논어 국가경영론: 하나의 탐색

Abstract

This article explores political ideas of Confucius represented in The Analects, which have been vaguely interpreted by Neo-Confucianism. Interpreting the book as an introduction to politics, the paper suggests a statecraft in it comprising wise-man(君子)-leadership, ideal state theory and appropriate practical measures to converge into the ideal. The article recommends to have three ideas when reading The Analects: Firstly, Confucius tried to be a humble man recognising that ‘Haneul(天)’ is presiding over everything in the world with virtue. Secondly, Confucius as a political theorist wanted to awaken people to reform problematic situations. Thirdly, it is critical to have contextual understanding of each phrase of the book. On this basis, this paper explains his thoughts of statecraft across four themes: SooncheonChoongseo(順天忠恕), Soogi(修己), Chi-in(治人) and Minbonjeongchi(民本政治). These suggest to a wise leader what to do for the people based on people-oriented leadership. The level of virtue he is pursuing is correlated with individual differences, not with occupation or social status. Unfortunately, in the history of politics in Asia, there has not been a successful example of making a political reform based on the statecraft. This statecraft in The Analects could hopefully contribute to modern democracies to take actions “for the people”.