일제하 신남철의 보편주의적 역사인식과 지식인 사회 비판

Abstract

Sin Nam-ch’ôl was a universalist who believed that will for living of human beings and production activity regulate the universal rule of historical development. Such historical perspective of Sin Nam-ch’ôl came from the problem of chaotic contemporaneous thoughts and to overcome conceptual understanding of history. He believed that historical thoughts could only explain current states of the society, if historical perspective does not relativize totalitarianism or fascism. His suggestion of scientific study on Korea also came from this same notion. He believed that scientific understanding of history is significant to assure that such universal historical development actually carries through the real world. Thus, he refused to see Korean reality stagnant. It was because of his premise that if universal historical development does not coincide with Korean society, the reality of Korea cannot but be denied. The future without reality was the totalitarian trascendentalism where Japanese imperialism becomes the subject. On the other hand, Sin Nam-ch’ôl criticized Korean intellectuals from very ideal historical perspective. He believed that Korean intellectuals lost historical perspective because they were overwhelmed by the anxiety about the reality and their own internal struggle. They only concerned about the problems of current situation, and thus were caught in an abstract notion of history beyond reality. In short, what Sin Nam-ch’ôl argued was to correspond to the intellectual community of the 1930s where various conceptual ideas of overcoming reality based on universalism were suggested as alternative thoughts. Sin Nam-ch’ôl’s efforts illustrate Korean intellectual’s struggle that attempted to relativize fascist society, although his thoughts could be criticized as an abstract enlightenment idea. Also, his thought could be regarded as a way to explain colonial Korea with a theory of internal development as Paek Nam-ûn’s socio-economic history did.