戰國時代 孟子의 ‘心’에 대한 일고찰 - 통일론을 중심으로 -

Abstract

In the age of civil wars, all philosophers and scholars began to discuss the main concept of their thoughts in connection with the ‘heart’, so the ‘heart’ became the main subject in Chinese philosophy. However, the effort of philosophers and scholars trying for the new identification of the ‘heart’ was distorted by narrow viewpoint of posterity. The ‘heart’ of Mencius is in this case. The ‘heart’ of Mencius was discussed in the view of the appeal to moral scruples for fulfillment of the rule over a country by virtue, and this view has influenced Song’s Neo-Confucianism. Therefore, the premise that the ‘heart’ was given by nature and had to be cultivated has continued by now. However, Mencius set up the ‘heart’ intentionally in the process of seeking for positive solution to come true the righteous government. Mencius took note of characteristics of the ‘heart’ as behavior mechanism which has the meaning of autonomy, spontaneity and initiative beyond inner mechanism of moral nature. Therefore, the ‘heart’ of Mencius is practicing power which can solve the problem at hand, beyond sacred and inviolable inner mechanism given by nature. Therefore, in this study I tried to define that the ‘heart’ is not the final moral possibility to save devastated lives of people by appealing to good nature of human beings but the practical concept to be the main point of the theory of unity devised by Mencius for the cease of disorder in the age of civil wars.