Abstract
Kim presents a case study of a prominent Confucian scholar-bureaucrat of the Practical Learning School named Chŏng Yag-yong (1762–1836). While in government service, Chŏng was exposed to Western cultures introduced via Ch’ing China and attempted to initiate some reforms in government. While in exile and out of power due to factional struggles, he wrote numerous works dealing with such reforms. His philosophy was critical of orthodox Neo-Confucianism, and his ideas for the reform of politics and the economy were radically “modern,” but due to his political faction being out of power, he was not in a position to realize them. His ideas were only rescued from obscurity by later generations in academic studies of his thought in the aftermath of Korea’s economic success.
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Kyong-Dong, K. (2017). The Aborted Confucian Reformation in Korea’s Embryonic Modernization: The Case of Chŏng Yag-yong (1762–1836). In: Confucianism and Modernization in East Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3626-2_4
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