맹순(孟荀) 교육사상을 통해 살펴본 형이상학의 교육학적 의미

The Educational Meaning of Metaphysics Through the Educational Thought of Mencius and Xunzi

본 논문은 맹자와 순자의 교육사상 중 ‘하늘’과 ‘심성’의 기획을 통해 교육과 형이상학의 필연적 관계를 밝히는데 중점을 두었다. 그 결과 본 논문은 다음과 같이 이 문제 의식에 대해 정리하였다: 우선 맹자와 순자의 ‘하늘’과 ‘심성’을 주로 순자의 입장에서 살펴본 결과 ‘법칙’(常)과 이 성격에 관해 모든 도덕적 준칙의 배후로서 ‘비가시적 존재의 필요성’을 인정하고 있었다는 점을 확인하였다. 또한 맹자와 순자가 각각 천착한 지점은 인간에 대한 교육의 필연성에 관한 것이었다. 그리고 이를 통해 살펴본 바 유가가교육과 형이상학에 관해 어떤 기획을 하였는지 정리할 수 있었다: 맹자의 형이상학은 그 종교적인 성격으로 인해 신비주의로 보일 여지가 있었고, 순자는 이를 보완하기 위해 이 성격을 ‘하늘’에서 제거하여 도덕에 대하여 ‘요청되는 개념’이 되도록 하였다. 또한 맹자는 그 과정에서 ‘사실로부터 당위를 추론했다는’ 자연적 오류의 문제를 비판받게 되었다. 이에 순자는 이에 대해 인위(僞)를 인성과 보완적 개념으로 제시, 형이상학적으로 ‘하늘’이 관념적으로 해석되는 것을 언어 논리학적인 차원에서 접근, 최대한 공리적(公理的) 성격을 갖도록 하였다.

This paper focused on clarifying the inevitable relationship between education and metaphysics through the planning of Heaven and Mind among Mencius and Xunzi’s educational ideas. Recent studies show that the ‘invisible’ is behind the content revealed through the subject, that education today recognizes it as ‘lost’ again, and that Mencius and Xunzi, the first heir to Confucius in the East to mention this issue, are still not free from the rules of Neo-Confucianism. Therefore, for smooth discussion, this paper focused on the possibility of ideological intersection between Mencius and Xunzi and deriving a position on the relationship between metaphysics and education of Confucianism. As a result, this paper summarizes this problem consciousness as follows: First of all, as a result of examining the ‘Heaven’ and ‘Nature and Mind’ of Mencius and Xunzi mainly from the perspective of Xunzi, it was confirmed that the ‘necessity of invisible existence’ was recognized as the background of the ‘law’(常) and all moral rules for this character. In addition, the point where Mencius and Xunzi came to is about the necessity of education for humans, and Mencius had a problem that he lacked specific alternatives in terms of passive participation of teachers and expansion of students. Therefore, starting from this problem, Xunzi clearly differentiated the character of ‘Heaven’ from Mencius, and ultimately led to how education should be conducted through ‘mind’ and ‘Ritual’ with complementary characteristics. In addition, through this, we were able to summarize what Confucianism planned for education and metaphysics in Maeng Soon(孟荀)’s thoughts: Due to its religious nature, Mencius’ metaphysics had room to be seen as mysticism, and Xunzi removed this character from the ‘Heaven’ to make it a ‘requested concept’ for morality. In addition, both Mencius and Xunzi recognized that education was an important activity that revealed the status and value of metaphysics, but in the process, Mencius was criticized for the problem of naturalistic fallacy that ‘he reasoned from facts’. Accordingly, Xunzi presented artificial(僞) as a concept complementary to personality, and made the conceptual interpretation of ‘Heaven’ in metaphysics approach from a linguistic and logical level so that it had a maximally axiomatic character.