Ruist Basics

How do Americans Categorize Confucianism?

A few months ago, we set out to assess Americans’ self-reported knowledge of, and attitudes toward, Ruism. To achieve this, we conducted a survey of 379 adults living in the United States. We’ll be sharing the results in the coming weeks.

We asked respondents to categorize Confucianism as a philosophy, a religion, a combination of a philosophy and a religion, or a form of spirituality. Here’s what they said.

About 42% of the respondents categorized Confucianism as a philosophy. About 27% considered it to be a combination of a religion and a philosophy. Relatively few respondents categorized Confucianism as a religion (13%) or a form of spirituality (7%) and about 11% were not sure how to categorize it.