초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Mind, theoretically constructed in philosophers’ thought, is not real. We cannot understand mind but just experience it. Ignoring such experienced mind, therefore, any effort is vain to search for theories of mind. In the upheaval of the early modern Korea, founding leaders of Dajonggyo had to ask how to understand the self and the world and then to transform them. The answer and practice they found lied in their thought of embodied mind. In this context, it is meaningful to elucidate Daejonggyo’s understanding of mind and body in the context of the encounter between the East and the West. For this, firstly, I survey some debates on mind-body relations in the East and the West and compare their differences. Secondly, I examine the ideas related to mind and body of the early leaders such as Na Cheol and Seo Il. And lastly, I analyse the theories of mind and body found in Daejonggyo’s major religious scriptures such Cheonbugyeong and Samilshingo. Through the lives of Na Cheol and Seo Il, we can see that human mind is the subject of creative behavior based on and realizing the innate depth of human nature, and that Daejonggyo’s worldview of the inner-outer unification unfolds upon the synthetical structure of inner convergence and outer action. Especially, regarding the mind-body continuum as a part of the universe, Seo Il shows that mind is a principle tied to the heaven and, in such a mind, therefore, the heaven, the earth and everything in the world are related to one another into oneness. Similarly, Spinoza thinks that human mind is a part of the limitless intellect of God. He says, though human mind has its own individuality, it is in fact a part of God’s mind. As such, human mind as a componential element of the whole system of being is extended into the being itself and, therefore, belongs to the nature of God known as ‘the nature’. According to this, body also is recognized under the attribute of thought sometimes and under that of extension at other times. In Cheonbugyeong, the fundamental mind of humanity is the mind of heaven. On the basis of such mind, the haven, the earth and the humanity become one. That is, human mind is connected to the life principle of the universe. The variety of the universe is an expression of the one ultimate life principle. Such an understanding of mind might be harmonized with Spinoza’s understanding of mind. Through the analyses, I suggest how Daejonggyo’s understanding embodied mind could have an influence on the bodily transformation and the social change in the context of the encounter between the East and the West.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
Mind, Body, Mind-body Relation, Encounter of the East and the West, Daejonggyo, Na Cheol(1863-1916), Seo Il(1881~1921), Cheonbugyeong, Samilshingo, Baruch Spinoza(1632–1677).
