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Zhu Xi’s Critique on Lu Xiang-shan’s Theory of Self-Cultivation

Lee Seung-Hwan 1

1고려대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to clarify the reason why the famous Neo-confucian thinker, Zhu Xi came into conflict with another notorious Neo-Confucian scholar, Lu Xiang-shan, from the viewpoint of theory of self-cultivation. Zhu Xi's critique on Lu Xiang-shan's theory of self-cultivation includes the following three points. First of all, Xiang-shan's theory that emphasizes eliminating the whole of intentions from human mind, not only disables Confucian every day practice, such as “Choosing the Good, and holding it steadfastly” as noted in the book of Doctrine of the Mean, but also commits the error of throwing the baby out with bath water. Secondly, Lu Xiang-shan's theory of self-cultivation, which emphasizes quiet-sitting and sudden enlightenment without regard to intellectual inquiry and rational investigation, misleads the practitioners into mysterious illusion and unfounded hallucination as if these are the manifestation of T’ien-li (Heavenly Principle). Thirdly, Lu Xiang-shan's pedagogy that refuses rational debate and inter-subjective argumentation yields the absence of objective criteria by which one can distinguish right from wrong, and the good from the bad. Zhu Xi calls this kind of awkward consequence caused by Lu Xiang-shan's theory of self-cultivation, “a weighing beam without notch mark” or “a yardstick without graduations.” After all, Zhu Xi's critique on Lu Xiang-shan's theory of self-cultivation can also function as a philosophical remedy for those practitioners who mystically indulge into quiet-sitting and meditation without regard to intellectual investigation and inter-subjective dialogue.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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