王陽明 成己成物 工夫의 涵義

Abstract

Wang Yang-ming postulated that everyone has an innate moral nature and all things have both the rightness and the nature. However, he recognized that the life of moral virtue (as a good-natured virtue) and the life of passions (including human selfish desires, disposition and sensitivity) appeared simultaneously because the man was the human being of shape. Therefore, Wang Yang-ming thought that the moral utopia, Wang Yang-ming’s aim, could be achieved by requiring a certain effort, preserving the life of moral virtue, and considering all beings and things. Then, Wang Yang-ming explained that its basic groundwork and ideas were the innate knowledge of good and the extension of innate knowledge of good. In other words, the innate knowledge of good is the basic substance and the principle as our moral completion of oneself. Our consideration for others and the extension of innate knowledge of good is regarded as an effort that keeps the natural form by preserving and expanding the innate knowledge of good. Based on this, we regain the natural form and the value of all beings and things, and we can recognize society and utopia as one body in morality. Society and utopia as one body in morality means the world, the Moral Utopia and Society and all things are consolidated into one which all Confucians long for in the real world. Therefore, Wang Yang-ming placed special emphasis on the importance of Effort in Moral Completion of oneself and Consideration for others in order to realize this Moral utopia and Society. Hence, this paper attempts to find the implications of Wang Yang-ming’s Effort in Moral Completion of oneself and Consideration for others to achieve the Moral Utopia. First of all, this paper explains its premise and basis through the Innate Knowledge of Good as the original substance of mind as a process for the effort of Moral Completion of oneself and Consideration for others, which Wang Yang-ming believed. It examines the formation and development of the Effort for Moral Completion and Consideration for others through effort before the original substance of knowledge and action. It explores the extension of innate knowledge of good which searches the original substance of mind, as well as refining and training in the actual affairs of life. As well as the realization of truth through personal experience of the principle of mind and the direction for action based on knowledge. A further study tries to organize how the effort of moral completion of oneself and consideration for others, through the extension of innate knowledge of good and the great learning, as the recovery and the expansion of the innate knowledge of good as the principle of mind are established and developed in Yang-ming’s thought. The latter part of this paper has illuminated that the aim and the ideal of the effort of moral completion of oneself and consideration for others which Wang Yang-ming debated are the realization of the forming of one’s body with all things and the society(utopia) as one body in morality.