근기실학의 학문 연원과 퇴계학의 학문 정신 ― 이익과 정약용의 퇴계학 계승을 중심으로

Abstract

This paper inquires into the relationship between Near-Seoul Silhak(近畿實學) and Toegyehak(退溪學) focusing on Yi Ik as the founder of Seongho school(星湖學派) and his disciple, Jeong Yak-yong who is called a great compiler of Silhak. While Yi Ik argued the one way theory that li(理) issues and gi(氣) follows (理發氣隨一途說) and emphasized the governing functions(主宰) of li, he suggested Public(公) and Private(私) as the standard to divide the Four Beginnings(四端) and the Seven Emotions(七情) and classified gi into the mind-gi (心氣) and the shape-gi(形氣) or the small-gi(小氣) and the big-gi(大氣). Eventually, this kind of the critical mind caused Yi Ik and his followers to deepen the investigations and the discussions on the real conditions to conserve and realize the ethical thought and ideal of Toegye’s philosophy(退溪學). Even though Jeong Yak-yong basically respected and followed Yi Hwang, he tried to estimate Yi Hwang’s philosophy objectively and reconsidered how to practice the ethical ideology that Yi Hwang aimed for in Jeong’s own age. The critical viewpoint that Jeong Yak-yong discarded li and chose the Lord on High(上帝) came from the same kind of concern of Yi Hwang that tried to find the method to realize effectively the ethical thought. The possibility to reinterpret li as the Mandate of Heaven(天命) was contained in the li-gi theory of Yi Hwang to show the fact that li is the vivid thing as the flow of the Mandate of Heaven with the propositions like ‘li issues(理發)’, ‘li moves(理動)’, and ‘li approaches by itself(理自到)’.