정조의 경학 이해와 정치의 문제

Abstract

A collection of King Jeongjo’s 正祖 (1752-1800) writings, the Hongjae Jeonseo 弘齋全書 includes the Gunseo Pyogi 群書標記, where it is possible to view a list of all documents compiled under his rule. According to this work, during the monarch’s reign, 153 items of books amounting to over 4,000 fascicles were compiled. Texts compiled under his direct supervision 御定書 alone amount to over 2,000 fascicles. When works compiled by the king’s closest scholar-officials 士大夫 including those affiliated with the Royal Library and Archives 奎章閣 at his order 命撰書 are included here as well, the total amounts to more than 4,000 fascicles. Included in this collection are numerous unique works that provide a glimpse of King Jeongjo’s academic and political opinions such as his poetry collection, Gyeongsa Gangui 經史講義 (records of academic seminars on Confucian classics and ancient East Asian histories between him and his ministers), Simnirok 審理錄 (his trial records), and Ildeungnok 日得錄 (records of his oral statements). Out of the many documents compiled during King Jeongjo’s reign, the Daehak Yuui 大學類義 was the most crucial one as a textbook on statecraft for future rulers. For the effective governance and edification of the populace, the Xiaoxue 小學, Oryun Haengsildo 五倫行實圖, and Hyangnye Happyeon 鄕禮合編 (collection of compacts for self-governing villages) were the most important texts. However, a task that was very important both politically and ideologically was the monarch’s collection of Zhu Xi studies 朱子學 texts for over 20 years and compilation of the best versions. Moreover, he planned to compile a complete edition of the Zhuzi Quanshu 朱子全書 in his late years. When King Jeongjo’s academic tendency is summarized, he saw Zhu Xi studies as the highest learning and truth. This was not simply an academic question but was a question linked to the validity of the ruler’s political power and power management. Because the validity of power was granted through the legitimacy of learning in Joseon, as a politician and the supreme commander, the monarch had no choice but to declare that Zhu Xi studies was the correct learning. The compilation of immense documents and the plan to compile the Zhuzi Quanshu under King Jeongjo’s rule constituted public declarations that the synthesizer of Confucianism, or the inheritor of the ideology’s lineage, was the monarch himself. Indeed, he prided himself on having succeeded to the truth of Confucianism from the wise kings of the three ancient Chinese dynasties, Confucius, and Zhu Xi. King Jeongjo believed that he was capable of practicing the way of a teacher 師道 and the way of a ruler 君道 at the same time, that he could become a true ruler-teacher 君師. He held the belief that only monarchs could become true ruler-teachers. At the same time, he also had the conviction that he had become a ruler-teacher based on his learning and morality and therefore was capable of establishing ji 極, the standard of human life. While kings could become ruler-teachers by cultivating themselves academically and morally, scholar-officials, even if they performed the same task, could not necessary become kings. Consequently, King Jeongjo thought that, in the end, the only one who could bridge the gap between learning and politics, between knowledge and reality, was none other than himself. Both King Jeongjo and contemporary Korean Confucians sought to find the validity of political actions or political power in the perfection of character or the completion of learning. In this respect, they can seem to have stressed morality and learning based on a theory of human nature or metaphysics rather than the uniqueness of politics or power itself. Furthermore, their attitude of pondering on political actions or political power in terms of the moral standard of the perfection of learning and character can be criticized as having caused, in the end, an absence of politics. It is because they held a perspective that reduced political issues to the theory of human nature or moralistic metaphysics and therefore were unable to ponder on the unique characteristics and functions of politics. Nevertheless, it is difficult to conclude that the political discourse of King Jeongjo’s times was reduced to normative ethics. This is because debates on human nature, which buttressed politics, drove the monarch and scholar-officials to engage unceasingly in debates on who was good or evil, what the differences were between sages and ordinary humans, and who was academically outstanding or negligible. Consequently, academic debates based on academic schools did not cease throughout the Joseon Dynasty. In the political topography of this era, it is important to understand that centuries-old academic debates on character and levels of learning were in themselves extremely political. Seen thus, King Jeongjo’s attitude of seeking to coordinate diverse academic traditions was not only extremely political but also can be seen as more than political instead. It is because he strove to demonstrate that his acts of coordination (arbitration) were not simply power struggles. King Jeongjo styled himself not as someone fighting for political power but as an educator and a mentor. This was not an absence of politics but, instead, became a spark prompting one to ask back, “What is politics?” In the Confucian world of those who dreamed of the ruler-teachers of the three ancient Chinese dynasties─both the king and scholar-officials─though learning and politics aimed at each other and sought to be united, discrepancies between learning and politics and conflict between morality and politics had become an inevitable reality. Though King Jeongjo styled himself a ruler-teacher, he was but just only a hereditary monarch and a being whose morality had to be tested constantly. As a result, learning and politics invariably had to take the risk of severance and discontinuity in a Confucian society. In this respect, academic debates during the Joseon Dynasty can be said to have functioned, instead, as a catalyst leading one to ask back, “What should politics indeed be?”