This article explores the current relevance of the critique of instrumental reason on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Frankfurt School. To achieve this, the paper retrospectively examines the paradigm of critique of instrumental reason that was central to critical theory within the intellectual context and assesses the potential resurgence of critique of instrumental rationality in an era symbolized by artificial intelligence. When assuming the role of director of the Social Research Institute in 1930, Horkheimer characterized the contemporary period as an era where reason had been reduced to a mere means. In his view, human intellectual activity had been diminished to a utilitarian sense, solely functioning as an optimization means for ends. The concept of instrumental reason synthesized Horkheimer’s idea of instrumental reason with Weber’s notion of instrumental rationality and Lukács’ concept of reification, ultimately representing a comprehensive result. The modern society dominated by instrumental reason becomes the target of critique. Therefore, the critique of instrumental reason signifies a contemporary succession and intensification of the so-called ‘Weberian paradigm,’ evaluating the past century of critical theory as a history of practical application and experimentation of critique of instrumental reason.
While Horkheimer chose the path of philosophical critique of reason as a means to overcome instrumental reason, Adorno pursued an inherent critique of Enlightenment reason through negative dialectics. Conversely, Marcuse sought avenues of liberation through the exploration of a ‘new sensitivity’ in art while intensifying criticism of the technological society.
However, the fundamental question that motivated the formation of critical theory, namely “How can individual critical capacity be nurtured in a conformed and objectified era?” remains an unresolved task within critical theory. Differently from the traditional critical theorists, Habermas attempts a groundbreaking shift in paradigm by focusing on communicative action, an alternate facet of reason, rather than upholding the critique of instrumental reason. He criticizes Horkheimer and Adorno for simplifying cultural history into a process where only instrumental reason amplifies through the dialectics of Enlightenment. Habermas argues that while positivism concentrated solely on the method of epistemology, the traditional critical theory also exhibited similar biases by focusing solely on the instrumental aspect of reason. According to him, the history of Enlightenment is not merely the evolution of instrumental reason but also the development of critical reason. The transition to the paradigm of communicative reason is evaluated both as a perspective to seek multidimensional democratic solidarity through mutual relationships and as a critical public sphere. However, doubts about the practical functioning of the communicative reason have intensified, raising various questions even within the tradition of critical theory regarding whether it is the optimal path for envisioning the future.
The exploration in this text concludes that the paradigm of critique of instrumental reason remains relevant and current in today’s information society, epitomized by artificial intelligence. The reasons for this include, firstly, the autonomous development of technological power, including artificial intelligence, contributing paradoxically to the current relevance of the paradigm of instrumental reason critique. Secondly, the social prevalence of instrumental reason infringing upon human agency and paradoxically leading to the annihilation of theory itself through a scientific ethos founded on instrumental reason provides conditions for the resurgence of critique. The ability of instrumental reason, a skill evolved by humans as a means of self-preservation, no longer being exclusively human due to the advancement of artificial intelligence, could potentially represent a new horizon for the resurgence of critique of instrumental reason. Thirdly, recent global issues unforeseen by past critical theories, such as the reinforcement of financial dominance, globalization, the emergence of resource and environmental issues, and the normalization of risk societies, serve as confirmation for the practical urgency of critique of instrumental reason. These issues validate the effectiveness and currency of critique by being considered as outcomes of instrumental reason’s evolution.
Travel as a Physical Experience and Formation of Performative Subject: Analysis of Yangyang Surfyy Beach Focusing on Levinas’ Philosophy of Subject
신체 체험 여행과 수행적 주체의 형성: 레비나스의 주체 철학을 중심으로 살펴본 양양 서피비치 여행
This thesis aims to examine the subjectivity in modern society through a case study of Yangyang Surfyy Beach as the most popular tourist destination among young people in their 20s and 30s. It can be assumed that newly emerging places as famous tourist attractions satisfy the contradictory desires of ‘escape from everyday life’ and ‘pursuit of everyday happiness’. They are places where people can enjoy their ordinary daily activities such as eating, sleeping and playing while escaping from labor and toil. From this point of view, people go on a trip to escape from the standardized identity defined by external rules and customs, to discover their own uniqueness, and experience. And by enjoying the moments of everyday life. they can finally recognize themselves as independent subjects. The assumption that people can discover their real self when they fully enjoy their daily lives can be explained through Emmanuel Levinas’s subjective philosophy. Levinas criticized the totalitarian violence of modern subject philosophy in Europe and tried to think of the subject as a being with a unique personality. If the subject of modern philosophy was a thinking subject, the subject of Levinas is a physical existence as an individual separated from others.
This thesis defines the characteristics of the trip to Yangyang as physicality, exoticism, and enjoyment, and examines them in connection with Levinas’ subject philosophy. This study assumes that travel can be understood through the concept of localization, rest, and sleep which Levinas explains as an opportunity for subject separation, as it can act as a pathway for establishing a subject. And, through Levinas’ subject philosophy, I will argue the desire for self-discovery projected in travel advertisements can be satisfied when going to a strange place and performing daily enjoyment as a physical being.
A Study on Seon Master Seo-ong’s Seon Thought: Focusing on the True Person Thought
This paper aims to summarize Seon master Seo-ong’s Seon thought, focusing on ‘True Person.’ Even though he was a Buddhist monk, he responded to the social demands of the age. This is related that he defined the era he lived in as the ‘age of crisis.’ He thought modern society was corrupted by desires and materialism, and people were fighting each other. So, he asserted that if there is no change, the world could only be perished. To solve this ‘crisis of humankind,’ he practiced social participation and Buddhist reform, and the ideology underlying this practice was the true person thought. He criticized modern civilization as a civilization that affirms material and desire and that people are not aware that they are in absolute contradiction. To overcome this absolute contradiction, he suggested ‘Seon practice.’ For this reason, for him, Seon practice is understood not as an ‘purpose’ in itself but as a ‘means.’ Through Seon practice, people tired of modern material civilization are transformed into ‘true person,’ true people gather to form an association and seek a transition of society and civilization through Buddhist practice that resolves societal contradictions.
Successful Popularization Strategy of the Modern Buddhist Community: A Study of Jungto-Society, a Lay Practitioner-Centered Buddhist community
This study analyzes the strategies of Jungto-Society, a practitioner-centered Buddhist community that has witnessed rapid growth in South Korean society, in effectively popularizing its teachings.
Against the backdrop of rapid political and economic changes in modern times, Buddhist communities in South Korea have sought avenues for popularization and diversified their outreach methods. Starting in the 1980s, with the spread of democratization and new social movements, the Buddhist community shifted from passive outreach to active outreach through social participation movements. However, negative perceptions and lack of interest toward all religions, including Buddhism, have been on the rise, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 led to a sharp decline in followers across all religions. In response, religious groups engaged in deep reflection on their existing missionary and outreach methods, recognizing the need for new approaches. It is in this context that Jungto-Society has gained attention as a community for Buddhist practice that has grown by diversifying its outreach methods to suit the times.
Over the past 30 years, Jungto-Society, a Buddhist practice community that has grown under the guidance of Master Pomnyun(法輪) and lay practitioners, has been spreading Buddhist teachings using approaches that differ from traditional outreach methods. This study identifies the main factors for Jungto-Society’s rapid growth in South Korean society: first, it is attributed to the development of content that satisfies the practical situations needed by modern individuals, along with the performance of social-educational aspects; second, it involves the operation of an organization centered around family members and various forms of social participation activities; and third, it is understood to be rooted in the establishment of the organization’s focal point based on the direction-setting abilities and initiative of the guiding master.
Jungto Society has transformed mountain Buddhism, which is centered on monastic practitioners, into a community centered on laypeople by making it accessible to the general public as an everyday practice.
Jungto-Society has endeavored to convert the abstract and conceptual teachings of Buddhism into practical guidelines applicable to everyday life. The successful popularization strategies of Jungto-Society explored in this study offer insights into the outreach and missionary activities of Buddhism and other religions, further contributing to a deeper understanding of the existential state of modern individuals and their expectations from religion.
The Deft Incident of Nanjung Diary and the Birth of Cultural Heritage
This paper traces and analyzes the theft incident of Nanjung Diary theft incident and the representation and management system of cultural heritage and seeks to explain this in terms of national representation and cultural politics of a modern nation-state. The theft incident of Nanjung Diary itself occurred on December 31, 1967, and was resolved with the arrest of the thieves and the recovery of the Nanjung Diary on January 9, 1968. This study seeks to explain the genealogy of the modern nation’s appropriation of history by reading the episode of the cultural property theft incident symptomatically, revealing the national and national responses and mentality of the time, and understanding the politics of symbolism and mobilization through cultural heritage. To this end, we first focus on the process of nationalization and systemization of the national commemoration of historical figures, especially the commemoration of Chungmugong, which has been systematized since the 1960s, and combine this event with it for cross-analysis. This incident occurred at a time when the Chungmugong commemorative culture was systematized and firmly established as a national commemorative culture, and this highlighted the importance and legitimacy of the Chungmugong commemorative culture and established Nanjung Ilgi as a national canon. Next, we would like to examine the theft of the Nanjung diary in the context of political and social changes and nationalism at the time of the transition to the Yushin era. State power sought to secure its own legitimacy by bringing nationalism to the fore, which, combined with the competition for national legitimacy between North and South Korea, heightened interest in national culture. Lastly, the theft incident of Nanjung Diary should be reviewed in the context of cultural property systems and policies. Ultimately, through this incident, problems in cultural heritage management were revealed, and cultural heritage systems and policies began to be systemized in earnest, which led to the current cultural heritage management system. This incident served as an opportunity for cultural property systems and policies to begin to be systemized in earnest and made the public aware of and confirm the concept of cultural property and, by extension, the current concept of cultural heritage. In that sense, the reexamination of the theft incident Nanjung diary allows us to look at the symbolic politics of the transition period from a new perspective, and through this, provides an opportunity to understand the historical appropriation and cultural politics of nation-state more systematically.
The Historical Value and Modern Implications of Magoksa Temple’s Time & Space
Magoksa Temple should be recognized its value by discussing the ideology in the aspects of its accommodation of present days demand for urban residents, and the process of maintaining the existence through the changes and calamities of history.
This study focuses on regenerating the ideology into the time and spatial value of the temple that to be distinctively transmitted as sustainable and excellent universal value by seeking the lasted clues that reflect the historical turmoil from the foundation.
The method adapted here is based on E.H.Carr’s perspective - History is progressive, approaching the time and spatial aspects of Magoksa Temple. In his perspective, the history is not the fixed truth but it’s the concept that evolves by the historians who interpret the past from present day’s perspective. Thus, the researcher here is to define the sustainability and the ideology of Magoksa Temple’s ‘Foundation’, ‘Reconstruction’, and ‘The Changes’, to identify phenomena hidden in the history, and analyze the historical turmoil and political, social and religious events to extracting the value of this temple.
Carr’s view on the history is summarized in empirical, observational, and belief perspective. These four points of view will be discussed in the scope of discussing Magoksa as “the evolutionary succession of traditional architecture,” “the experience of ideologically interpreting the value of tradition in modern times,” “the observation of discontinuity in the flow of historical literature,” and “the belief of altruism that built Buddhist architecture.”
The values shown in the continuity of time and space by interpreting the ideology that appeared in the foundation, reconstruction, and change of Magoksa Temple architecturally and re-analyzing the results are as follows.
First, the foundation of Magoksa Temple atcs as the first place of Hwaeomjong(Buddhism based on Avatamsaka Sutra), which is preached to the folklore sector, and the future temporal and spatial value of wishing for the unification of the three countries. Magoksa Temple’s location is a space where Magoksa Temple served as a bridgehead for Buddhist architecture for the establishment of the Hwaeomjong, and the purpose of the temple is a time value with the future of wishing for the unification of the three countries to overcome national difficulties by patriotism.
Second, the reconstruction process of Magoksa Temple has the place where the national spirit overcomes the ordeal and the temporal and spatial value of the past that publicly viewed history for this purpose. Magoksa Temple is found as a place where the spirit of national patriotism is embedded as the reconstruction that the closing and evolution continues, and this is a time value that can be considered by publicly cracking down on syntactic history and sequencing historical events of the past.
Third, the change in the layout of Magoksa Temple forms a locationality consistent with the Ten Chosen Area theory and has sustainable temporal and spatial value to date as a continuous construction in nature. Magoksa Temple has become a place in harmony with the Ten Chosen Area theory by implementing missionary unity, one pagoda style garam arrangement, mountain area style garam arrangement, and ‘Yin, Yan, and Taiji’ for spaces, and the ecological architecture harmonized with the topography of Taiji circle landscape consisted of mountain and river has the time value of cultural tourism required by modern urban residents.
Organizational Culture and Environmental Analysis Study for the Development of Specialized Sex Education Programs by Job Environment: Focusing on the Organizational Culture of the Medical and Health Field
직무환경별 특화된 성교육 프로그램 개발을 위한 조직문화 및 환경 분석 연구: 의료-보건 계열 현장의 상황과 조직문화를 중심으로
This research began with a recognition of the questionable effectiveness of current sex education programs, which are conducted uniformly without considering the characteristics of the participants. The need for developing tailored sex education materials focusing on the characteristics of the participants arose from this awareness. To develop specific sex education materials tailored to the characteristics and demands of the participants, the study proceeded with the premise that analyzing the organizational culture and situation of the target field is essential before the actual development of educational materials. Under this premise, the research focused on the medical and health field, seeking insights from related sexual violence programs. After paying attention to the medical and health field, the study identified issues where organizational culture, work characteristics, and situations in this field might lead to delays in addressing cases of sexual violence compared to other fields. Based on these identified issues, a survey and expert Delphi investigation were conducted to examine organizational culture and work characteristics in the medical and health field, particularly regarding sexual harassment/sexual violence matters. The analysis revealed five central concepts in the organizational culture of the medical and health field: ‘strong hierarchical structure,’ ‘patriarchal culture/normalization of bias,’ ‘excessive work stress,’ ‘special nature of the medical and health field,’ and ‘elite consciousness as professionals.’ Building upon these five organizational culture characteristics, the study discussed the direction in which sex education program development should take place. Firstly, regarding the ‘strong hierarchical structure,’ the study suggested methods such as presenting cases or encouraging role-playing to make participants aware of and reflect on this issue. Participants in such programs are expected to reflect on the problems within the organization’s strong hierarchical structure through their participation. Secondly, the issue of ‘patriarchal culture and normalization of bias’ within the medical and health field was addressed. The study emphasized the need to provide concrete examples of normalized bias/patriarchal culture in sex education programs for medical and health professionals to prevent them from unknowingly engaging in patriarchal behavior. Thirdly, the study discussed issues related to ‘excessive work stress.’ While it may not be possible to fundamentally change this situation through sex education programs, providing information actively used by medical and health practitioners for stress relief is crucial. This can help prevent unintentional sexual harassment/sexual violence due to stress.Fourthly, due to the specific nature of the medical and health field, there is a significant potential for secondary harm. Therefore, the study suggested that prevention measures and contingency plans related to this aspect should be included in sexual violence programs. Finally, emphasizing the social responsibility of medical and health professionals as experts can lead to a positive perception and active implementation of sex education programs. The study proposed these insights based on the five identified issues in the organizational culture of the medical and health field. It is believed that a more specific sex education program, developed on this basis, can enhance the effectiveness of sexual harassment/sexual violence programs, which are currently conducted uniformly without considering the characteristics of the participants.
A Study on the Religious Emotions through the View of Public and Private Matters
In Joseon era, what’s public and what’s private were not separate areas which were clearly divided, but always changed flexibly. The small category was ‘privacy(私)’ from a broader point of view, and the big range became ‘public(公)’ from a smaller scope. While ‘family(家)’ was described as a private area to men, ‘family(家)’ was a public field to women. In this way, the view of public and privacy in Joseon was a complex concept, and the space with ‘continuity’ and ‘relativity’ needed to be presumed. No emotions may be more religious than revenge. It’s because people do their best all their life for revenge even though taking revenge doesn’t bring about financial benefits or social reputation to themselves. Probably there are no more Korean expressions than this feeling of revenge. This thesis aims at proving that the emotion of revenge was respected by many in Joseon through the cases of Gun Man, Jeong Do-chang, Park Su-ha’s two daughters, and Chae Ju-mun. With the four examples, it has been found that, since revenge is another form of filial duty and filial dutiy is a religious emotion, all the people who have seen and heard of them aknowledged and accepted it in a public realm. The fact that the debate of Sadanchiljeongron continued in Joseon for 300 years means that the discussion for emotions(情) continued. As the atmosphere supporting that Sadan should be expanded as a religious feeling had been formed, almost all the feelings regarding fillial duty could be expressed as much as one pleased. In Joseon, the revenge for one’s parents was an emotion to be respected. In today’s society where people have unstable emotions, remembering this religious emotion from Joseon seems necessary for proper understanding of one’s own feelings.