설태희의 근대 유학연구 비판(Ⅱ): 다카하시 도루(高橋亨)의 조선 유학 연구 비판을 중심으로

Abstract

This paper examines Seol Tae-hee’s criticism on Takahashi Toru’s study of Neo-Confucianism in the Joseon Dynasty. Having accepted Yang-Ming Studies in the early 1920s, Seol Tae-hee viewed that the essence of Confucianism lied in moral pragmatism, and criticized Neo-Confucianism harshly as he believed that the latter was in the opposite direction, He noted that The Development of the School of Zhu-Ri(主理) and Zhu-Gi (主氣)in the History of the Joseon Confucianism by Takahashi Toru was written in a much clearer way to discuss the streams and points of the thought than existing literature on the subject, and even adopted Takahashi’s writing style. However, Seol Tae-hee thought that Takahashi’s the Four-Seven debate Exposition, that is, his interpretation of two theories, first, Four Beginning is arisen from Ri(理), while Seven Feelings is from Gi(氣) and thus they are separated from each other, and second, both Four Beginning and Seven Feelings are arisen from Ri(理) and Gi(氣) together, had some fallacies on the way to the truth, and criticized it. In fact, in that Takahashi Toru had not intended to divide original nature and disposition, and Four Beginning and Seven Feelings, in the first place. Seol’s criticism was probably not completely fair. Nevertheless, from Seol’s perspective that ‘good’ is originated from Ri(理), and ‘evil’ from Gi(氣), and thus the fundamental problem is Zhu-Ri(主理) theory which attempts to divide the domain of pure Ri from that of Gi inside Mind(心)-Nature(性)-Feeling(情), Takahashi’s interpretation could not escape Seol’s criticism. Seol Tae-hee fiercely believed that only Gi(氣) is the actual being, and Ri is simply a lexical concept of ‘non-being’ created by people as a logical sequence of Gi(氣). Since this view was critically in contrast with the general trend of Neo-Confucianism in the Joseon Dynasty which put Ri(理) before Gi(氣), it revealed a limitation, overlooking another fallacies in Takahashi’s study of Neo-Confucianism in the Joseon Dynsaty.