방법으로서의 주자학: 지금 여기서 ‘주자학’을 공부한다는 것의 의미

Abstract

How should the Learning of Zhu Xi be studied in the future? The goal of this paper is to explore what it means to study the traditional learning today, when not only the socio-cultural environment of the traditional period, but also the academic system has been completely changed. As such, this paper is not an argument for a particular issue, but rather a proposal for a long-standing methodological problem in the Learning of Zhu Xi. This is organized as an omnibus that sketches out the past, the present, and the future of Zhu Xi Studies, focusing on the Learning of Zhu Xi as it has been studied in Korea. I identify the past as a pure ideology and the present as a fictional structure. Based on this, I believe that if the Learning of Zhu Xi is to be reconstructed in the realm of philosophy and thought, it should be continuously reinterpreted by experimenting with comparative philosophy, translating and defining concepts for ongoing, current interpretation, and establishing academic identity through questioning. These attempts suggest that the Learning of Zhu Xi should function as a method for our contemporary problems. As a method, each researcher will come to different conclusions based on their own interests and problems. Rather than being in competition with each other or exclusive of each other, these attempts are complementary, which means that all the many paths we walk are still unfinished as well as present progressive. Furthermore, it can be said that each of the Confucian learnings we are studying "here" today is a fledgling discipline in the sense that the paths, and perhaps all the paths, must one day be completed in an organic and holistic way. In short, by critically examining the academic status of Zhu Xi Studies, I hope to provide an opportunity to redefine it within our epistemological framework today.