19세기 조선성리학계의 양명학 비판 양상 —李震相과 田愚의 陽明學 비판 비교를 중심으로—

Abstract

Criticisms on Yangming Studies in the 19th century Chosun academia developed as criticisms and heresy against the opposition studies, amid the intensifying Neo-Confucianist Studies on the existence rules and roles of mind. Thus, it is more desirable to examine the hidden intention and context of the criticisms on Yangming Studies in the 19th century Chosun academia, rather than judging its validity. By comparing and analyzing the criticisms on Yangming Studies by Hanju Lee Jin-sang and Ganjae Jeon Woo, the main Neo-Confucianists representing the 19th century, this paper strives to clarify the intention and ideological contexts in the logic of criticism. The criticisms on Yangming Studies by Hanju Lee Jin-sang and Ganjae Jeon Woo are common in the sense that both are based on the ethical principles of Chu-tzu Studies, and are different depending on how they understand the overseeing of mind. What they criticize in common is that in Yangming Studies, reason is sought only in mind and that mind is ahead of reason. They both inherited the Studies of Chu-tzu that every single object and matter has a set reason which conforms to one logic, so the pursuit of the reason of an object clarifies the reason of mind. Both Neo-Confucianists criticized that Yangming Studies omits the reason of object and separates the logic which originally penetrates to one internally and externally. However, there are differences in Lee Jin-sang and Jeon Woo’s criticisms on Yangming Studies in terms of understanding the properties of women. Lee Jin-sang, who attempted to secure ethical activeness in the logic of Chu-tzu Studies, argued that while Wang Yangmin did see something about expression of the law of nature, he made an error in explaining the core of mind as spirit. Lee Jin-sang’s statement of ‘Mind is the reason’ discusses a pure image of source or a saint stage, not that the existence of an ordinary human is structuralized to the state of ‘Mind is the reason’ in reality, as considered in Yangming Studies. In contrast, Jeon Woo criticized that Lee Jin-sang’s claim is also completely wrong as he perceives mind, which is spirit, as logic, and thus Lee’s opinion is the same as a view in Yangming Studies. Jeon Woo said mind contains character and never coincides with logic, and only admitted the overseeing of the perception ability the mind had. Therefore, Jeon Woo criticized that Lee Jin-sang was the same as Yangming Studies. Lee Jin-sang and Jeon Woo was mainly confronted with overcoming the crisis of the period derived from the academic culture of affirming one’s selfish interests and desires. They are identical in a sense that they were wary of spirit acting freely in its own way and tried to establish a theory to overcome this issue. However, they had different interpretations to approach this. Lee Jin-sang sought to set the ideal of ethical practice by strengthening the activeness of mind overseeing a body, while Jeon Woo separated the domains presided by logic and mind respectively and emphasized mind should always lower oneself and absolute logic must be used as a standard.