율곡 몸공부법의 교육적 재음미 - 『격몽요결(擊蒙要訣)』의 <입지장(立志章)>과 <지신장(持身章)>을 중심으로

Abstract

In the year 1577, at the age of 42, Yulgok published Gyeogmongyogyeol, in which he formulates a practical map of design for sage learning. The chapters of Ibji and Jisin in the book reveal important insights into Yulgok’s form of thinking. This work systematically reviews the learning-questioning and gongfu in Gyeogmongyogyeol, focusing on the chapters of Ibji and Jisin, and inquires into the messages that they bring for the modern day. The main purpose of this work is to investigate and reflect upon the learning-questioning and gongfu within Yulgok’s structure of thinking and the methods he constructed to realize them concretely. Yulgok explains learning very differently from how we do in the present day. He believes that learning lies in sagehood and emphasizes the establishment of the spirit of learning that is the representation of the will to learn in order to become a sage. This kind of learning is very ontological in character. In addition to learning, he greatly emphasizes the importance of questioning, which consists of posing question such as ‘why must we learn?’, ‘what must we learn?’, ‘how must we learn?’ within the axis of sage learning. To Yulgok, true learning constitutes searching for the answers to these kinds of questions. This manner of learning and questioning consolidate to construct the idea of learning-questioning. This differs greatly from the perspective of science that inquires into the systematic knowledge of a particular sphere. Furthermore, he proposes a set of methods and programs of gongfu for learning-questioning. These are what is called the gongfu method of mom of nine propriety and nine thinking. This gongfu method is the Bildung that regulates and controls the heart and mind to make man into a beautiful and excellent being. Today, the thinking that Yulgok sought to show through sage learning, learning-questioning, establishment of the spirit of learning, nine propriety, and nine thinking is his original humanitas program. Additionally, he shows that even human nature may change through the postnatal effort of man. In other words, Yulgok enlightens us to the point that the gongfu of mom through nine propriety and nine thinking become habit that is second nature. Yulgok evokes the topology and importance of ontological gongfu for the modern man whose only purpose of gongfu in the present day is to actualize his secular desire.