유교 지식인의 公 관념과 公共 의식 : 이익, 정약용, 심대윤의 경우를 중심으로

Abstract

The concepts of publicity and public opinion we use today find their special historical roots in the formation of modern Western bourgeois civil society and the development of democracy. Although historical processes and philosophical concepts once used were different, there were also considerable efforts for the realization of public values in East Asian Confucian societies. For example, from the very beginning of its establishment, the Chosŏn Dynasty had paid much attention to public opinion, and had taken it as the ultimate political goal to achieve social publicity. The concept of publicity held by early literati and officialdom, however, took metaphysical values, such as heavenly principle(天理) or natural law(天道), as its prerequisite, and therefore could be realized only by a minority of intellectual officials who had undergone special cultivations. Besides, it was then thought that only by suppressing one's private desires could the public value of heavenly principle(天理) be achieved. As history evolved into late Chosŏn period, the natural desires of social members, namely, physiological needs for sex and economic desires for pursuit of profits, caught increasing attention, and the wide realization of these natural common desires was thought as public value. It is due to these reasons that I Ik and Sim Daeyun, as they focused on the conceptes of “Si(私, privateness)”, interests and desires, put much emphasis on the wide achievement of people's private but universal desires and interests, which was considered as public value by them. Chŏng Yagyong, who strongly advocated moralistic ideas, also employed the concept of "hobby"(嗜好) to elucidate human nature. However, although they laid stress on interests(利) and desires(欲), Confucian intellectuals only gave recognition to general interests(天下同利), which means that all the people enjoy interests and satisfy their desires together, as public interests(公利), and they considered the pursuit of one's own private interests as “Si(私, privateness)”, which was strongly repudiated by them. According to Confucian intellectuals, interests only take place when others join in it together, if one focuses exclusively on one's own interests, the aimed interests could not be realized finally. To share interest with other social members and to justly realize all the members' desires are viewed as "Gong(公)", and this kind of community is considered as public society. To build a just society, it is necessary to focus on the problem of publicity and examine critically Confucian intellectuals' viewpoints above.