Dissent and Cultures of Debate in premodern China and Korea

前现代中国和韩国的异议和辩论文化

• 批准号: 509758486
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Marion Eggert
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Sektion Geschichte Chinas
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/509758486?language=en
• 关键词: Dissent; Cultures; Debate; premodern; China

Confucian traditions are often described as having imbued East Asian cultures with hierarchical thinking and a concomitant penchant for obedience and submission, thus discouraging the voicing of dissent. According to this line of argument, Confucian ethics encumber the practice of open discussion dedicated to establishing what is true or right through the (joint) scrutiny of the validity of arguments. Confucianism is thus blamed with having impeded scientific and social progress; politically, these views are used to mitigate demands for the granting of the right to free debate in China.This project will provide a more nuanced understanding of practices and notions of dissent and debate among Confucian literati in pre-modern China and Korea (where, different from Japan, Confucianism was politically institutionalized). We assume that voicing dissent and conducting controversies were established practice in the societies concerned, and that Confucianism (a debated but for our concern indispensable notion) held resources for the provenance of a culture of debate and uninhibited argument. While not without contradictions and ambivalences, and partly obfuscated by political and social authoritarianism, this culture of debate constituted an important aspect of Confucian literati’s self-concept and thus merits careful reconstruction.We aim to contribute to this by investigating the ways in which controversial debates were conducted and evaluated by Confucian literati during different historical phases and in different socio-cultural environments. We will a) explore the early history of this “culture of debate” by identifying and analysing the central sources from the Chinese Zhanguo period, given that these sources provided models and precedents to later literati discourse; b) examine exemplary cases of literati debates from Song, Ming and Qing China and from Chosǒn Korea for their social set-up and the attitudes of the discussants towards controversy. Our case studies cover a range of historical situations which are all characterized by a (Neo-)Confucian educational background of (most of) the literati elite but differ markedly in the interpretation and the authoritativeness of the (Neo-)Confucian canon. We will pay special attention to literati meta-discourse about the legitimacy of dissent and controversy; c) collect and analyse the keywords used in this discourse, with an eye to the role of the resources from the Zhanguo period and to whether, and if so to which extent other cultural resources (such as the Buddhist tradition of debate) come into play. The resulting monograph, co-authored by the two applicants and the employed researcher, will contribute to a de-orientalized understanding of Confucian-based cultures of communication. It may also have some methodological value as an attempt to study “Chinese” and “Korean” historical materials in close conjunction without either dichotomizing or conflating the respective socio-cultural entities.

儒家传统经常被描述为给东亚文化注入了等级观念，以及随之而来的顺从和服从的倾向，从而阻止了异议的表达。根据这一论点，儒家伦理阻碍了公开讨论的实践，这种讨论致力于通过（联合）审查论点的有效性来确定什么是真实或正确的。因此，儒家思想被指责为阻碍了科学和社会进步;在政治上，这些观点被用来缓和中国给予自由辩论权的要求。本项目将提供对前现代中国和韩国儒家文人的异议和辩论的实践和概念的更细致的理解（与日本不同，儒家思想在那里被政治制度化）。我们假设，在相关社会中，表达不同意见和进行争论是既定的做法，而儒家思想（一个有争议但对我们来说不可或缺的概念）拥有辩论和不受约束的争论文化的来源。虽然这种论争文化并非没有矛盾和矛盾，并部分地被政治和社会权威主义所掩盖，但它构成了儒家文人自我概念的一个重要方面，因此值得认真重建。我们旨在通过考察不同历史阶段和不同社会文化环境中儒家文人进行和评价论争的方式，为这一点做出贡献。我们将a）通过识别和分析中国战国时期的核心来源来探索这种“辩论文化”的早期历史，因为这些来源为后来的文人话语提供了模式和先例; B）考察中国宋、明、清和朝鲜的文人辩论的典型案例，以了解其社会结构和讨论者对辩论的态度。我们的案例研究涵盖了一系列的历史情况，其特点都是（新）儒家教育背景的（大多数）文人精英，但显着不同的解释和权威性的（新）儒家经典。我们将特别关注文人关于异议和争议合法性的元话语; c）收集和分析这一话语中使用的关键词，着眼于战国时期的资源的作用，以及其他文化资源（如佛教传统的辩论）是否发挥作用，如果是，在多大程度上发挥作用。由此产生的专着，共同撰写的两个申请人和受雇的研究人员，将有助于去东方化的理解儒家为基础的文化传播。它也可能有一些方法论价值，试图研究“中国”和“韩国”的历史资料密切结合，既不二分法或合并各自的社会文化实体。