Abstract
This study is to discuss the content of Posangkimun on the whole and to report the understanding of Seokgok Lee Gyujoon on western civilization. Through the overall analysis of Posangkimun, it is found the following facts: 1. Posangkimun aroused interest of academic circles as it covered theories of western civilization. Most of the introduction to western civilization contained in the book is related to astronomy and geography. Seokgok criticized all the western theories on revolution of the earth, astronomy, continents and oceans on the ground that these theories were not congruous with the teaching of the Oriental sages. 2. Seokgok found the reasons why the West had led the East from 'nationalism' of the West. The nationalism mentioned here were more similar to 'democracy' in modern sense, or rather 'democratism'. What is specially noteworthy is that he did not find the reasons of western advancement from the spiritual issues not from the machine civilization. In this way, Seokgok could avoid the fallacy of throwing away traditional ideas to concentrate in western machine civilization. 3. The content of Posangkimun shows that Seokgok was a person with a very conservative view. Notwithstanding his inclination, he had good knowledge about western theories, most of which were gathered from newspapers and magazines at that time. It means that newspapers and magazines should be treated with more importance when studying Korean intellectuals in late Joseon period or during the time of Japanese forced occupation.
