『주역』의 ‘의상(意象)’과 라이프니츠 인식론에서 ‘직각(Intuition)’의 상관성

Abstract

In this article, I would like to discuss the contribution of Confucian ideas to the establishment of modern European aesthetics. To do that I would need to give light on the correlation between the ‘the theory of Yixiang(意象)’ in the Book of Changes and the ‘Intuition’ of Leibniz epistemology. East Asian aesthetics is known to be the result of importing modern Europe’s Aesthetica, and discovering aesthetic elements in the history of East Asian. However, how can it be said that only East Asian society has accepted Western European aesthetics since East Asian society and Western European society began mutual exchange? Conflict and intercourse between two cultures is a phenomenon that affects each other and cannot be unilateral edification or importation. If so, there must be traces of the acceptance of aesthetic thinking from East Asia even in Western European society. Furthermore, the East Asian idea, which has continued for thousands of years, had the same abundant aesthetic resources as that of Western Europe in terms of the content of filling the academic system. In this article, as the first step in examining the process, I would like to assert the correlation between ‘the theory of Yixiang(意象)’ in the Book of Changes and ‘Intuition’ in Leibniz epistemology. Leibniz attempted to present a universal path for ordinary people to think about God’s full perception. And in ancient East Asia, the perfection to be given to the deity was given to the saint, and ordinary writers also studied to reach the same level of perfection as the saint. The universal path Leibniz wanted to propose was to study in East Asia. In particular, the symbolic system encountered through the Book of Changes influenced the creation of his theory. He evaluated Fu-hsi(伏羲氏) as the first person in human history to signify the infinite physical world and open the path of thought. The important treatment of intension and symbolization in Leibniz’s epistemology is not irrelevant to Confucianism, and this is the main content of Baumgarten’s foundational modern European aesthetics. By reconstructing epistemology by referring to the Neo-Confucian worldview and the theory of human nature that led to heaven and reason, ‘intuition’, an adult way of perception that possessed complete perception, and the symbolic system of the Book of Changes that adults gave for ordinary people, Leibniz played a decisive role in establishing aesthetics, a discipline of sensory perception, as an independent discipline in Western European society where reason-centered thinking was prevalent.