The study on Joseon Confucianism of Keijō Imperial University －focused on Takahashi Tōru and Fujitsuka Chikashi

Keijō Imperial University was built by Japanese government during the colonial period. Takahashi Tōru(1878-1967) and Fujitsuka Chikashi(1879-1948) were professors at Keijō Imperial University. Takahashi was a professor of Korean Language and Korean Literature and Fujitsuka was a professor of Chinese Philosophy. Despite of their position, they have in common that they were studying Chosen(Korea) Confucianism and their works have influenced in Korean Confucianism study. In this paper, I elucidate how they studied Korean Confucianism and its contents in Keijō Imperial University. Though there was no major of Korean Confucianism, the two professors had studied Korean Confucianism because of some political necessity and private interest in Korean Confucianism. Environmental advantage and good supports from Keijō Imperial University also made it possible for them to concentrate on their studies. I discussed the similarities and differences of the two Japanese professors and how their studies affected the viewpoint of Korean Confucianism study in modern days. They shared same idea as ordinary Japanese scholars that neo-Confucian in Joseon period was meaninglessness. After they started to study Korean Confucianism, however, their perspectives started to contradict each other. Takahashi claimed that there was no such thing as Korean Confucianism, but on other hand, Fujitsuka considered that a Korean scholar named Kim Jeong-hui that played a major part in the interaction between the Confucianism of China and Japan in 19th century.