근대와 공공성 딜레마: 개념과 사상을 중심으로

초록

Publicness has been the key concept on the question of social order in modern era. In comtemporary Korean society, the concept of publicness carries many meanings depending on who uses it, which is because it is a multidimensional rather than unidimensional concept. Following the commonsensical usage of the distinction between public and private, this article defines the concept of publicness in three dimensions, i.e., ``procedural publicness,`` ``publicness as agency,`` and ``publicness in content.`` They can lie in mutually complementary relationship, but at the same time they can enter contradictory and conflicting one. It follows that in any discussion of publicness, there are always contradictions and tensions engendered by each dimension. That is to say, while the concept of publicness includes the notion of responsibility that is supposed to secure universal and equal rights of individuals, it also has to enhance solidarity and trust by binding the constituents of a group together with a common identity. In addition, while it has responsibility to secure and help realize interests and rights of them, beyond the group boundary, it also has to realize the interests of entire society. These contradictions and conflicts also appears the same in modern Western social thoughts that have attempted to construct sound social order. Consequently, from a viewpoint of multidimensionality and contradictory relationship, the last section of this article examines the debates regarding publicness that had continued in Western modern thoughts from eighteenth to early twentieth century.