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The De/Virtue(德) and Political Capacity of the People According to the Zhuangzi - Focusing on the Primitivist Writings of the Outer Chapters -

Kim, Kyung-Hee 1

1한국방송통신대학교

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ABSTRACT

In the philosophical tradition of East Asia, de (德) has generally been understood as a key concept of Confucian ethics only. However, Daoists had also developed their own ideas of de. In this article, I examine the unique idea of de, as it appears in the Primitivist chapters of Zhuangzi, and try to consider its political implications. Within Confucianism, de refers to the inner inclination and capacity to act morally. It has to attained through the process of self cultivation and learning. Confucius required it as a personal quality for politicians - a quality that is special and uncommon, and can only be attained by a small number of people. This implies that, within the political sphere, the qualified and unqualified must be distinguished, and that the people(民) - representing the majority of community members - are to be excluded from the political and public sphere so that they cannot be become political subjects. Against this Confucian thought, the Primitivist author of Zhuangzi defines de as the capacity to, and activity of, live spontaneously which people naturally have as part of their inborn nature(性). It is described as the capacity ‘to weave for their clothing, to till for their food’. In this sense, de is a capacity that is shared by everybody, and that which needs not to be developed but discovered. In Primitivist writings, there is a political idea that we must not overlook. It is the idea that people have the ability to discuss and debate with their own mouths. The mouths of the people not only have the function of eating to live, but also have the function of speaking, and only when the two capacities are unified, the people can be established as political subjects. The Primitivist author tries to overcome the elitism that Confucianism displays on the issue of the political subject and attempts to illustrate the clues that make it possible to think about the capacity of the people as political subjects. Through this examination we can approach the socio-political vision proper to Zhuangzi, thus going beyond the viewpoint that regards the book to read as a nonpolitical text.

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