1870-80년대 유길준의 ‘근대’ 인식 : ‘유교’ 및 ‘전통’ 관념과의 관계를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper explores the life and thought of Yu Kiljun in the period of the 1870s and 1880s. It aims to illuminate on his unique take of enlightenment that tried to fuse the tradition, i.e. Confucianism, with modernity in its concrete development. He was 16 in 1870 and 35 in 1889, which means that the period of the 1870s and 1880s was formative years that his thoughts and world views were in the making and that he also began to see his learning turn into socially fruitful practices. During this period, he studied the essence of the Korean Zhuxi Studies, Korean Practical Philosophy of Sil-Hak and was initiated to the project of independent modernization and experienced modern civilization firsthand as a first Korean student in Japan and the US. Moreover he experienced his first political imprisonment during this period. During this imprisoned time, he synthesized what he had been learning into writings and official consulting documents. Diplomatic documents like "Chungnipron" (中立論: A Theory on Neutralization), governmental advice like "Tapchŏngsachohŏi" (答淸使照會: Answering the Inquiry of a Japanese Envoy), and the Korean modern classic, Sŏyukyŏnmun (西遊見聞: The Journey to the West) were all written during this period. In short, this paper closely examines his life and related development of his thoughts during this educationally and theoretically formative period of his life, during which he had sought for a way of independent modernization through the learning of tradition as well as through the acceptance of Western modernity that he experienced firsthand to make himself an important political agent in the political arena of the Kabo Reform in the 1890s.