다산 정약용의 경학관

Abstract

This article looks into Dasan Jeong Yack-yong’s view of the study of Confucian classics in relation with the theory of governance. As many know, Dasan said that his learning was fully systemized as he had been disciplined through Six Confucian Classic Scriptures and Four Confucian Classic Books and tried to govern the world by One Short Script and Two Books. That is, he was the scholar who was consistently focusing on the study of Confucian classics as a learning for individual discipline and the study of governance as a learning for governance of people. Such view of his learning was based on the reality of rural areas he saw directly in his life through his work as a government officials of 12 years and his banishment of 18 years. Especially, Dasan tried to convert the existing system of the study of Confucian Classics centered on Four Confucian Classic Books and Five Confucian Classic Scriptures to the system of the study of Confucian Classics centered on Six Confucian Classic Scriptures and Four Confucian Classic Books, which was not simply a conversion from the study of Confucian Classics for the theory of righteousness of Song dynasty’s learning tradition to the study of Confucian Classics for the study of full translation of Confucian Classics of Han dynasty’s learning tradition. That is, he tried to go for Confucius’ spirit of classics beyond Song’s learning and Han’s learning that were conventional types of Confucian learning out of the translation of Classics of Song’s learning and Han’s learning that was unbalanced and distorted. If Dasan was not fully satisfied with any of translation of Confucian Classics that did not look fully appropriate, he referred to old books widely to ascertain the Classics by Classics to apply the philological method for translation of Classics so-called ‘Proving Classics by Classics’. That is, such way of Dasan’s writing about Classics was a basic work to translate and ascertain Six Confucian Classic Scriptures and Four Confucian Classic Books to restore the prototype of a Confucian nation’s ideology and system and apply such ideology and system to a new era. It is thought that it was GyeongSeYuPyo (經世遺表) written under the ideology of Zhōulǐ (周禮) that was born in based on the study of Confucian Classics for the theory of governance.