Through an exhibition in Athens, great Eastern and Western thinkers merge to highlight moral commonalities and mutual learning, Zhao Ruixue reports in Jinan.

More than 2,000 years after Confucius (551-479 BC) and Socrates (469-399 BC) walked the Earth, an exhibition in Greece is bringing their ideas into the present, using artificial intelligence, immersive experiences and hands-on activities to bridge time, space and culture.

The exhibition, Encounter & Enlighten: A Dialogue Across Time and Space, running from June 8 to 10 during the second World Conference of Classics in Athens, highlights the profound intellectual achievements from roughly 800 BC to 200 BC, a time that German philosopher Karl Jaspers called the Axial Age.

During this pivotal era, Eastern and Western civilizations independently produced enduring wisdom that continues to shape human thought.

“Eastern civilization gave rise to profound reflections from Chinese philosophers, including Confucians, Taoists, Mohists, and Legalists, on how to build an orderly society and establish moral norms for human relationships,” says Fu Yongju, director of the Qilu Institute of Technology’s Qilu Culture Research Institute.

“Western civilization, meanwhile, produced the enduring wisdom of Socrates, Plato (427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC), who explored the nature of reason, the principles of logic, and the fundamental laws of the natural world.

“Remarkably, both civilizations established institutional homes for intellectual dialogue and debate around the same time.”

Plato’s Academy, founded in Athens around 387 BC by the philosopher himself, became a center for philosophical and mathematical research that operated for centuries.

The Jixia Academy was located in Linzi (in present-day Zibo, Shandong province), the capital of the ancient Qi state. Funded by the Qi state and operating for more than 150 years from roughly 374 BC to 221 BC, the academy is considered China’s earliest state-sponsored but privately run university.

It brought together academic schools, including Confucians, Legalists, Taoists, Mohists, and logicians who freely lectured, debated and advised rulers without holding official positions. According to historical records, there were dozens of schools of thought during the period before the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), and the Jixia Academy was a central venue where these schools exchanged ideas.

This historical legacy is not just a subject of academic study in Shandong, the home of Confucius and Mencius (372-289 BC). It is being actively revived. As part of this effort, the Qilu Institute of Technology has built the Jixia Building, which re-creates the spirit of the ancient Jixia Academy through lectures, scholarly dialogues and debates. Using digital technology and diverse artistic forms, teachers and students can experience the inclusive, free-thinking spirit.

The Athens exhibition highlights the resonance between Chinese and Greek thinkers. For example, Mencius’ teaching — a wise person first makes their own understanding clear, and then uses that clarity to make others clear — echoes a well-known Greek aphorism that education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

“Both value knowledge by emphasizing the methods of education and moral cultivation,” says Qi Jinjiang, a professor at the Qilu Culture Research Institute of the Qilu Institute of Technology.

Similarly, Laozi’s observation —humans follow the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Way, and the Way follows what is natural — aligns with Thales’ proposition that water is the origin of all things.

Both Laozi (traditionally dated to the 6th–5th century BC) and Thales (624-546 BC) sought naturalistic accounts of how things work, says Qi.

As the exhibition brings together the wisdom of East and West, its deeper significance is also being underscored by Chinese scholars.

“Hosting this exhibition in Greece is not just about presenting an equal dialogue between Chinese and Western civilizations, but also about faithfully conveying the long continuity of Chinese civilization and the essential values of Confucius and Confucianism, so that the world may truly understand China,” says Yang Chaoming, a distinguished professor at the Advanced Institute for Confucian Studies, Shandong University. ‌

Qi further explains that among the major schools of thought, Confucianism served as the foundation and core. Confucius compiled the Six Classics in his later life.

“These Six Classics are not merely Confucian texts, but served as the common curriculum for all the schools during the Jixia Academy period,” Qi says.

Qi distills Confucian benevolence into six dimensions, each resonating with universal human values that continue to inform global ethical discussions today.

Fairness, for example, is embodied in the principle of not doing to others what one would not want done to oneself. Development is captured in the saying: to establish oneself, help others establish themselves; and to succeed, help others succeed. It’s an early articulation of mutual benefit and shared progress that echoes modern ideas of win-win cooperation.

The Confucian understanding of democracy finds expression in the idea of harmony without uniformity, which represents the ability to hold different opinions while maintaining social cohesion. Peace, meanwhile, is reflected in the concept of winning others over through virtue rather than force, a clear rejection of hegemonism and domination in favor of moral example.

Justice, in the Confucian framework, is summed up in the belief that the world belongs to all, a vision that prioritizes public interest over private gain. Freedom is understood not as the absence of restraint, but as the recognition that true human flourishing requires both self-cultivation and deep respect for the dignity and development of others.

“These millennia-old ideas still possess powerful vitality today. They offer Eastern wisdom to resolve civilizational conflicts and maintain world peace,” Qi says.

As the world faces unprecedented challenges, scholars say that Axial Age wisdom offers valuable insights for building a shared future for humanity.

Fu says that through equality, respect, inclusiveness, and mutual learning, different civilizations can reach consensus and achieve common development.

Contact the writer at zhaoruixue@chinadaily.com.cn