• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.68
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• pp.283-317
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• 2017

Issues over morality and profit usually address relations between moral principles and material gains. In the history of traditional Oriental philosophy, discussions about them were called "Yi-Li zhi bian." The ideas of Confucius and Mencius also contain various discussions about Yi-Li. Both Confucius and Mencius defined Yi as a value concept to represent "natural," "appropriate" or "just" and regarded Yi as an external moral principle on the one hand and an internal moral emotion on the other hand. They had, at the same time, differences, as well. While Confucius placed importance on the external and acquired nature of Yi as a goal of morality, Mencius argued for the internal and innate nature of Yi as the nature of morality partially while recognizing its externality overall. Such Yi is a general term for subjective moral emotions and objective moral principles. Li was a concept of fact to represent "gain," "profit" or "profit-making." Both of them were against private interest and emphasized public interest. As for their differences, Confucius was positive about Li to some degree by saying "One should think of Yi when making profit," whereas Mencius was almost negative about Li and perceived it to be for Yi by saying "One should give up even his own life for Yi." He meant Li's dependence on Yi and also Yi's absoluteness for Ri. Both of them found a mix of opposite features in Yi such as internality and externality, subjectivity and objectivity, specificity and generality, and uniqueness and universality and also in Li such as individuality and specialty and public and private interest. Those features have both disadvantages including theoretical irrationality and logical contradiction and advantages including ideological diversity and conceptual polysemy. If efforts are made to avoid their disadvantages and highlight their advantages, they will provide some elements to consult in the creation of new global ethics required today when East and West are becoming one. In the modern society, the Yi-Li issues can be divided into the issues of morality and economy, personal and social profit, and moral ideal and material gain. If these modern Yi-Li issues are combined with the traditional Yi-Li issues, two paths will emerge over the order of Yi-Li. Of the many perceptions of Yi-Li issues of Confucius and Mencius, the idea of "Yi First, Li Later" can be very useful for creating a new ethics theory to represent "humanism" that we all need today when everyone considers their own pursuit of profit and satisfaction of needs as the best values. Sound Yi-Li relations will be possible only through Yi's orientation toward externality based on internality and Li's pursuit of private interest on the premise of public interest according to the spirit of "Yi First, Li Later."

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.69
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• pp.115-146
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• 2017

This paper is about the research on ontology design for a digital archive of seonsaengan(先生案) of the Joseon Period. Seonsaengan is the register of staff officials at each government office, along with their personal information and records of their transfer from one office to another, in addition to their DOBs, family clan, etc. A total of 176 types of registers are known to be kept at libraries and museums in the country. This paper intends to engage in the ontology design of 47 cases of such registers preserved at the Jangseogak Archives of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) with a focus on their content and structure including the names of the relevant government offices and posts assumed by the officials, etc. The work for the ontology design was done with a focus on the officials, the offices they belong to, and records about their transfers kept in the registers. The ontology design categorized relevant resources into classes according to the attributes common to the individuals. Each individual has defined a semantic postposition word that can explicitly express the relationship with other individuals. As for the classes, they were divided into eight categories, i.e. registers, figures, offices, official posts, state examination, records, and concepts. For design of relationships and attributes, terms and phrases such as Dublin Core, Europeana Data Mode, CIDOC-CRM, data model for database of those who passed the exam in the past, which are already designed and used, were referred to. Where terms and phrases designed in existing data models are used, the work used Namespace of the relevant data model. The writer defined the relationships where necessary. The designed ontology shows an exemplary implementation of the Myeongneung seonsaengan(明陵先生案). The work gave consideration to expected effects of information entered when a single registered is expanded to plural registers, along with ways to use it. The ontology design is not one made based on the review of all of the 176 registers. The model needs to be improved each time relevant information is obtained. The aim of such efforts is the systematic arrangement of information contained in the registers. It should be remembered that information arranged in this manner may be rearranged with the aid of databases or archives existing currently or to be built in the future. It is expected that the pieces of information entered through the ontology design will be used as data showing how government offices were operated and what their personnel system was like, along with politics, economy, society, and culture of the Joseon Period, in linkage with databases already established.