王弼의 本末觀 -崇本息末과 崇本擧末을 중심으로-

Abstract

Wang-Bi's the theory of essence-end is one of his main interests in philosophy. I think there are all-inclusiveness and complex layers of reference in his theory, and so it is considered to have various interpretations according to scholars' approaches. Nowadays his theory is looked into in many terms such as epistemology, methodology, metaphysics, theory of politics, and ethics, etc. A main key to understand his theory rightly seems to be in the terms 'chong ben xi mo' (the essence is first and the end is also valuable and important) and 'chong ben ju mo', (only the essence is valuable and important), his two most representative concepts, I think. He often compares the concept 'essence' to 'a mother' and the 'end' to 'a child'. The chinese verb xi (be valuable and important) has two meanings, which are crucial to investigate Wang-bi's theory. It's meaning has positive aspect and negative, too. On the positive aspect, it can be understood as 'stop' or 'cease', and on the negative one, as 'raise' or 'grow'. Wang-Bi uses both meanings in his workings putting different weigh on it's meaning, which can cause controversial argument among descendants. In this study what I mainly tried to do is to differentiate his usage of xi into two significant point of view according to the xi's aspects of meaning. One is 'essence-end independent':negative, the other is 'essence-end integrative':positive. According to the former, the essence is first of all, and the end is not considered as being valuable and important, and so the end is an objective to be ignored or removed. According to the latter, the essence is first of all with no doubt, but also the end is very valuable and important. So in this point, the end is an objective to be encouraged or flourished. When Wang-bi wanted to emphasize Chuang-tzu centered meaning, he uses 'chong ben xi mo' into 'essence-end independent' meaning. But when he was in the need of harmonization for Confucious and Chuang-tzu together, he uses 'chong ben xi mo' into 'essence-end integrative' meaning. If we read Wang-bi's workings on this integrative view, the following three concepts 'chong ben xi mo', 'chong ben ju mo' and 'shou mu cun zi' could be understood as to have the same kind of level.