孟子와 荀子의 心에 대한 比較硏究

Abstract

A Human being is a moral being who recognizes and realizes moral values although he/she has natural desires as animals do. This is a basic assumption of primordial Confucian philosophy. Primordial Confucianism started from asking the question of what a moral value in human beings is. Confucius answered that it was ren (humaneness, 仁) by which he meant 'observing ritual propriety through self-discipline (kejifuli, 克己復禮)' the harmonization of inner virtue (de, 德) and outer ritual propriety (li, 禮). However, it wasn't until Mencius and Xunzi appeared that primordial Confucianism sought for the natures of inner virtue and outer ritual propriety and of the moral power of ren. While Mencius believed that a moral value had its origin in the inner world of the individual, Xunzi approached it within the framework of man-made social norms. Mencius attributed the goodness of inner nature and man's moral ability to Four Beginnings (siduan, 四端), a transcendental mind. Xunzi, on the other hand, believed that mind's intellectual capacity enabled man and society to be good. Mencius and Xunzi differ in their views on human nature, human desire and mind's function of understanding although they are same in viewing the mind as a foundation for achieving the goodness of man and society. Defining human nature as good on the basis of man's transcendental mind, Mencius claimed that the value of human existence lay only on the practices of morality. It was also mind's intuitive function which made the judgment of moral value possible. This approach, however, deterred us from considering man's feelings and desires properly. Besides, it prohibited us from incorporating man's experiential element. Mencius, therefore, overlooked the importance of man's intellectual activity and of socio-cultural element in man's lives. Xunzi defined human nature as man's feelings and desires and insisted that man's moral value lay on social goodness [heping, 和平]. This claim made us take a favorable view of man's feelings and desires which were dealt with in the negative by Mencius s. For Xunzi, human being is a being whom experiences in the context of socio-cultural connections mature. This process of maturation is made by mind. Xunzi said that mind's intellectual capacity created ritual propriety as rational norms of society and so became the basis of rational understanding by individual man. Man, therefore, can control his/her feelings and desires by his/her mind and thus realize the goodness of society.