On the Interaction between Confucian Knowledge and Political Power in Traditional China and Korea: A Historical Overview

Title

On the Interaction between Confucian Knowledge and Political Power in Traditional China and Korea: A Historical Overview

Author

Chun-Chieh HUANG

Page

1-19

DOI

Abstract

　　This article discusses the interaction and tension between Confucian knowledge and political power in traditional China and Korea. It has been argued that Confucianism aimed at ordering the world while the Chinese and Korean rulers needed to recruit the Confucian intellectuals to manage their countries. Therefore, the Confucian knowledge and political power in China and Korea became mutually dependent and infiltrating. However, as the modus operandi of knowledge and politics are asymmetrical, the tension between the two become unresolvable.
　　The article is composed of four parts. The first section is an introduction. The second section analyzes the inseparability and infiltration between Confucian knowledge and political power in pre-modern China and Korea. The third tackles the tension between knowledge and power in the context of Chinese and Korean history. Two types of tension are discussed, namely, (1) the tension between the political self and cultural self of rulers and Confucian scholar-officials, and (2) the tension between the "people-centered subjectivity" and the "sovereigncentered subjectivity." Some concluding remarks are made in the final section.

Keyword

Confucianism, political power, China, Korea

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