선비와 동양의 이상적 인간상--군자/ 소인, 진유/ 속유, 대장부, 유ㆍ불ㆍ선--

Abstract

Modern people are experiencing confusion from various values in modern world and from the conflicts between the tradition and the modern times. Beyond such confusion of values, required to present the individual and social identity and the direction of valuable life is "the establishment of ideal image of man." After giving a glance to the ideal image of man by ConfucianismㆍBuddhismㆍTaoism, the mainstream of Eastern thought, this research examined a 'Seonbi'-oriented ideal image of man. 'Seonbi', an ideal image of man, bears the nature of staying and participating in reality(世間的) different from the Buddhistic or Taoisitc ideal image of man with the nature of leaving home(出世間的). Moreover, the human image of 'Seonbi' is an ideal one that has long been maintained in reality through traditional Korean culture. Therefore its applicability to reality is probably bigger than that of Buddhism or Taoism. 'Seonbi' as an ideal image of man is the confucian answer to the question, 'How to live an ideal life as a man?' In summary, 'Seonbi' is a man who cultivates knowledge and virtue through self-cultivation(修己), realizes the Tao(道) in society through governing people(治人) and aims always at the public justice rather than selfish desires. Who is 'Seonbi' in a word? It is he who lives not the possession oriented life trying to be happy by possessing something, but the being oriented life trying to be happy by becoming more humane. In addition, the moral image of man as a man of virtue(君子), real Confucian scholar(眞儒) and the supreme gentleman(大丈夫) is another name of Seonbi who realizes Confucian ideology through self-cultivation and governing people(修己治人). Seonbi is surely not an ideal image of man in modern society. However, to the modern possession oriented life that substitutes the possession of material for personal happiness and humaneness and rarely asks about 'what is humane, ideal life?', the 'Seonbi' image of man includes the value oriented content which is able to awaken what it lacks. We should only be concerned with how to tune the ideal image of man in the past to be harmonized with the modernity.