양건식의 칸트철학 번역과 선택적 전유

Abstract

Yang Geon-sik was a Buddhist activist and a novelist as well as a translator. The former researches on Yang was primarily focused on his literary works although Yang was one of the leading social thinker and scholar in the Korean enlightenment period. In this article, I illuminated Yang's disciplines and ideas by analysing his translation of Kant, which was published in the translated article titled "Western philosopher Kant's gyeokchi theory(西哲康德格致學說)". It should be noted that the philosophy of Kant accepted via Japan and China in Korean in the 1910s through the East Asian distribution channels of Western philosophy. The original author of the article was Ryang Chi-chaoh. During his exile in Japan, Ryang wrote the article titled "the best modern philosopher, Kant's theory(近世第一大哲康德之學說)". Ryang's article was a translation of a part of "the philosophy of history(理學沿革史)" written by Nagaechomin in Japan. To compare the concept of 'Zhenru(眞如)'of Buddhism with the concept of 'Zhenwo(眞我)' of Kant, and 'Mingde(明德)' of Zhuxi, Yang admitted the predominance of Buddhism and Buddhist tradition by recognizing that the universal values of a modern system could be reconfigured. Yang Geon-sik's translation series went along with the Buddhism promotion movement. Yang Geon-sik lived in an era that evolution and development were supposed as an overall social indicators. However, he gave a great focus on Buddhism and literature to discover the possibility of transcendence. For Yang, transcendence was not a notion to escape into abstractness but a notion to recall the value of life by rediscovering the human inner nature which was repressed by capitalism and the civilization base on materialism. Yang's work is an important which is not only a source that can reveal the characteristics of Korean modernity but also a stimulant that can enrich the history of modern Korean philosophy.