특집 : 다산에 있어서 동서의 만남 ; Catholicism과 유학 사이의 다산: 1791년에서 1801년까지의 의혹 속의 10년을 중심으로

돈베이커 ( Don Baker ) 다산학술문화재단 2004 다산학 Vol.- No.5

THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONFUCIANISM IN 20<SUP>th</SUP> CENTURY KOREA : HOW IT HAS LOST MOST OF ITS METAPHYSICAL UNDERPINNINGS AND SURVIVES TODAY PRIMARILY AS ETHICAL RHETORIC AND HERITAGE RITUALS

DONALD BAKER(돈베이커) 계명대학교 한국학연구원 2011 한국학연구원 학술대회 Vol.2011 No.6

현재의 한국과 더 이상 관계가 없는 것처럼 여겨지는 전통유교사상이 많다. 한국인들은 더 이상 유교 경서를 암기하거나, 사단칠정(인의예지, 희로애락애요욕)에 대한 이(理)와 기(己)의 관계를 논의하는 데 관심을 기울이지 않는다. 서울의 주요정부기관 또한 공적인 유교의례를 문화유산으로서만 고취하고 한다. 그러나 세상과 사회를 바라보는 유교적 방법은 더욱 협동하고 조화로운 사회를 건설하려는 우리의 투지에게 제안 하는 것이 많다. 무엇보다도, 인간을 우리 자신의 개인적인 필요나 욕구에 따라 정의하기보다, 우리가 사회에서 가지는 역할로 정의하는 사회적인 존재로서 인간을 보는 유교적 정의를 우리는 배울 수 있다. 그러한 정의와 유교적 도덕용어에 의지하여 우리는 사람들이 개인적인 이익보다 그들의 공동체의 필요들을 우선시 하도록 격려하는 도덕적 철학을 고취시킬 수 있다. 동시에, 우리는 유교적 사고와 가치들을 현대 세계에 적용할 수 있다. 그래서 개인적 이익보다 공동체의 행복을 우선하는 것은 개인적인 억압을 야기하는 것이 아닌, 그들의 사회와 환경, 그리고 그들 자신의 개인적 삶을 개선시키기 위해 함께 노력할 수 있는 환경을 만드는 것이다. There is much about traditional Confucianism that is no longer relevant in contemporary Korea. Koreans no longer need to memorize the Confucian Classics or pay much attention to debates over the relationship of li and ki to the Four Fonts and the Seven Emotions. Nor does the government in Seoul need to promote official Confucian rituals, except as cultural heritage. However, there still is much that the Confucian way of looking at the world and at society can offer us in our drive to construct a more cooperative and harmonious society. First of all, we can learn from the Confucian definition of a human being as primarily a social being, defined more by the roles we play in society at large than by our own personal wants and needs. Drawing on that definition, and on traditional Confucian ethical terminology, we can promote an ethical philosophy that encourages people to put the needs of their community ahead of any private benefit. At the same time, we can adapt Confucian ideas and values to the modem world so that placing the welfare of the community ahead of private benefit does not lead to oppression of individuals but instead creates an environment in which individuals can work together to improve their society, their environment, and their own personal lives.

Introduction to the Special Section: Korean Religions and COVID Restrictions

돈 베이커 서강대학교 종교연구소 2022 Journal of Korean Religions Vol.13 No.2

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The Korean Dilemma: Assuming Perfectibility but Recognizing Moral Frailty

돈 베이커 계명대학교 한국학연구원 2019 Acta Koreana Vol.22 No.2

For centuries a question at the core of Korean philosophical and religious thinking has been how to reconcile the recognition of moral frailty with the assumption that human beings have the ability to become morally perfect. One Buddhist solution has been to call for the gradual replacement of preenlightenment habits with moral habits after becoming enlightened to one’s own Buddha nature. Confucians have instead focused on managing the relationship between innate moral tendencies and equally innate selfish emotions. Christians offered another solution to this conundrum: dropping the assumption that human beings on their own can achieve moral perfection and instead focusing on relying to God’s help to overcome moral frailty. Indigenous new religions have proposed yet another solution: waiting for the unfavorable conditions that prevail in the world today to change so that it will be easier to act the way we know we should act. None of these proposed solutions satisfy everyone. As a result, Koreans continue their search for a way to explain, and overcome, moral failure while maintaining confidence in their ability to do so.

Creating the Sacred and the Secular in Colonial Korea

돈 베이커 서강대학교 종교연구소 2021 Journal of Korean Religions Vol.12 No.2

The thirty-five-year-long Japanese occupation of Korea (1910–1945) stimulated a significant transformation of the traditional Korean concept of religion, which in turn stimulated changes in the Korean understanding of the secular and the sacred. Traditional Korea lacked an explicit definition of religion. Under Japanese rule, Koreans absorbed the modern Japanese bureaucratic definition of religion, which also included a definition of what Japanese colonial authorities came to call ‘‘quasi-religion.’’ Moreover, when the Japanese brought State Shinto onto the peninsula and declared that it was sacred and secular, and not religious, they stimulated the Korean people into thinking of the sacred and the secular as distinct categories that to some degree overlapped with, but did not map perfectly onto, the distinction between the religious and the non-religious. By demanding that Shinto be treated as constituting a sacred secular realm, sacred to the extent that Shinto deities had to be treated by everyone as supernatural entities who deserved ritual homage and their shrines deemed inviolable, the colonial authorities created an implicit understanding of the secular sacred as superior to the religious realm, which had a more limited claim to the sacred label. Moreover, the Japanese-imposed category of ‘‘quasi-religion’’ caused Koreans to distinguish between that which was secular and unacceptable, such as shamanism, and that which claimed to be sacred and religious but was also unacceptable. By 1945, the categories in which Koreans placed various features of their religious culture were very different from what they had been in 1910.

Yu Hyeongwon, James Palais, and the Definition of Silhak

돈 베이커 한국실학학회 2022 한국실학연구 Vol.- No.43

James Palais (1934-2006) did more than anyone else has done in Englishlanguage academia to publicize the political philosophy and reform proposals of Yu Hyeongwon (1622-1673). Palais’ massive study, Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions : Yu Hyŏngwŏn and the Late Chosŏn Dynasty, remains one of the most influential works on Korea’s Joseon era written in English. This work is particularly important for its challenge to the widelyaccepted view that Yu was part of a silhak (“practical learning”) school which arose in the second half of the Joseŏn period. Even though he recognized that Yu was the first scholar in Joseon to produce a comprehensive analysis of the problems Joseon faced in the 17th century, Palais denied that Yu’s reform proposals display the modernizing elements he is often credited with. Instead, Palais argued that, for example, Yu’s proposal for more equitable land redistribution was more a reflection of traditional Confucian assumptions than it was a manifestation of a budding modernity. We see in Palais’s discussion of Yu Hyeongwon’s reform proposals a distinction between identifying problems, which Palais agrees Yu did, and correctly identifying the causes of those problems and well as coming up with effective ways to solve them, none of which Palais believed Yu did.

평화 구축, 영성(靈性) 그리고 한국의 촛불 혁명: 세계의 빛

돈 베이커(Don Baker),류정도(번역자) 원광대학교 종교문제연구소 2019 한국종교 Vol.45 No.-

한민족은 수세기에 걸쳐서 불의에 항거하더라도, 평화롭게 하기를 원한다는 것을 보여 왔다. 우리는 오랜 조선(朝鮮) 조와 일제 식민 지배 동안의 저항에서도 그러한 것을 보아 왔다. 또한 우리는 민주주의와 더욱 최근 수년간에는 자신들의 관심에 귀를 기울이는 정부를 쟁취하기 위하여 평화적 시위를 하는 한국 국민들을 근대에 목격해 왔다. 이러한 평화로운 전통적 항거의 정점은 2017년에 박근혜 정부의 평화로운 전복으로 이끌어진 촛불 시위였다. 세계는 매주 한국의 대통령이 물러날 것을 평화롭게 요구하며 서울 거리를 가득 매운 수만의 사람들을 경이롭게 지켜보았다. 그 목적은 마침내 성취되었으며, 세계는 정치적 차이에도 불구하고 인간이 그들의 공통된 인간성에 대한 존경을 요구하는 한국인 영성(靈性)을 볼 수 있었다. 한국 국민들이 그러한 영성을 보여줌으로써 수십 년 간 지속된 남북한의 긴장된 교착 상태가 곧 평화적 결말을 맞이할 수 있다는 희망을 갖게 하고 있다. The Korean people, over the centuries, have shown that they will protest injustice, but they prefer to do so peacefully. We have seen that in protests during the long Joseon dynasty and during Japanese colonial rule. We have also witnessed Koreans relying on peaceful protests in their modern fight for democracy and, in more recent years, for a government that listens to their concerns. The culmination of this tradition of peaceful protests was the candlelight demonstrations that led, in 2017, to the peaceful overthrow of the Park Geun-hye government. The world watched in awe as tens of thousands filled the streets of Seoul week after week to peacefully demand that their president step down. What that goal was finally achieved, the world could see the strength of Korean spirituality that calls for human beings to respect their common humanity despite their political differences. That display of the power of Korean spirituality offers hope that the tense standoff between north and south Korea that has lasted for decades may soon come to a peaceful end.

Privatization of Buddhism in the Choson Dynasty

돈 베이커 성균관대학교 동아시아학술원 2014 Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies Vol.14 No.2

The common assumption that Buddhism was persecuted throughout the Choson dynasty needs to be re-examined. Buddhists were not killed simply because they were Buddhists. State support for Buddhism was reduced but that resulted in the privatization of Buddhism, not its prohibition. Buddhism became a private Matter rather than a state project. Buddhist writings continued to be published. Temples, including temples supported by the royal family, continued to operate. And a small portion of the adult male population lived openly as monks, and occasionally interacted on friendly terms with Confucian scholar-officials. Instead of trying to eliminate those monks, the state instead utilized their labor for defense and handicraft production. Moreover, laypeople were allowed to provide support to monasteries and their inhabitants. The Choson state kept Buddhism under government control but did not engage in the sort of persecution it later engaged in against Catholics. Regulation is not persecution.

PUSHING THE CONFUCIAN ENVELOPE: TASAN CHŎNG YAGYONG AS A MAN OF, AND NOT OF, HIS TIMES

돈 베이커 계명대학교 한국학연구원 2015 Acta Koreana Vol.18 No.1

Chŏng Yagyong (1762–1836), better known as Tasan, was one of the most original, and most prolific, writers in Korean history. His philosophical works have attracted much scholarly attention for their challenges to some of the fundamental assumptions of the hegemonic Neo-Confucianism of his day. Yet we cannot forget that he lived, and wrote, within a Confucian world. He shared the Confucian assumption that the most important ability people should cultivate was the ability to interact appropriately with their fellow human beings. And he believed that we should pay attention to the moral messages of the Confucian Classics. However, he rejected many of the assumptions underlying the way the scholars of his time in both China and Korea interpreted those classics. For example, he argued that we were not born with the ability to consistently act appropriately. Instead, we were born only with both a desire to act appropriately along with a desire to enjoy physical pleasures. We cannot be described as ethical virtuosos until we display the ability to push our desires for pleasure aside and consistently pursue moral good instead. Moreover, he argued that the only stimulus that could motivate us to make that effort was the belief that there was a Lord Above who watched our every thought and action. Because of this belief in a Lord Above, Tasan operated on the edge of the boundaries of what can be considered Confucian philosophy.

Prioritizing Ki : The Shift Toward Energy and Transformation That Emerged in the 19<SUP>th</SUP> Century Korea

Don Baker(돈 베이커) 부산대학교 한국민족문화연구소 2016 한국민족문화 Vol.61 No.-

우리는 19세기 초 한국 사유에서 중요한 이행의 시작을 보게 되는데, 바로 불변의 양식인 이(理) 이면에 있는 영원한 원리를 강조하는 신유학에서 벗어나 우주의 변화에 생기를 불어넣는 물체 에너지인 기(氣)로의 이행이다. 이 변화는 한국 최초의 토착 종교인 동학의 출현에서 가장 두드러지게 나타난다. 동학에서 이(理)가 사라진다. 이(理)에서 기(氣)로의 이행 징조는 증산계 종교와 원불교를 포함하여 다른 종교에서도 나타난다. 이런 한국의 사유 변화의 철학적 배경은 무엇인가? 현재의 한국에 대한 이해 및 미래의 한국에 대한 기대에 이것이 함의하는 바가 무엇인가? 19세기와 20세기 초의 철학자와 종교 사상가의 저술에 대한 본 연구는 한국인의 철학적 및 종교적 의식에 불변의 원칙보다는 변화와 진보가 표면화되었다는 것을 보여준다. In the early 19th century we can see the beginning of a significant shift in Korean thought away from the Neo-Confucian emphasis on the eternal principles behind immutable patterns (li) toward ki, matter-energy that animates change in the universe. That change is most apparent in the emergence of Korea’s first indigenous organised religion, Tonghak. In Tonghak thought, li disappears. OneWe sees more signs of this shift away from li toward ki in other new religions as well, including the Chŭngsan family of religions as well as Won Buddhism. What is the philosophical background for this change in Korean thinking? What are its implications for Korean understanding of the present and expectations of the future? This examination of the writings of both philosophers and religious thinkers in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century reveals that change and progress, rather than immutable principles, have come to the fore in the philosophical and religious consciousness of Koreans.