A Comparative Study Of Gu Yanwu And Ding Ruoyong's Pragmatic Thoughts

Practical learning thought has important significance in the history of the development of Chinese and Korean literature and reached its peak in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty in China and Late Chosun Dynasty in Korea.A mong them,Gu Yanwu and Ding Ruoyong are the representative figures,and their practical thought had far-reaching influence on later generations.Moreover,the thoughts of Ding Ruoyong and Gu Yanwu were not independent of each other but had a deep influence on each other.This paper,as a part of the comparative study of Chinese and Korean literature,takes the practical learning thoughts of Gu Yanwu as the research question and probes into their inter-impa cts through comparative analysis.This paper firstly introduces the formation and development of practical learning in China and Korea,and then examines the background of the two persons by introducing Gu Yanwu and Ding Ruoyong’s career and their living conditions.Secondly,their practical learning thoughts are divided into four parts: philosophy,sociology in social management,classics study and literature.At last,the paper explores how they influenced each other.Philosophical thought is the theoretical basis of Gu Yanwu and Ding Ruofu’s thinking system.Gu Yanwu’s cosmology holds that everything in the universe is Qi,and all things are changeable.In the theory of knowledge and practice,he emphasizes that erudition is what one pursues and one should feel asham ed of transgression;in the theory of human nature,he advocates that human is born to have good will.Ding Ruoyong upholds the cosmology of Taiji’s creat ion of all things,and contends that everyone takes fancy in nature,while the the ory of practice holds that people need to actively choose to be good and pract ice towards the moral standards of traditional Confucianism.Social management is the essence of the practical learning thought.This a rticle from the political and economic aspects to discuss this part of the two persons.Concretely speaking,Gu Yanwu’s political thoughts mainly include the following: the mentality that everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of the world,the idea of utilizing feudalism in prefectures and counties,scientific personnel selection methods with sound bureaucratic system,the coordination into rule of law,democratic political discussion,the national defense policy of “est ablishing troops meanwhile developing agriculture".Economically,it is mainly about some suggestions of agriculture,industry and commerce as well as mone tary policy.In agriculture,it is advocated to use land rationally according to local conditions,to cultivate land and to distribute land equally.In industry and commerce,Gu Yan advocated to develop textile industry and supports free circ ulation of commodities.In currency,he takes favor in keeping wealth in private sectors.There are many similarities between these two thoughts,including the view of benevolent government,the people-oriented sovereignty,the implementation of decentralized system,the reform of bureaucratic system and imperial exa mination system,the view of national defense.Economically,they vigorously support developed handicraft and mining industries,and encouraged the circulati on of commodities and money.The study of Confucian classics plays a methodological role in the formati on of their thoughts.On the basis of textual research,Gu Yanwu and Gu Yan wu studied and annotated the ancient classics and historical books,from which they excavated the way of governing the country.In addition,Ding Ruoyong wrote a large number of Confucian classics and made great achievements.Ding Ruoyong and Gu Yanwu are not only practical thinkers but also writ ers,and their literary views are the most direct embodiment of their practical thoughts.They also have many similar views on literature.Firstly,they give full play to the social function of literature and pay attention to the practicability of literature.Secondly,they both believe content is more important than the form of literature.Another point that cannot be ignored in Gu Yanwu’s literary view is to create literary works that meet the needs of the times with a updated vision.Ding Ruoyong advocated that as a Korean,he should create localize d literary works from language to content,rather than blindly imitate China.The last part is the comparative analysis of the influence of Gu Yanwu’s practical learning thought on Ding Ruofu’s.Through the way of reading Gu Ya nwu’s literary works,Ding Ruoyong was influenced by many aspects of Gu Ya nwu’s practical thoughts,from the specific social reform programs such as county theory,mine field method to the research methods of textual criticism.However,Ding Ruoyong did not fully accept Gu Yanwu’s practical learning thought,but studied it critically and combined with the actual situation of Korean society,therefore developed into his own unique practical learning ideological system.