송학(宋學)을 철학화하기 - 후쿠자와 유키치의 유교관과 사상기저

Abstract

This article tries to shed light on Fukuzawa Yukichi’s (福澤諭吉, 1835-1901) view on Confucianism and the philosophical foundation underlying it. Fukuzawa's criticism of Confucianism was confined to kangaku 漢學 (Qing evidential learning) which focuses on the study of Chinese classics and evidential research of texts and the meaning of which is contrary to sougaku 宋學 (Song Neo-Confucianism). Fukuzawa insisted that people should not fall in the literary reading, but freely could investigate various objects. Such his attitude inherited the perspective of Song Neo-Confucianism, which basically emphasized the exploration of mind and nature and the investigation of objects rather than reading and commenting on Confucian scriptures. Based on these position of learning, he was able to digest the theory of Henry Thomas Buckle and François Guizot concerning the history of civilization and reconstruct his own theory of civilization in his own way. Some of the features it has are: 1) the emphasis on mental cultivation in person, 2) the pursuit of objective recognition of civilization on the basis of contrary and correlative concepts, 3) the emphasis on the interactions between wisdom and virtue while attaching greater importance to wisdom. In this regards, it can be seen that Song Neo-Confucianism functioned as the foundation of Fukuzawa's theory of civilization. While Fukuzawa criticized the traditional kangaku and kokugaku 國學 (Japanese national learning) from the viewpoint of Song Neo-Confucianism as philosophy, he tried to systematically accept Western science. However, unlike Zhu Xi who emphasizes the sense of duty and moral motivation in ethics, Fukuzawa takes utilitarian position that stresses on practical effectiveness and profit. In short, considering Fukuzawa's stance on Confucianism and philosophy, that is, the criticism of kangaku and the acceptance of Western learning by taking sougaku as a philosophical perspective, the modernity of East Asia will need to be reexamined from the viewpoint of continuity, not discontinuity.