退溪의 心學과 禮

Simhak that belongs to a part of Neo-Confucianism is of course a learning to reflect the human mind, but it is not simply limited to a philosophical reflection or a scientific research that pursuits an objective knowledges about the reality and activities of human mind. But also it ultimately purposes to realize an personality of a Sage as the effect of self-cultivation. Toegye`s Simhak includes some important knowledges: Toegye`s understanding of Neo-Confucian conceptions and theories on human mind, contents of his mind-experiences based on the understanding, his reflections on the changes revealed on the process of his self-cultivation, details of the verifications on the truths of Simhak by the self-cultivation of himself, and hid empirical inferences about the steps to attain Sage`s character, etc. In my thinking collectively, his knowledges of Simhak can be not only the targets on philosophy but also of contemporary psychology, psychiatry, pedagogy, cultural science, and so on. Maybe it cannot be revealed ist reality only by philosophical research. For understanding its reality this study takes new ideas about the method of research. The first is to explain the relationship between Simhak and Confucian proprieties(禮) which has been alienated in studying Simhak in contemporary Korea. By this method. it is feasible to explain the important and even absolute roles of Confucian proprieties in the process of self-cultivation. The second is to keep reflecting on the second order of his thinking. Until now so many studies on his Simhak focused on the first order of his thinking, the order which consists of Toegye`s ideas and the objects his ideas instruct. But the second order is the order which consists of his choosing, employing, and applying of the ideas, that is a kind of meta-order of the first order. The arguments of this paper are related to the relationship between the practice of Confucian proprieties and the methods of self-cultivation dut to the principles of Simnak. As the result of this study, we can say that Confucian proprieties has an absolute role of achieving the Confucian Sage`s personality and so it is the indispensable principle of his Simhak.