성리학과 지행문제

Abstract

Modern society is drowning in a flood of information. Such information has set modern people free acting up to what they say. While an enthusiastic attitude to gain knowledge gives them absolute benefits in their lives, it is not necessarily true that a negative attitude to acquire knowledge causes some disadvantage to their lives. The expansion of knowledge can be successful through education. Immature children become mature through education, and such mature people in society tends to show the consistency of action and knowledge. The purpose of this study is about knowledge and its practice presented in Neo-Confucianism. This study will compare Zhu zi's viewpoint of knowledge and conduct with Wang’s viewpoint, two of whom are the representatives of this problem. Zhu zi's viewpoint is “First knowledge and then conduct”. Wang’s perspective is "the unity of knowledge and conduct. However, their viewpoints have something in common as well as something different. First, both, knowledge and conduct, are equally important. Second, a focus on action rather than knowledge is stressed as a final goal to reach. Third, their viewpoints are human-centered philosophy. The problem cannot be discussed without focusing on human. Of course, there exist some different opinions between them. The matter of “the cognition of subject and object” is the first. While Zhu zi emphasizes the division of subject and object, Wang stresses the unity of subject and object. Having, thus, different approaches for the matter, Zhu zi puts more emphasis on human nature as a core logic, but Wang regards human mind as a core logic. The problem of knowledge and conduct is still one of philosophical issues to further study. It seems that modern society ostensibly has less interests in the problem of knowledge and conduct, but if you look closely at many problems in society, the necessity of studying the problem is strongly required. Modern people seem to have trouble acting proactively in their lives. In order to win any competition with others, modern people try to collect tremendous amount of information(knowledge), but they are very careful not to cross the border of illegality. This study is not about returning to the past, but about the unity, or the balance, of the knowledge and conduct.