退溪의 太極論 硏究

Abstract

Chang Heng-qu argued that emptiness(虛) is very good. He believed that when Taegeuk(太虛) responds to humans, it’s god, so it’s important to preserve this god. Zhou Dunyi’s Mugeuk(無極) of ''jamugeukyiwitaegeuk(自無極而爲太極)’ is the root before Taegeuk, and therefore, Mugeuk can be regarded as another name for god. Chang Heng-qu’s and Zhou Dunyi’s Taegeuk and Mugeuk are energy(氣). Regarding Zhou Dunyi’s theory of movements(動靜論), Zhu Xi additionally explained that the reason for movements is the principle(理). He divided Taegeuk and yin and yang as metaphysical and physical. In his ontology of the fundamental principle(理氣), the authority of Taegeuk with religious originality which it enjoyed in the former theory of energy was damaged considerably. Before Zhu Xi, god(上帝), the Cheon(天), Taegeuk, Mugeuk and etc. were assumed in the ontology, but at the time of Zhu Xi, the biggest authority of the theory of movements was granted to Taegeuk, and its existence was defined as a reasonable principle and law. Zhu Xi’s energy has self-contradictory functions both manifesting and hiding the principle simultaneously. Toegye argued that there are a principle and its application in the level of Taegeuk and the principle, too. He acknowledged the own functions of Taegeuk beyond the rational principle and law and explained Taegeuk as nature. While Zhu Xi made Taegeuk as the principle and law for the truth of one-yin-and-one-yang-in-turn, Toegye considered it as following the nature ordered by the heaven. It shows his religiosity who believed that it was the way to encounter transcendence and sanctity to live all of one’s own life given by the heaven. Moreover, he interpreted ''MugeukyiTaegeuk(無極而太極)'' as that ‘utmost existence(有) and utmost fundamentals(實) exist.’ Toegye’s achievement is that while Zhu Xi considered the foundation of Taegeuk as the rational principle and law, stained its authority of originality, and regarded humans as the beings confined by energy, Toegye insisted that it was Taegeuk ‘to follow the nature commanded by the heaven,’ explained that Taegeuk has the level of a principle and its application, and therefore, restored energy as the agent manifesting the principle.