선심의 선과 중절의 선 - 사단칠정 해석 분기(分岐)의 제1원인 -

Abstract

All the Rational Philosophers of the Song-Ming Dynasty supported the theory that human nature is good. Naturally, they made much importance of the “Four Beginnings of Moral Sentiments” Mencius proposed, and regarded what the “Four Beginnings of Moral Sentiments” as the criterion of the good. On the other hand, the Rational Philosophers began to discuss ‘equilibrium and harmony of feelings’ in the Doctrine of the Mean from the Northern Song Dynasty. According to the theory of equilibrium and harmony in the Doctrine of the Mean, when the feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy have been stirred and they act in their due degree, the good of harmony ensues. This resulted in two kinds of criterion for the good: ‘the good of the original mind’ that performs the “Four Beginnings of Moral Sentiments” and ‘the good of acting in a due degree’ when the feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy have been stirred and they act respectively in their due degree. There cannot be two criteria of the good in a philosophical system. How to establish the relationship between these two criteria of the good became one of the notions that had to be established in the process of the development of Rational Philosophy in China and Korea since the Northern Song Dynasty. From the perspective of the result, in the Rational Philosophy of Lu Hsiang-shan and Wang Yang-ming, ‘the good of the original mind’ was established to have precedence over ‘the good of acting in a due degree’. On the other hand, Neo-Confucianism faced a situation in which a new line should be developed because of the absence of existing ways to understand and solve this difficult problem. From the perspective of the substantive content, this difficulty stems from the fact that Neo-Confucianism defined both goodness in the “Four Beginnings of Moral Sentiments” and the “Seven Feelings” as ‘feelings’ according to the doctrine of a trisection into mind-nature-feeling. Through the “Four-Seven Debate” in the 16th century, Yi T’oe-gye and Yi Yul-gok finally established one line, respectively, and these two lines of Neo-Confucianism have been maintained to date. From the viewpoint of ethical thoughts, Neo-Confucianism, which was faced with the problem of establishing the relationship between the feelings in the “Four Beginnings of Moral Sentiments” and the feelings in the “Seven Feelings”, it developed two lines of thought through the “Four-Seven Debate” in the 16th century: the theory of “Mutual Issuance of Principle and Material Force” and the theory of the “Single Path of the Issuance of Material Force”, and these two doctrines have been maintained to date. This is macroscopically examined in this study. This study examines what major issues were involved in the process of development of Rational Philosophy, and summarizes tasks that researchers should undertake in the future.