남명 연구 성과의 회고와 전망-정치 분야에 대한 소고

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is three-fold: 1) to assess research papers written on the sixteenth century Great Teacher Cho Sik(曺植, 1501~1572, referred by his nickname Nam Myung from here on), which focus on political aspects of his life; 2) to find out why such research papers are scarce; and 3) to suggest how the current state of the discipline can be rejuvenated. Despite two previous reviews lamented on the scarcity of political analyses of Nam Myung, the results are positive but not satisfactory. They are positive in that a number of research efforts have in recent years increased, political scientists by training have appeared in the discipline, and some analysts began to examine not only Nam Myung's political thoughts but also his other political aspects of his life. They are not satisfactory for the number of research outputs are still not many compared to those of education, literature, and history. The paper argues that the main reason for the scarcity is due to the fact that people in general and political scientists, both oriental and western in particular narrowly define politics. As a result, scholars on Nam Myung have failed to grasp the totality of Homo Politicus Nam Myung. Thus this paper offers a new definition of politics: politics is a phenomenon which results from actions to handle collective interests. Political actions in turn consist of meta-systemic utterances and writings, systemic utterances, writings, and actions as office-holders or power holders, and off-the-system utterances, writings, and actions. It is the third type of political action that promises abundant contemplation on Nam Myung's political behaviors, especially political criticism in the form of petitions. The paper also suggests two methodological tools that may enrich these endeavors to enlighten Homo Politicus Nam Myung. One is the method of consilience amongst otherwise idiosyncratic academic fields. Modern academic training programs produce tunnel-visioned scholars most of whom do not know other fields than their own. Consilience amongst various specialties is therefore necessary as well as inevitable. The other is Quentin Skinner's methodology which helps us rethink the debates within and without textualists and contextualists. He has argued that utterances represented in historical texts become knowable only if we recover illocutionary forces of those utterances. These suggested tools together with our new definition of politics will expand our intellectual horizon so as to meet a truly political Nam Myung.