교육학적 관점에서 본 한비자의 法, 勢, 術

Abstract

Chinese legalists (法家, fa chia) have been generally regarded as nothing more than propagators of anti-humanistic political ideology and Han Fei was not an exceptional case in this respect. However, it is argued in this study that we can find a very strong and serious concern about good life, good society and morality in Han Fei's writing. His thought can and ought to be understood as an educational theory showing the distinctive legalist perspectives. There are three elements of Han Fei’s legalist thought, i. e. the explicit behavioral rule (法, fa), absolute authority (勢, shih) and tacit art (術, shu). The explicit behavioral rule is the embodiment of Tao (道), so that the people can become virtuous by acting in accordance with it. The absolute authority of the ruler instigates the belief that the righteousness of the behavioral rule is beyond doubt, so that the people follow it for the very reason that it is good. The tacit art refers to a special kind of technique which the ruler uses in the state of ‘non-activity’ (無爲, wu wei), so that the ruler can look through the people’s mind and know all about the people as they truly are. The explicit behavioral rule is the primal rule; the other two elements are subsidiary in that they serve to actualize the aim of the explicit behavioral rule. It should be stressed accordingly that the other two elements can have meaning only in connection with the primal one, and each of the three elements is meant to solve the problem which the other element raises in successive order. However, all of them have one and the same aim; indeed they are a set of well designed steps leading to Tao. Han Fei’s legalist thought is a faithful application of Taoist philosophy to concrete educational settings.