自强期 新舊學論의 ‘舊學[儒學]’ 인식에 관한 연구

Abstract

Some certain words had existed to indicate Confucianism and western studies in the past. In the time of enlightenment, however, such words were reformed into a word with two opposite aspects called 'New and Old', which was not limited only to the simple concept of time. It implied the value idea that the new studies were not only new but also good enough to accept while the old studies were stale and bad as well as old and deteriorated. The theories of new and old studies reflected the width of cognition to accept the western modern civilization as universal idea, so that it showed the barrier where the old thoughts and modern thoughts were keenly colliding. They diagnosed that Confucianism as the old studies was in sick state insisting the stale ideology that had lost the context of reality while only new studies could assure the timeliness as modern practical studies to meet 'that age'. The scholars advocating the theories of new and old studies criticized that the ideologies and systems of the old studies could neither stand the invasion of Western powers nor achieve modern style civilization. The reason why the theories of new and old studies brought the identity and modern style role of the old studies into a major issue was, however, because of the contradiction of acceptance of the new studies. As a result, the theories for acceptance of the new studies caused self-awareness of the deficient other, so that they faced the contradiction that they could not bring up the subject body to realize the independent and powerful civilized country. Such self-awareness of the deficient other made it more difficult to cultivate the national sense of self-confidence and independent spirit for freely independent and powerful nation. Furthermore, the natural science and technology that were the core of the new studies played the tool for militarism and did not solve every matter of life. Such cognition on the old studies in the theories of new and old studies faced the contradiction between such collision of civilizations and acceptance of a new civilization, so that they were finally embraced by the modern concept of time and space. On the other hand, however, they were the efforts to look for a new vision in Confucianism on a different level. They tried to supplement the problem in acceptance of the new studies by extracting the ideological elements that could not only transcend but also control the time and space from Confucian universality. It must be, however, asked back to them whether the Confucian moral claimed by them was a true way to realize the principle of behaving in good manner properly on time in the space called modern times.