Comparisons Between The Ideology Of 'Enlightenment' As Seen By Youwei-Kang And Yukichi-Fukuzawa

Our research typically focuses on the ideologies of the west and East, whilst drawing upon a comparison between the cultural ideologies. This method is comparitive and natural one to make, yet wholly essential. However, we should not be limited to such a broad comparison. We should heve focus also upon the comparison of cultures ideologies, between different countries and different ethnic groups. Within this, good subjects for comparison are Japan and China.It is possible to make broad comparisons between Chinese and Japanese cultural ideologies. Thus, the subject of this thesis is limited to the ideologies pertaining to enlightenment. In limiting the extent of the research between China and Japan a clearer and more accurate comparison of the characteristics can be made using the ideologies of Youwei-Kang and Yukichi-Fukuzawa, prominent ideologists of China and Japan respectively.This thesis consists of three sections. It will look at the East-West cultural ideologies from Youwei-kang and Yukichi-Fukuzawa's perspectives in the first section. Firstly, the cultaral backgrounds, which encouraged the aforementioned people to become Enlightenment Ideologists will be described and then the cultures of the East and the West will be stated. The veiws of Eastern and Western cultures is one of the most important pats of Enlightenment ideology from Youwei-Kang and Yukichi-Fukuzawa in the first part. Youwei-Kang and Yukichi-Fukuzawa, had lived in a period of history in which the cultures of East and West initially collided, but subsequently united. The character of such a period enabled them to compare and make some summaries upon the cultures of East and West, based upon their own theoretical opinions. Also, it enabled them to present basic veiws towards these. For this field, it will be divided 2 parts; the attitude toward western culture and the attitude toward traditional culture.In the second part, I want to have a look at the ideology for social enlightenment of Youwei-Kang and Yukichi-Fukuzawa. This is the main part of enlightenmentideology. Even though, Youwei-Kang and Yukichi-Fukuzawa experienced the modern western ideology - because of their lack of entire understanding of it - their presented theory was not mature enough and couldn't be systematised. Despite this fact they reformed the field of ideology, because they introduced a new view on the world and a theory which was contrastive with the traditional concept. Although the field of ideology for enlightenment is very wide and had great influence on almost every important subject in the modern society, I want to limit it's field according to the following area; View of history, View of politics, View of studies and View of education. Analyzing and comparing in this area, I also want to make a new view on the world of Youwei-Kang and Yukichi-Fukuzawa and the precise effect which they brought in the ideological change in both counties.The third part will be for results. In this part I want to breifly have a look at the reasons which resulted in the field bet ween-social-historical environment of China and Japan and essentially the diffrences in their ideologies. At the same time, I want to add the significance which they have made as great representative Enlightenment ideologists in China -Japan to date.