한국사회의 갈등 해결을 위한 왕양명 철학의 고통 감정 이해와 공감교육 방법 모색

Abstract

Korean society is filled with various types of conflicts these days. Especially, the conflicts over hierarchy, generation, politics, and gender intensified into hatred over each other, threatening the persistence of the community. To maintain and develop Korean society, it is essential to form a sense of empathy, solve the conflicts, and empathize the empathy education to foster the ability to empathize with others. Nevertheless, human beings react and empathize with others’ sadness and pain more directly than happiness or pleasure. According to M. L. Hoffman who studied the stages of empathy development, negative emotions such as pain rather than pleasure and happiness were regarded as the altruistic motivation. Pain is the emotion that causes empathy most strongly. Wang Yang Ming’s philosophy also pointed out that pain acts as the most sensitive and strongest way to perceive and realize the “Innate knowledge” among human emotions. The Pain is also an important emotion closely related to Wang’s studies from “The Mind is The Principle” to “The Extension of “Innate knowledge” In addition, while Wang’s life has been a series of pain, such pain was the base and motivation for his enlightenment. As shown, pain takes a significant meaning in Wang’s life and philosophy. The former researches, however, focused on the meaning and value of pleasure in Yang-Ming’s philosophy while neglecting the roles and significance of pain. In response, this paper summarized Wang’s understanding of emotions and their characteristics and examined the roles and significance of pain in Wang’s three philosophies. This paper also pointed out that pain sensitivity can be recovered and empathy can be practiced by realizing “Innate Knowledge” which understands the “Innate knowledge” for the empathy as sensitivity to pain and reach the state of empathy under the aspect of empathy education.