Historians of late premodern Korea have tended to regard it as a hermit kingdom, isolated from its neighbours and the wider world. In fact, as Ro argues in this book, Korean intellectuals were heavily influenced by both Chinese Neo-Confucianism and the European Enlightenment in the late 18th and 19th centuries. In the late Choson period the regime felt threatened by the new, more empirical, approaches to knowledge emerging from both the East and the West. For this reason many Korean intellectuals felt it necessary to work in the shadows and formed secret societies for the study of nature. Because of the secrecy of these societies, much of their work has remained unknown even in Korea until recent years. Ho looks at the work of these intellectuals and analyses the impact their thinking and experimentation had on knowledge production in Korea. A fascinating insight into the largely overlooked story of how globalization affected intellectual life in Korea before the 20th century. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of Korean history and of Asian intellectual history more broadly.

This is a study of the most significant debate in Korean Neo-Confucianism between the two most eminent Neo-Confucian thinkers, summarizing their philosophies and providing refreshing insights into Confucian language and culture.

Translated, edited, and introduced by Edward Y. J. Chung, The Great Synthesis of Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea: The Chonŏn (Testament) by Chŏng Chedu (Hagok), is the first study in a Western language of Chŏng Chedu (Hagok, 1649–1736) and Korean Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism. Hagok was an eminent philosopher who established the unorthodox Yangming school (Yangmyŏnghak) in Korea. This book includes an annotated scholarly translation of the Chonŏn 存言 (Testament), Hagok’s most important and interesting work on Confucian self-cultivation. Chung also provides a comprehensive introduction to Hagok’s life, scholarship, and thought, especially his great synthesis of Wang’s philosophy of mind cultivation and moral practice in relation to the classical teaching of Confucius and Mencius and his critical analysis of Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism and its Sŏngnihak tradition. Chung concludes that Hagok was an original scholar in the Sŏngnihak school, a great transmitter and interpreter of Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea, and a creative thinker whose integration of these two traditions inaugurated a distinctively Korean system of ethics and spirituality. This book sheds new light on the breadth and depth of Korean Neo-Confucianism and serves as a primary source for philosophy and East Asian studies in general and Confucian studies and Korean religion and philosophy in particular.

This book explores the philosophical and religious dimensions of Korean Neo-Confuciansim as expounded by one of the foremost Korean Neo-Confucian thinkers, Yi Yulgok (1536-1584). Yulgok's creative interpretations reformulate some fundamental issues of Confucian philosophy. This book explores the significance of the fundamental assumption which underlies the entire system of Yulgok's Confucian thought. That philosophical assumption is characterized by the author as 'non-dualistic' and 'anthropocosmic'. It is a unique aspect of Korean Neo-Confucianism which leads to a new way of understanding the Confucian world view and spirituality. This 'non-dualistic' vision sheds a new and critical light on the dialectical framework of thinking at work in Western formulations of understanding the ultimate reality, nature, the universe, and human being. The 'anthropocosmic' vision in this respect will challenge fundamental assumptions of Western theological formulation and suggest a new understanding of human nature and the universe. A 'non-dualistic' and 'anthropocosmic' interpretation of Yulgok's thought is a fruitful way of approaching the Korean way of thinking and of coming to grips with one Neo-Confucian mode of attaining human self-understanding.

During the last decade, Chŏng Yagyong, also known as Tasan, the eighteenth-century Korean thinker who dared attack the hallowed orthodoxy of his dynasty, has become a household name in Korea. In this study, the first ever in English, Mark Setton presents a highly readable analysis of the world view behind Tasan's reforms. Setton challenges the very concept of a school of "Practical Learning," presenting an alternative view of Tasan's historical background in terms of the interplay between Confucian schools and political factions. By carefully decrypting Tasan's philosophical writings, Setton shows that he was not simply a reformer bent on unraveling the ruling ideology, but an incisive thinker who sought to "draw aside the veil" of Buddhist and Taoist-inspired Neo-Confucian commentaries and uncover the pristine message of Confucius and Mencius. On the basis of this classical scholarship, Tasan sought for points of resonance between Confucianism and the Catholicism which had deeply inspired him in his youth. Comparing it with parallel schools of thought in both China and Japan, including the "Evidential Learning" of the Ch'ing dynasty and the "Ancient Learning" movement of the Tokugawa, Setton shows that Tasan's rigorous scholarship represents a major contribution to the development of East Asian Confucianism, particularly concerning unresolved issues such as human nature and the foundations of morality.

Chinese and Japanese Neo-Confucius scholars have traditionally claimed that Korean Neo-Confucianism was an imitation of Chinese Neo-Confucianism, a belief which was generally accepted by Western scholars. Now, this book edited from the theses of representative Korean Neo-Confucius scholars, shows that the three Korean scholars, T'aegye, Yulgok and Dasan in the Chosŏn Dynasty, developed Neo-Confucianism as a national political and religious philosophy which became specialized in a uniquely Korean way.