The Founding Father of Korean Democracy Beyond the Ideological Controversy: Tosan s Political Philosophy of the Humane Democracy and Its Moral Foundation

Although Tosan An Ch ang-ho (Ahn, Chang-Ho: 1878–1938) is regarded as one of the key national leaders of Korea s independence movement in the early 20th century, recent scholarship has discovered that An Ch ang-ho is an elusive figure in modern Korean history. The debate surrounding the identity of An Ch ang-ho as a person and as a leader in Korea s independence movement is divided among scholars according to how he is understood with regard to his involvement in the independence movement. In this paper, I argue that the controversy is largely due to the interpreters reductionist standpoint, which fails to integrate Tosan s foundational work in moral thought with his innovative insight in political philosophy. Later in this paper, through the critical and constructive integration of Tosan s moral and political ideas, I present the concept of humane democracy as Tosan s original contribution to the establishment of the Korean political philosophy of democracy.