Keynote speakers including Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a Malaysian economist; Zhang Zhiqiang, director of the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; and Chen Xiaoxia, a professor with Nishan World Center for Confucian Studies; shared their insights into the rich connotations of "community," the transcendent nature of Chinese civilization, and the contemporary value of the concept of "community."
The symposium included five panels: Civilization in History: Principle, Transfiguration, and Rebirth; The Public in Pre-Modern Polity: Governance, Wealth, and Ethnic Groups; Indra's Net: Ecology as a Methodology; Sustaining the Mind: From Embodied Skills to AI Platforms; Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on the Commons and Contemporary Practices of Commoning.
During the panel discussions, conference participants delved into the theory and practice of "community" from various dimensions such as classical studies, political philosophy, ecology and religion, artificial intelligence, and public policy-making.
The event also featured a holographic dialogue between Mencius and Aristotle presided over by Sachs and Meng.
Meng said that as the 79th-generation descendant of Mencius, he established the Mencius Foundation in 2018. Each year the foundation organizes multiple international forums intending to better communicate Confucianism, show the world the excellent traditional Chinese culture, and promote cultural exchanges between the East and the West.
Meng said his foundation plans to hold its signature program, the Oriental Civilization Summit Dialogue, which has been held four times in China, in Europe soon.
Jointly initiated by UNSDSN and the Athens Academy, the Confucius–Aristotle Symposium was first held in Athens in 2019 and has since been organized three times.
