🎋Confucius | Free Course
Updated: Oct 17
Free Course by Everything IFS Academy | Philosophers Series
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🎧 Audio – listen on the go - (coming soon)
Welcome to the Confucius Course for Everyday People
Confucius, known in his own language as Kongzi, or Master Kong, lived in China from roughly 551 to 479 BCE, in an era when the old order was collapsing into war and the rules that once held society together had stopped meaning anything. He was a teacher, not a king. He spent more than a decade wandering from court to court looking for a ruler who would listen to him, found none, and died believing his life's work had failed. He wrote no book, and yet the students who remembered him carried his voice into more than two thousand years of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese life. What drove him was a single conviction, and it is the lens you will find behind every lesson here: that a broken world is not repaired by force or law, but by the slow work of making better human beings, one ordinary day at a time.
This course teaches Confucius pure to himself, with no other thinkers or modalities blended in. It is written in plain, emotionally relatable language anyone can follow, whether you have read philosophy for years or this is your very first step. It is not academic training and it is not a history lecture; it is Confucius's actual ideas, taught so you can genuinely understand them and carry them into how you see your own life. Each module gives you clear teaching, real-life illustrations, and an honest telling of both the brilliance and the flaws, and every lesson ends with a simple IFS and parts work practice so the ideas have somewhere to land.
This course is self-paced, with no tests, exams, or homework. Feel free to go through it in order, or jump around to whatever interests you most.
Course outline
Click any lesson below to begin.
The Basics
The Virtues
The Ordered World
Living It
Bonus
Yi: Righteousness And Doing What Is Right
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Who Writes Our Courses
Our free self-paced courses are a genuine human-AI collaboration, roughly 50% human and 50% AI.
These courses are not someone typing a single prompt and publishing whatever comes out.
We do not use a free or entry-level AI. We invest in one of the most advanced professional-tier AI models available, because the depth and accuracy of writing at this level is in a different league from what most people experience with low-cost AI.
While AI models arrive with extensive training across these topics, we never rely on that alone. Before drafting a single lesson, the AI performs in-depth research on that specific topic, pulling from resources written by qualified experts in the field: published books, professional essays, clinical resources, and articles from practitioners and specialists with relevant credentials. Every draft is grounded in that expert-created material, not generated from thin air.
With that said, whether something is written entirely by humans, entirely by AI, or by the two working together, errors can occur. We encourage readers to verify important information and consult a qualified professional in the relevant area wherever appropriate.
For those who would like more specifics, here is the six-step process behind every course:
1. Humans design the courses and set the teaching standards and outlines
2. Humans shape the arc of each lesson
3. AI conducts deep, highly specific research on each individual lesson topic before drafting the lesson
4. Humans review, direct, and run multiple edits alongside AI
5. Humans approves every lesson before it's published
6. Each finished course then goes to Eleven Labs, where it's recorded by one of their AI voices
We have poured a tremendous amount of time, care, and love into these free courses, in the hope that they help you become your best Self.
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We Hope You Enjoyed The Course
Help us reach the people who may need this most by sharing this free course with friends, family, colleagues, online communities, social media or on your own website.
Disclaimer:
Everything IFS Academy is an independent educational platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the IFS Institute. While we strive for accuracy, errors can occur, and users are encouraged to cross-reference critical information. These courses present the ideas of historical philosophers for educational and self-reflection purposes only. They describe what these thinkers taught and argued and do not constitute an endorsement of any philosophical position, nor do they constitute religious instruction or professional advice of any kind. They do not constitute therapy, mental health treatment, clinical training, or crisis support, and they should not be used as a substitute for professional mental health care.
Crisis Support: 🚨
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, feel unsafe, feel at risk of harming yourself or someone else, or feel too overwhelmed to safely use self-directed practices, please pause this material and reach out for immediate support. Contact a licensed mental health professional, call or text 988 in the U.S. or Canada, or use your local emergency or crisis resources.
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