Bridging the gap between us and the master Yi- Hwang through the free conversation

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I have searched for the way how I was face to face with alive Yi Hwang, one of the greatest confucius in Joseon period.Because it was always unsatisfactory for me that many scholars used to study only with the scattered parts of his idea. At any rate I wanted to meet his whole personality and mutual connected thought. Is it impossible? But the idea that a modern chisese marxist, Kwag Mal yack(郭末若), had tried to make the historical two men, Marx and Congz(孔子) meet, hit on me. Additionally the fact that Matthew Fox have drawn out the new aspect of Thomism through the direct talking with Aquinas reflected on me.So I decided to make a journey to the past to talk to the alive, not dead, the Master Yi Hwang. This seems to be awkward and unrealistic, but in any circumstance, unreality would rather be real. Hamlet hadn't heard the truth until he met his father, a ghost. In the end, I could meet the Master Yi Hwang. He slowly opened the mouth, so I could talk to him about many topics for a long time. This paper came from this conversation.I think that his philosophical thought aimed at the worldly life. Because he was a confucius, he intended to find the truth in the nearest things. In the result, what was the thing he seeked to find in the nearest things? I thought what he had seeked to find was the ideal life in the beneath of ordinary life. In addition, ordinary life was meant to be beyond itself.He thought the moral strength must move himself, and the world around him. It was Li(理) that was the moral strength. This is the metaphysical thesis that every human has a good nature.But I don't understand the exact meaning of Li(理) well. It is more difficult tounderstand the meaning of Li used by Yi Hwang. I think that Yi Hwang used the term in extraordinary meaning. For him Li(理) is beneath the exprssion of all things.Because it is alive, it is always moving outer and human emotion in itself is the expression of Li. So, the problem of education teaching of practical moral depends on the way how students express the good intentions. And the nature of Li is the rhythm of the universe. Its endless movement repeating between the ultimates, Yin and Yang(陰陽) rules human mind. So his aim in education was to make Li go out smoothly and naturally.Therefore, I think it is certain that Yi Hwang placed more importance on artistic flexibility than moral rigidity. The achievement of flexibility was the only way to moral humanity. In the other word, it is the unification between human and universe.