朝鮮性理學 「未發工夫」 研究

Abstract

The purpose of this report is to research the theory of self-cultivating at the state of pre-occurrence in Chosun Neo-Confucianism. It would be a key solution to find the character of Chosun Neo-Confucianism in the point of thoughts and practice, and may help draw future research subjects. The self-cultivating at the state of pre-occurrence is one of the urgent problems in Neo-Confucianism not only at Chosun but also at China. All the representative Neo-confucianists in 16th Century, besides Cho Sik, Yi Hwang, Yi Yi, had studied this subject and practiced their own answer. The study of this was developed in 17th century, and reached the peak in 18th century. The theory of self-cultivating at the state of pre-occurrence had been discussed with the awareness and the human characters in Chosun Neo-Confucianism. For awareness, it has been discussed how one can have the state of awareness without thinking. And for human characters, the relation of Spirit itself and human characters was the theme. Is human spirit in the state of pre-occurrence free from the influence of human characters? If not, is it still in the influence of human characters? That’s the question. The conclusion of this paper is that the self-cultivating at the state of pre-occurrence in Chosun Neo-Confucianism can be estimated the develop of Neo-Confucianism but it still has two problems too. One is how can we understand Li Dong’s awareness in pre-occurrence theory, relevance to awareness. The other is the human spirit itself is only Qi or it can be related with Li.