Author ｜
Huang Chun-chieh
Abstract ｜
This article discusses the interaction of ideas, foreign and indigenous, in the intellectual exchanges within East Asia in the recent three hundred years. Section Two analyzes the issues involved in the subjectivity of the recipients of the foreign ideas. We indicate that the approaches of appropriation and re-interpretation were employed to make the foreign ideas more congenial to the receiving homeland. Section Three takes four concepts, namely, Dao, Benevolent Governance, China, and Revolution of Tang and Wu, as examples to illustrate the fact that the more universal the concepts were, the easier it was for them to be accepted by foreign thinkers. On the contrary, the more particular the concepts were, the easier it was for them to be rejected by the thinkers in the foreign countries. This article proposes three conclusions. First, the concepts develop their own autonomy once they are articulated. Secondly, the transmission of ideas or concepts have to be screened, adapted, re-organized, or reinterpreted by the intermediate agents of cultural interaction. Thirdly, we have to contextualize the development to ideas or concepts in foreign lands in the particular cultural ambiance. It is fruitful that we regard the development of imported ideas or concepts as the process of growth of the cultural subjectivity of a given country.
keywords ｜
East Asia, Dao, Benevolent Governance, China, Tang-Wu Revolution