심학, 심리학, 심리철학 = Simhak, Psychology and Philosophy of mind

The dichotomy between Oriental philosophy and Western philosophy and the absence of interdisciplinary studies are the major philosophical obstacles to Trans-Humanities. I think these obstacles can be removed by means of critical disputes. In this context, I claim several things. (1) There are no critical evaluations in the studies on Toegye’s Simhak(心學). Similarly, there are no critical justifications in the attempt to reconstruct Oriental psychology, Confucian psychology, and Toegye’s psychology. (2) Interdisciplinary studies on mind and ‘mind humanities’ argue that the Oriental understanding of the mind should be the frame of reference. But the premise of this claim is inconsistent with the thesis of the traditional Confucian mind learning, i.e., the givenness of the moral mind. (3) Lim Heongyu criticizes the physicalism of the analytical philosophy of mind from the perspective of Chu Hsi’s theory. But Chu Hsi’s argument is not justified. Furthermore, Chu Hsi’s theory cannot explain the success of the natural sciences. (4) The attempts to support Mencius’s theory of human nature from the insights of evolutionary psychology or social biology commit the mistake of reducing the moral mind or the moral emotions to egoistic nature or natural emotions. On the basis of these criticisms, I will show that the moral mind is constructed through the aesthetic order.