율곡의 향약 실천과 공동체주의에 대한 고찰- 중국 향약과의 관계성을 중심으로

Abstract

One of the significant values of Confucianism is the emphasis on harmony in interpersonal relationships. This harmony spans different relational dimensions including family, clan, village community, and state, which are the arenas of communal activities in Confucian society. For these reasons, each of these Confucian spaces necessitates the presence of moral, ethical, and regulatory norms to coordinate interpersonal relations. Within the grassroots level of Confucian society, the village communities, emerged the practice known as Hyangyak. The discourse and practice of Hyangyak during the era of Neo-Confucianism, from the Northern Song dynasty through to the Ming and Qing dynasties, served as a vital foundation of the communal ethics or communitarian principles within the Confucian social order. Both the Zhu Xi School (the School of Principle) and the followers of Wang Yangming valued Hyangyak as a critical concept for community governance. Prominent figures such as Zhu Xi in the Song dynasty, later Wang Yangming, his disciples, and most scholars of the School of Principle during the Joseon dynasty believed that the implementation and activation of Hyangyak were the best methods to maintain the systemic order of local societies. Yulgok, inspired by this perspective, envisioned and practiced Hyangyak not by merely replicating Zhu Xi's "Zengsun Lüshi Hyangyak," but by creating a new "Korean-style Hyangyak" tailored to the rural communities of Joseon. Therefore, this paper focuses on three core terms: Hyangyak, communitarianism, and regional communities. It explores the relationship between rural societies and Hyangyak, examines Yulgok's views on social order, and discusses his contributions to the discourse on regional communities, starting from the origins of Hyangyak in the Song dynasty.