실체적 보편에서 매개적 보편으로－형이상학의 질병과 한국학

Abstract

This article reconsiders universalism in Korean studies, relating it to question of the universal in western philosophy. In 12th century, Pierre Abélard argued that what made the universal was ‘status’ which existed but never be spoken or perceived. Universalism in Korean studies was reconsidered in this regard, focusing on the debate of modernity in Korea. In this debate, while some scholars argued that Korea could belong to modern world by herself, others opposed to that arguments asserting that it could not be the case. In spite of antagonism of these two position, they shared same presupposition that modernity should be the universal to which Korea must belong as a element of it. And in this kind of way of thinking, modernity as the universal was thought of as a substantial. In this sense universalism in Korean studies has been conceived without a question of status which made the universal to be itself. Hideki Kajimura, an eminent scholar of Korean studies in Japan, attempted to overcome this kind of paradigm in Korean studies by mediating between Korea and Japan. He tried to understand Korean modernity in its inherent legacy in which ordinary people had made their living world not as a nation state but as a community of struggle against the external violence. And Korea was actually medium for overcoming the situation of Japan in that time. In short, he was dwelling between Japan and Korea and seek to find out the universal in Korean studies with a kind of stoicism, that is, never uttering the last name of the universal but lingering on a sphere between Korea and Japan.