王充의 人性論 硏究

Abstract

In the new imperial order, intellectuals in the Han time developmentally accepted the perspectives of diverse schools regarding the theories of human nature that had been developed since the Qin Dynasty period while adding compromises and harmony to the perspectives. Their major intention behind the attempt to harmonize various schools’ perspectives regarding the theories of human nature can be said to be political edification and the reconstruction of ethical value order in the society to present a sound theoretical basis and a noble idea of value. Among the theories of human nature that were relatively popular in the Han time, so called three nature quality theory that divided human natures into three based on the quality; for instance, the ‘nature of saint’, the ‘nature of moderate persons’, and the ‘nature of common people’ presented by Dong Zhongshu. In addition, Dong Zhongshu stated that only those that had the ‘nature of moderate persons’ could be the subjects of education and edification implemented by the government. Wang Chong’s theory of human nature basically inherited the view to divide human natures into grades and divided human natures into ‘above moderate persons’, ‘moderate persons’, and ‘below moderate persons.’ In addition, based on this notion of classification, Wang Chong criticized various theories of human nature that had been passed down since the Qin Dynasty period. The theories of human nature in the Han time that was a connecting link between the Qin Dynasty period and the SongMing Dynasty period in the history of the theories of human nature in China occupy a very important position in the academic history and they are thought to be sufficiently valuable when seen from the viewpoint of thoughts in that they comprehensively criticized and organized the theories of human nature in the Qin Dynasty period and the Han time.