정제두의 心卽理說에 관한 연구

Abstract

Though Yuk Gu-yeon’s insight that “the mind is identical to the Principle” has been a basic thesis in Yang Myeong Studies, its main concern is with the establish- ment of a great principle with respect to the universal human mind of morality, but not with a concrete explication of the practical moral judgment and action processes. From this perspective, Jeong Je-du has made such a remark that it is “difficult to explain” Yuk’s ideas of the natural mind and the Principle, which claims that we should explore the Principle of Nature once and for all and. On the other hand, Wang Su-in’s logic has been positively accepted that the innate knowledge of good is the Principle, as it were, with which one can desirably judge and behave where some specific rights and wrongs occur. Wang’s theory of the identification of mind with the Principle has the meaning not only that the innate knowledge of good, the natural mind, is the principle of nature, but also that the natural mind creates the principle of action. The remark that the mind becomes the Principle when it consists in things well makes this point. However, even though Wang has been fully aware of the fact that individuals living the reality lie in the process in which they create incomplete principles of action from their incomplete minds, he has not explain his awareness via the theory of the identification of mind with the Principle. By deepening such a logical dissertation of Wang’s, Jeong Je-du has developed the theory of the identification of mind with the Principle, which includes an account for those individuals that often make incomplete judgments in the reality. Paying attention, first of all, to the existential moral judgments and actions made by human beings who live reality, he explains this with the creative principle of nature. In addition to the meaning that the natural mind is the Principle of Nature and that the natural mind creates the moral principle of action, it emphasizes that the mind of the human as a spontaneous existence has an existential structure in which the moral principle of action is created. The foundation of Jeong Je-du’s theory of the identification of mind with the Principle lies in the creative principle of nature that is the root of a mind and incessantly works in specific reality, and this point has been further developed from the existing theory of the identification of mind with the Principle by him with attention to the human’s existential action.