마카리아와 이상적 지식

Abstract

This essay explores the way in which ideal knowledge functions in the construction of a Utopian society in Macaria. A scholar and a traveller, two characters in Macaria, try to find the appropriate method for England to become an ideal nation full of material wealth, spiritual prosperity and peaceful happiness, which are fulfilled in Macaria. They are certain that the state can be realized when English people, who have been called dull by other European counties, are armed with the proper knowledge and rightly identify themselves as the chosen nation for the reformation. Here the proper knowledge is not pure knowledge characteristic of abstraction and logic but practical knowledge which can contribute to solving current problems. This knowledge focuses more on transforming historical situations than on explaining historical processes. Practical knowledge is formed through the principle of experience which can overcome abstract knowledge’s lack of transformative power. Experience is the main factor in suggesting what knowledge is needed, and a great agent in the empowerment of produced knowledge. In Macaria, the “college of experience” operated by the state produces the proper knowledge, which is tested by the society of experimenters. During knowledge formation process in laboratory, the contaminated parts of knowledge are refined by eliminating the evil brought by the Fall. The refined knowledge, as an embodiment of prelapsarian Adamic knowledge, exercises its healing power of restoring the soul as well as the body. More specifically, scientific knowledge is worth no more than spiritual knowledge, and a doctor of the body is the same as a pastor of the soul. This leads to a pansophic search for knowledge, in which all kinds of knowledge are united in the worship of God, who is the ultimate source of knowledge. This unification of knowledge types demonstrates how much this knowledge is crucial for constructing an ideal state in Macaria and England, because these countries are based upon and directed by a system of knowledge unifying God, man and nature. In this situation, the more knowledge spreads, the more a nation can be changed into a happy state, with speeding up the reformation. In Macaria the knowledge produced by the “college of experience” is delivered throughout the land through printing, the most effective communication device. In England, painting also makes it possible that enlightened readers and public debate spaces appear in keeping with the massive publication of pamphlets and books, especially publications regarding human liberties and rights. The active readers of awakening, each as the production of independent individuals, participate in hot public debate and are in the vanguard of reproducing the knowledge necessary for the reformation. These readers then become modern subjects who must attempt to build a reformed and ideal England using the precious and powerful knowledge “worth all the merchandize in the Kingdom.”