latter to represent a superstitious misinterpretation or adulteration of the original philosophy. That critical view, however, is now generally rejected as simplistic, and most contemporary scholars regard the philosophical and religious interpretations of Daoism as informing and mutually influencing each other.

The basic ideas and doctrines of philosophical Daoism are set forth in the Daodejing (“Classic of the Way to Power”)—a work traditionally attributed to Laozi but probably composed after his lifetime by many hands—and in the Zhuangzi (“Master Zhuang”) by the 4th–3rd-century-BCE Daoist philosopher of the same name. The philosophical concept from which the tradition takes its name, dao, is broad and multifaceted,


as indicated by the many interrelated meanings of the term, including “path,” “road,” “way,” “speech,” and “method.” Accordingly, the concept has various interpretations and plays various roles within Daoist philosophy. In its most profound interpretation, the Cosmic Dao, or the Way of the Cosmos, it is the immanent and transcendent “source” of the universe (Daodejing), spontaneously and incessantly generating the “ten thousand things” (a metaphor for the world) and giving rise, in its constant fluctuation, to the complementary forces of yinyang, which make up all aspects and phenomena of life. The Cosmic Dao is “imperceptible” and “indiscernible,” in the sense of being indeterminate or not any particular thing; it is the void that latently contains all forms, entities, and forces of particular phenomena. Another important interpretation of dao is that of the particular “way” of a thing or group of things, including individuals (e.g., sages and rulers) and humanity as a whole.