Dissent and Cultures of Debate in premodern China and Korea

儒家传统通常被描述为在东亚文化中灌输了等级思想和伴随而来的对服从和顺从的偏好，因此不鼓励表达不同意见。根据这一论证路线，儒家伦理阻碍了公开讨论的实践，这些讨论致力于通过（联合）审查论证的有效性来确定什么是真实的或正确的。因此，儒家思想被指责阻碍了科学和社会的进步；在政治上，这些观点被用来缓和在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朝鲜（与日本不同，儒家思想在政治上被制度化）的儒家文人的不同意见和辩论的实践和概念的更细致的理解。我们认为，表达不同意见和进行争论是相关社会的既定做法，而儒家思想（一个有争议但对我们来说不可或缺的概念）为辩论和不受约束的辩论文化的起源提供了资源。尽管这种辩论文化并非没有矛盾和矛盾，并在一定程度上被政治和社会威权主义所混淆，但它构成了儒家文人自我概念的一个重要方面，因此值得仔细重建。我们的目标是通过研究在不同的历史阶段和不同的社会文化环境中，儒家文人进行和评价有争议的辩论的方式来对此做出贡献。我们将a)通过识别和分析中国战国时期的中心来源来探索这种“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型和先例；b)研究宋明清中国和Chosǒn韩国的文人辩论的典型案例，了解他们的社会结构和讨论者对争议的态度。我们的案例研究涵盖了一系列历史情况，这些情况都以（大多数）文人精英的（新）儒家教育背景为特征，但在（新）儒家经典的解释和权威方面存在显著差异。我们将特别关注关于异议和争议合法性的文人元话语；c)收集和分析这篇论述中使用的关键词，着眼于占国时期资源的作用，以及其他文化资源（如佛教辩论传统）是否起作用，如果起作用，在多大程度上起作用。由此产生的专著，由两位申请人和被聘用的研究员共同撰写，将有助于对以儒家为基础的交流文化的去东方化理解。它也可能有一些方法论价值，因为它试图研究“中国”和“韩国”的历史材料紧密结合在一起，而不是将各自的社会文化实体一分为二或混为一谈。

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.