馮友蘭의 新理學과 ‘抗戰期的’ 의미 ― 『新事論』에 대한 분석을 중심으로 ―

Abstract

This article explored the ‘Anti-Japanese wartime’ meaning of Feng Youlan’s New Rational Philosophy through examining the New Treatise on P ractical Affairs, which is one of his famous works, “Six Books of Zhenyuan(貞元六書)”. In spite of its high-degree ideality, New Rational Philosophy was basically rooted from Feng Younlan’s awareness of reality in Anti-Japanese wartime China. Above all, it was the strongest inner motive for constructing New Rational Philosophy that Feng Youlan considered his philosophy as a ‘weapon’ for struggle in the Anti-Japanese wartime. Unlike the case of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism(程朱理學), the principle(理) conceives its plurality and stratification between universality and specificity in the structure of New Rational Philosophy. It is a key point in the New Rational Philosophy that universality and specificity co-exist without one-sided oppression in the mutual relationship. New Rational Philosophy also acknowledges change of things, and in fact the change itself is located in the more universal stratum of principle. <br>Feng Youlan expanded the universal-special stratification of New Rational Philosophy to the level of perception of real society in the New Treatise on P ractical Affairs. He stipulated economic mode of production as a more universal stratum of principle that creates a society and functions it. Based on this perception, when it comes to Sino-Western cultural difference, he converted a geographic dimension to the context of ancient and modern ages. However he considered ‘the ancient’ not as a mere static backwardness, but as possibility to progress to ‘the modern’, and perceived the history of this progression as another universal principle. The Chineseness was a critical issue in his New Treatise on P ractical Affairs, too. In the Anti-Japanese wartime to put the stress on Chinese tradition, he positively approved the unique Chineseness under the condition that New Rational Philosophy concedes universality and specificity mutually. <br>Feng Youlan renewed the meaning of Anti-Japanese War in his New Treatise on P ractical Affairs. In his perception, Anti-Japanese War was not merely armed conflict between two countries, but a war between ‘villager’ to seek to be urbanite and ‘urbanite’ to interrupt it. The composition of ‘villager/urbanite’ emerged when the economically backward/advanced relationship functioned as a realistic oppression. Thus he never viewed Anti-Japanese War as a war between two equal countries. He maintained that this war was an inevitable process of progress from villagers to urbanites, from backward to advanced, and further from the oppressed to liberation. The system of New Rational Philosophy, which assumes change itself as a universal principle, and the historical notion of New Treatise on P ractical Affairs, which are embodied as history driven by the universal principle in the real phases, they all defined this war as a realization of the universal principle. In the end, New Rational Philosophy was able to secure its more realistic implication for Anti-Japanese War, because it established a thinking system that recognized the war as part of struggle for a realization of the universal principle.