조선 후기 기술 지식의 실용성: 제지(製紙) 관련 지식을 통해 본 실학(實學)

Abstract

This paper discusses the practicalities of late Joseon “practical studies (實學),” focusing on the works of several scholars who produced new knowledge about papermaking in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Hong Daeyong(1731-1783), Bak Jiwon(1737-1805), Bak Jega(1750-1815), Yi Huigyeong(1745-1805), and Seo Yugu(1764-1845). These scholars showed deep interest in this mundane technique, as could be seen through their communication with each other. While their works touching on techniques of producing things have been largely characterized as “empirical,” “practical,” and “proven,” this paper argues that their method to pursue “practical studies” and their meaning of practicalities (實) were quite different from what we can expect from the terms “seeing and hearing (見聞),” and “proving by experience (徵驗).” Their main way of “seeing and hearing” was through texts that helped them know the right way of the ideal sage rule, and their “proving” was to confirm their informed faith in the right ways proven in previous texts. The practicalities that they obtained and aimed were thus not through the actual observations of technical realities in Joseon papermaking, but mostly through their intellectual politics.