ABSTRACT
Confucius stands at the pivot of the Axial Age in China. The Confucian tradition, as a ramified cumulative culture of concern-consciousness, shows a profound continuity with what can only be called pan-Chinese civilization. There are many important cultural artifacts predating the traditional founding of the Shang dynasty that demonstrate the great Bronze Age culture in North China. Needham argued that the Chinese were leaders in the worlds of ancient and medieval science; East Asia only fell behind Europe during the period of the rise of modern, ecumenical science. There was a long gap between the death of Confucius and the birth of Mencius, the second sage of the Confucian tradition. In an innovative study of Confucius, David Hall and Roger Ames employed Confucius' chronology of his intellectual development in order to present the major themes of Confucian philosophy.
