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On Wang S?nsan(王船山) Chungyong's Practical Principles of Self-Cultivation, Chonyangsŏngchal (왕선산(王船山) 『중용(中庸)』의 실천적 존양성찰(存養省察) 방법론)

Kim, Dong Min
- The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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- no.30
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- pp.227-257
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- 2010
This paper intends to articulate concretely the contents and methods of Confucius self-cultivation and their practical characteristics through the analysis of S?nsan Wang Fuzhi (船山王夫之, 1619~1692)'s On Reading Four Classics - Chungyong 讀四書大全說-中庸. The essence of the practical philosophy that penetrates Chungyong (中庸: The Doctrine of the Mean) is the practice of self-cultivation through Chonyang (存養: Preserving one's self) and $S{\breve{o}}ngchal$ (省察: Self-reflection). It can come down to two cultivation practices: 1) careful and discrete thinking without seeing or listening (Kyesingonggu: 戒愼恐懼), 2) solely looking into what is hidden and covert (Sindok: 愼獨). $S{\breve{o}}nsan$ grasped the importance of the two concepts for practical philosophy and articulated the principles of practical self-cultivation of Chungyong by paying attention to the differences and mutual-relations of the two concepts. Especially, he put the emphasis on the study through Chonyang and then focused on the relations between Chonyang and $S{\breve{o}}ngchal$. He consistently argued that the Kyesingonggu's Chonyang study was what enabled the Sindok's $S{\breve{o}}ngchal$ study and clarified the meanings of Chonyang in self-cultivation. Furthermore, he established the self-cultivation study of Chungyong as the primary self-cultivation theory of Confucianism by maximizing the practical characteristics within $Chonyangs{\breve{o}}ngchal$.