文、武二分法是東亞思想中最古老且最為普遍的概念之一。本文檢視中國文武思想傳至日本，及其在該國的後續獨立發展。「文」在中國和韓國傳統上位於「武」之上，居首位，而日本因發展出以武士為中心的獨特社會與政治結構，使其思想家特別強調「武」。因此，至少在文、武的脈絡下，許多日本人願意接受，而非轉化，標誌著大陸解釋的華夷之辨。相較而言，許多日本儒家及相關學派的思想卻傾向於將自中國傳入的思想以將其與源頭分離，並將道德中心重置於日本的方式，加以修訂。日本等同「武國」，中國和韓國等同「文國」為三個社會的知識分子廣泛接受。與此同時，各思想家對於日本「武」的真正內涵卻有極為不同的見解，其間的歧異往往到對該概念的定義可以完全相反的程度。本文主張，便是這種對文武二分法的含糊不清與彈性，確保其在適應新形勢時能持續突顯，並進而導致中國和韓國思想家於二十世紀初將日本的「武」介紹給其祖國的運動。在此過程中，日本的文武理論與王陽明的學說、武士道的現代武術倫理有各種不同程度的結合。本文分別討論改革家梁啟超和朴殷植於文武思想在中國與韓國傳布上的角色。

The binary of martial and civil virtues (wen-wu) is one of the oldest and most pervasive concepts in East Asian thought. This paper examines the transmission of Chinese wen-wu thought to Japan, and its subsequent independent development in that country. Whereas in China and Korea, primacy has traditionally been given to civil virtues over martial ones, the unique warrior-centered social and governmental structure that developed in Japan led its thinkers to more strongly emphasize the martial. As a result, at least in the context of wen-wu, many Japanese were willing to accept, rather than invert, the China/barbarian binary that marked continental interpretations. In comparison, many Japanese Confucians and related schools of thought had otherwise tended to revise ideas imported from China in ways that removed them from their source and relocated the moral center to Japan. The identification of Japan as the "martial country" and China/Korea as the "civil countries" came to be broadly accepted by intellectuals in all three societies. At the same time, the exact nature of Japanese "martiality" varied greatly among different thinkers, often to the extent that definitions of the concept could be polar opposites. This paper argues that it was this vagueness and flexibility of the wen-wu binary that ensured its continued prominence as the concepts were adapted to new situations, and further led to movements by Chinese and Korean thinkers to introduce Japanese martiality into their own nations around the turn of the twentieth century. In this process, Japanese bun-bu (wen-wu) theories were variously packaged with the teachings of Wang Yangming and the modern martial ethic of bushido (the way of the warrior), and this paper considers the roles of the reformers Liang Qichao and Pak Un-sik in the dissemination of bun-bu thought in China and Korea, respectively.