19세기 중반 南秉哲(1817-1863)의 학문과 현실 인식

Abstract

Nam Byeong-Cheol was one of the utmost literary figures in the middle 19th century. Born in a prestigious family, he followed the family's academic tradition and demonstrated outstanding literary talents. At the young age of 21, he entered the official world and exhibited his talent as a government official. In addition, he made remarkable accomplishments in astronomy and almanac. His academic interest went through some changes by the periods. In his teens, he was deep into verse literature. After passing the state exam, he changed his attitude and concentrated his interest on public issues to help the people. When King Hyŏnjong(현종), who favored him, passed away, he started to lose himself in astronomy and almanac. Even though his academic interest kept changing, the core of his academic pursuit was always the study of Chinese classics. In the early 1860s when he was focusing on astronomy and almanac, the situations in and outside the country were very serious. The peasants that had complaints about the samjŏng(삼정) confusion engaged in large-scale resistance, and Beijing fell at the outbreak of the Second Sino-British War in Ch'ŏng Dynasty. Nam suggested different measures for those different problems and situations. In his effort to solve the samjŏng confusion, he proposed a reform to abolish hwan'gok(환곡) and secure the Kyŏngsang expenses by levying land instead of hwan'gok. His idea was to create land tax for securing Kyŏngsang expenses in order to solve the hwan'gok problem, which could not be solved with operational approaches, fundamentally and to place priority on equality. It is estimated that his reform proposal of samjŏng must have been reflected in the government plans. Regarding the foreign affairs, he analyzed that “Chinese Origin Theorem” and the resulting attitudes were the major causes of China's invasion by West and thus concentrated his criticism on the theorem. He then maintained the Western achievements in the field of astronomy and almanac should be recognized, but his argument was rooted in the Hwairon. In other words, the Westerners who were not enlightened through the sages should be controlled through the Oriental teachings. Such an attitude of his was typical with tongdo-centric countermeasures that formed a flow in the middle 19th century.