조선후기 주자학과 양명학의 지행논변과 그 함의 — 정제두와 그 친우들의 지행논변을 중심으로 —

Abstract

This study attempted to investigate the issues and implications of the argument on knowledge In terms of issues in the argument on knowledge & conduct, there were the following questions: In principle, & conduct in the Soron Academic Circle during the 17-18th centuries. “Does knowledge take priority over conduct?”, in scholarly activity, “Do knowledge and conduct grow and prosper together?”. Jeong Je-doo’s friends – Park Shim, Min Yi-seung and Choi Seok-jung – insisted that even though moral activity is led by human thought, objective reason and inner reason should be matched through deliberation and cultivation and that the acquisition of moral knowledge (i.e., knowledge of extrinsic experience) is the beginning. Just like Zhu Xi, they supported the contentions “Knowledge takes priority over conduct in principle” and “Both knowledge and conduct grow and prosper together in scholarly activity” and criticized the doctrines of Wang Yang-ming. However, Jeong Je-doo paid attention to ‘innate knowledge’ which promoted moral activities in an active and aggressive manner regardless of deliberation and insisted that knowledge and conduct were united as innate knowledge and principle & its application respectively. The argument on knowledge & conduct raised by Jeong Je-doo and his friends reflected the differences in contentions between the doctrines of Wang Yang-ming (“knowledge and conduct are originally united as one”) and orthodox Neo-Confucianism (“knowledge and conduct grow and prosper together”). The implications of this argument originate from a different standpoint on the driving force of the ethics with theoretical differences. Therefore, simple conceptual comparison is impossible. Jeong Je-doo’s friends believed that the key and main idea of moral activities were to study and develop reasons based on the theory of Zhu Xi. In contrast, Jeong Je-doo insisted that a key to the ethics is to realize ‘innate knowledge’ in accordance with the theory of Wang Yang-Ming and that innate knowledge is the driving force of moral activities.