[Article] Why Are Ghosts Public?: Dasan and the Search for Our Discourse (Searching for K-Discourse 1) / Baek Min Jung
The Quarterly Changbi 203, Spring 2024
Abstract
We begin a series “Searching for K-Discourse,” to promote independent Korean studies and autonomous discourses, amid the flood of Western discourses in our society. A project to reflect on our self-understanding as it has changed—as outside recognition and appreciation of Korea have dramatically increased—it intends to examine our ideological resources that warrant rediscovery. Professor of Philosophy Baek Min Jung of Catholic University contributes the first article in this series. Beginning with the question of whether or not it is appropriate to consider Dasan Jeong Yak-yong’s thought as Sirhak, or the Realist School Confucianism, a project of independent response to the Western modern, Baek re-illuminates the political character of Confucian ancestral rites in the context of publicness, or our duty to perform reciprocal care. As such, it is a sharp criticism of the weakness in the current discussion of Confucian modernity.