유길준의 문명사회 구상과 스코틀랜드 계몽사상 — 유길준, 후쿠자와 유키치, 존 힐 버튼의 사상연쇄 —

Abstract

In his book Seoyugyeonmun (西遊見聞, 1895) Yu Gil-Jun envisaged the modern form of Korean civilized society by proposing a new conceptual framework of individual, society and the state. He developed his theory of civilized society by reference to Fukuzawa’s Seiyojijo Gaihen (西洋事情外 編, 1868), which was a translation of Political Economy (1852) by the Scottish Enlightenment author John Hill Burton. Despite borrowing a lot of terms and sentences from Fukuzawa, Yu explicitly articulated his own ideas by reinterpreting Fukuzawa in the context of Confucian thought. This paper explores which concepts Yu accepted from Burton and Fukuzawa, and how he incorporated these into his philosophy, as well as examining the ways in which his ideas about a civilized society differ from theirs. Yu’s conception of a Korean civilized society can be understood most readily from such terms as Gaewha (開化, civilization), Inmin (人民, people), Inse (人世, society) and Bangkug (邦國, state). Yu believed that Gaewha could be realized by establishing a society regulated by laws and rules, but his adherence to Confucian ethics distinguish his conception of Gaewha from Fukuzawa’s term “Civilization and Enlightenment” (文明開 化). Yu’s term Inse is closer to Burton’s “society” for describing the social realm, a meaning which Fukuzawa’s Ningen Kosai (人間交際) seems to lack. Yu reinterpreted Fukuzawa’s terms Tsugi (通義, right) and Shokubun (職分, duty), by adding a Confucian dimension to their meanings. He also replaced Fukuzawa’s word Kokumin (國民) by Inmin (人民), effectively assuming that people owe loyalty to the monarch rather than to the nation. Indeed, Yu’s vision of a Korean civilized society was conditioned by the traditional concept of Gugga (國家) in which order is maintained by the monarch’s authority, a clearly conservative exposition.