유종원 사상의 특징 ; 순자와 비교하여

Abstract

Liu Zongyuan was a writer and political philosopher who lived during the Tang Dynasty in China. With Liu Zongyuan’s ideas and political strife being distorted extensively in the past, scholars have exclusively followed his literary achievements and completely neglected the value of his philosophical work. The keys to Liu Zongyuan’s school of thought are: First, to shun myths and superstition, to argue that nature is tangible, and believe that the heavens do not have a will of their own. Second, Liu opposed the privileges extended to aristocracy and stressed the competency and rights of the common people. Third, Liu also opposed passive seclusion while asserting that scholars should be active and interested in real-life issues and that they should help society and its people. This paper compares and expands on Liu Zongyuan's philosophy and its characteristics with those of Xun Zi. More specifically, it divides and analyzes Liu’s ideas into the principles of tangible aspects from his view on the world and the active participation in real-life from his view on life. This paper discovered that the philosophies of both scholars saw the heavens as part of nature and that they emphasized the duty of mankind as autonomous and independent entities in light of an objective heavens, Therefore, a re-evaluation on the progressiveness of Liu Zongyuan’s philosophy is necessary, and his vision of the relationship between man and the heavens must be studied in the realm of Chinese philosophy.