• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.58
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• pp.279-305
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• 2018

Confucius stressed both 'study (學)' and 'thinking (思)' but the two notions are complementary. To precisely measure the importance of the two, however, 'study' outweighs 'thinking.' Yet Confucius primarily states three steps on Analects of Confucius. In other words, Confucius mentioned two steps on 'Haksajang (學思章)' on the surface but it is actually composed of three steps. Then what is the step three? It is a critical issue to grasp the core of Confucius' idea. The ultimate goal of Confucius' idea is, as stressed by Cheng Yi (程伊川), to 'reach the realm of saint by learning,' which refers to a saint as an ideal human character. This paper is to examine three steps of 'oneness of study and thinking (學思合一)' as a way of Confucius' academic methodology to be the saint along with its structure. Saint, in a word, is characterized as 'communication (通).' It means communication through learning and thinking, which are the three steps of study(學)-thinking (思)-communication(通). Confucius emphasizes that this step also is a process itself (知) but it can be truly completed (dual structure) only by practice (行). Eventually, Confucius' academic methodology is of learning scriptures (學), thinking based on this learning (思) and practicing (行) based on this entire procedure (通). In other words, it is of a dual structure with three steps of 知 (study(學)-thinking(思)-communication(通))-practice(行).