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societal advances requiring networking and information technology the Axial Age) intrigues the historical imagination to
research and development. Arlington, Virginia: National Coordina- this day.
tion Office for Information Technology Research and Development.
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computing in the twentieth century. New York: Academic Press. Confucius first sought ministerial rank in Lu, one of
Mollenhoff, C. R. (1988). Atanasoff: Forgotten father of the computer. numerous states constituting a not-yet-unified China.
Ames: Iowa State University Press. Failure at that turned him toward teaching. It is as a
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Press. statehood (sponsored by the state) formed around his
Price, D. J. S. de. (1959).An ancient Greek computer. Scientific American
200(6), 60 –67. teachings. He initiated three traditions: teaching any
Stern, N. (1981). From ENIAC to UNIVAC: An appraisal of the Eckert- who would learn (the democratic temper), being a private
Mauchly computers. Bedford, MA: Digital Press. teacher (education for its own sake), and valuing the
Swade, D. (2000). The difference engine: Charles Babbage and the quest
to build the first computer. New York: Viking. transforming influences of history, arts, letters, and music
Waldrop, M. M. (2001). The dream machine: J. C. R. Licklider and the rev- (liberal education).
olution that made computing personal. New York: Viking.
Confucius wrote no books, but his teachings are col-
lected in the Analects (Lunyu), a collection of 479 sec-
tions of sayings attributed to him by three generations of
students and disciples. Disparate in subject, timeframe,
and personal nuance, the work is unified by the fact that
Confucianism all its utterances have to do with Confucius. This work
stands at the center of the Confucian tradition not only
onfucianism, more a social and ethical philosophy in China but in the entire East Asian context. The
Cthan a religion, originated with Confucius (551– seventeenth-century Japanese Confucian thinker Ito Jinsai
479 BCE), whose name represents a Latinization of Kong called it the most profound book in the universe.
Fuzi, meaning Master Kong. With Daoism and Bud-
dhism, it was one of the three ways of thought in tradi- Basic Principles
tional China. The era in which Confucius lived was one The three principal ideas in the Analects are ren, yi, and
in which other major philosophers and founders of reli- li. Ren means interpersonal humane regard, from which
gious traditions also lived, including Siddhartha Gau- flows the entire Confucian social philosophy, in which a
tama (the Buddha, c. 563–c. 483 BCE) in India, Zoro- person sees his or her own humanity in another person.
aster (c. 628–c. 551 BCE) in Iran, the Hebrew prophets Yi is the impulse to do the right thing, to be ren. Li is the
in Palestine, and Thales (627?–547 BCE.) in Greece. He composite of all decorum and manners from the mun-
shares with these figures the role of defining the classical dane to the loftiest of rites, the outward manifestations of
heritage of the subsequent civilizations in those regions. ren and yi. These qualities underlie the Confucian inter-
In response to conditions of large-scale warfare, diaspo- personal philosophy, and, along with the important qual-
ras, and rapid social change, all five eras produced ities of trustworthiness (xin) and loyalty (zhong), give life
humankind’s first conscious responses to factors of to his view of state and society as consisting of the five
global impact.The responses were ethical in nature and cardinal relationships: ruler-ruled, father-son, husband-
shared a human-centered belief in the human ability to wife, elder brother-younger brother, and friend-friend.
forge new answers. The parallelism of developments Confucius viewed the family as the microcosm of the
in these five areas, constituting as it does a distinctive state and the state as the macrocosm of the family. His
world epoch (which the philosopher Karl Jaspers called philosophy is this-worldly.When queried about his view