• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.37
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• pp.377-410
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• 2009

In the East Asian Confucianism society, Hakmun was aimed to bring human beings and nature into harmony, and to explore a unity between knowledge and conducts. For example, Neo-Confucianism aspired they could explain the human existence and society through a single concept of Iki(理氣, the basic principles and the atmospheric force of nature). In this philosophy, humanics and natural sciences had not been differentiated at all. The East-West cultural interchanges at the beginning of modernity caused a crack in the traditional academic concepts. Through the Hundred Days of Reform(變法自疆運動, a movement of Strenuous Efforts through Reforming the Law), the Western Affairs Movement(洋務運動) in China, Meiji Restoration(明治維新) in Japan, or Innovation Movements(開化運動) and the Patriotic Enlightenment Movement(愛國啓蒙運動) in Korea, the traditional meanings of Hakmun was degraded while it became a target of the criticism of the enlightenment movements. Accordingly, East Asians' perception of Hakmun rapidly began to change. Although there had been the Silhak(實學, practical science) movement in Korea, which tried to differentiate its conceptualization of Hakmun from that of Neo-Confucianism during the 18th and 19th century, the fundamental shift in meaning occurred with the influx of the modern Western culture. This change converted the ultimate objective of Hakmun as well as its methods and substances. The separation of humanics and natural sciences, rise in dignity of the technological sciences, and subdivision of learning into disciplines and their specialization were accelerated during the Korean enlightenment period. The inflow of the modern western science, humanized thought, and empiricism functioned as mediators in these phase and they caused an irreversible crack in the traditional academic thoughts. Confronting the western mode of knowledge, however, the East Asian intellectuals had to explain their new learning by using traditional terms and concepts; modification was unavoidable when they tried to explain the newly imported knowledge and concepts. This presentation focuses on the traditional concepts of 'gyeogchi'(格致, extending knowledge by investigating things) and 'gungni'(窮理, investigation of principles), pervasively used in philosophy, physics and many other fields of study. These concepts will mark the key point with which to trace changes of knowledge and to understand the way how the concept of Hakmun was converted into a modern one.