Jeong Yak-yong's Political Theory: In Comparison to Those of the Zhu Xi and Ogyu Sorai Schools

Title

Jeong Yak-yong's Political Theory: In Comparison to Those of the Zhu Xi and Ogyu Sorai Schools

Author

Chen-feng TSAI

Page

183-207

DOI

10.6163/tjeas.2014.11(2)183

Abstract

From the seventeenth century, there developed in East Asian countries a common trend of anti- or post-Zhu Xi learning. Among the trend, were there any new dimensions opened for political theory? Did they have modern implications? To deal with the two questions, this essay focuses on the political theory of Jeong Yak-yong (Dasan, 1762-1836), a Korean Confucian who was active at the turn of the nineteenth century, to see whether he developed a distinct line of thinking under the influence of both Zhu Xi learning from China and the anti-Zhu learning of Ogyu Sorai from Japan. This essay argues that although Jeong did not break the link, presumed in Zhu Xi learning, between "innate moral nature" and "artificial political institution," but his theory makes more room for the idea of equality and the mechanism of negotiation that are valued in modern politics. Jeong not only preserved the Sorai school's emphasis on institution, but showed more traits of utilitarianism than the Zhu Xi school did.

Keyword

Korean Confucianism, Sorai learning, Zhu Xi learning, Dasan learning, political theory

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