自强期 新舊學論의 新學과 格物致知學에 관한 연구

Abstract

The theories of New and Old Studies covered by major journals during the time of enlightenment (1894-1901) were fully dealing with a number of modern issues facing then contemporary people such as dissolution of the Confucianism – the old-fashioned ideology, achievement of modern civilization in the modern time and environment symbolized by watch and railroad and historical issues related to recovering national sovereignty. The theories of New and Old Studies were based on New Studies, which emerged as a new paradigm to explain the modern life styles and thoughts. One of the most significant characteristics of the theories of New and Old Studies based on New Studies was the modern ‘discoveries by science’. Unlike Neo-Confucianism intended to learn and understand the law of nature (天理體認), New Studies focused on the advancement of scientific knowledge to realize civilization through scientific study of natural law. The achievement of civilization through the development of science and technology was considered to be the only way to survive. The theories of New and Old Studies were based on the perception of reality stemmed from the theory of social evolution. Although the modern Western science including the theory of social evolution was thought to be true and objective knowledge, they were, in fact, nothing but an ideology focused on Western ideas. The most fundamental problems of the theories of New and Old Studies based on the perception of reality affected by the theory of social evolution could be summarized by two aspects. The first was the opportunities to discover ways other than the path to the civilization presented by the West were severely limited by accepting the idea of Western oriented perception as the academic truth and the other was it was impossible to acquire the justification to criticize the invasion of Western imperialism. Many intellectuals at that time insisted that achieving a civilized society through the theories of New and Old Studies based on social evolution theory was the most crucial and urgent matter; however, such ideas were constrained in the theories biased for evolution of civilization, so that they had caused the thoughts that invasion of imperialism also would give them benefits of Western civilization as a result.