니시 아마네는 메이지(明治) 일본의 대표적 계몽주의자이자 최초의 근대 철학자로 알려져 있다. 그는 주자학의 핵심 개념인 ‘理’를 재해석하여 物理와 心理로 구분하고, 서양 자연과학(物理)의 수용을 위한 형이상학적 기초를 구상했다. 그런데 니시의 학문적 목표는 근대적 인간학의 구축에 있었다. 그의 인간학은 인간 心理上에자리잡은 敎의 본질을 밝힘으로써 가능한 것이었는데, 그것은 서양의 物理=자연과학의 성과를 이용하여 인간 心理의 근원을 추구하는 방식으로 전개되었다. 콩트의실증주의 철학에서 감명을 받았던 니시는 생물학을 통한 해부학적 지식이 인간 心理에 대한 이해를 가능하게 할 것이라고 믿었다. 그것은 곧 物理를 통해 心理에 이르는 길이었다는 점에서 物理와 心理의 재연결을 의미했다. 그러나 이 같은 니시의구상이 결국 실패로 돌아갔을 때, 그의 인간학은 취약한 측면을 노출시켰다. 그것은物理를 구성하는 주체로 성립해야 했던 心理가 天에 귀속됨으로써, 天翁이라는 초월자가 인간 心理를 조정하는 지극히 파탄적인 인간학이었다.
This article analyzes the work of Nishi Amane who endeavored to construct the metaphysical ground of modern science and philosophy in Japan during the 19th century. Nishi’s vast body of work involved dividing the ‘ri’ of Neo-Confucianism into two different concepts, the physical law and the human law. He challenged to reconstruct human ethics by modern Western science such as Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. According to Nishi, Biology was the knowledge which studied both human body and mind. Nishi believed that if biologists studied a human body, they could find some organs which control the human mind.
In spite of his belief, he did not find any organs which control human mind. When Nishi failed to find the ground of human ethics by Biology, his study about human being revealed some weakness. In modern Western science and philosophy, the human mind should be the subject to examine the external world. The human mind which Nishi thought, however, was the object subordinated to the heaven. When the human mind was not able to play the role of the subject to recognize the external world, the human being in Nishi’s Anthropology remained as a passive existence. The role of human mind, which had to examine the physical world, was replaced by a supernatural being of the heaven.
It was the world that a supernatural being controls all the things including human body and mind. In this article, I hope to show what was the origin of the weakness in Nishi’s Anthropology.