• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.43
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• pp.107-139
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• 2014

Tasan Chong Yak-yong has criticized Zhu Xi's metaphysical viewpoints of human being. Therefore he revealed his viewpoint of human being and the theory of moral practice through his thoughts about the Lord of Heaven and human nature with spiritual inclination toward goodness. He has drawn the Lord of Heaven into Confucianism again. Heaven as the Lord endows human being with a nature that enjoys virtues and detests vices. It watches human being's good and evil. Here we can say Heaven is a outer efficient cause of moral behavior. According to Tasan, human being has its own 'self directed weight'自主之權 so that he can make a judgment and decision about what to do. Therefore we have to do manifest this moral inclination which is a inner efficient cause of moral behavior. That is to say, we must follow the order of daoxin道心 inside our mind. If we did go against it, our mind would be uncomfortable. Now through the method of so-called shu恕 we need to put filial piety孝 fraternal respect弟 compassion慈 into practice. These three moral practices represent the spirit of reciprocity in Confucianism. These lead us to make an achievement of ren仁, representative virtue in the theory of moral practice. Our moral practice means the fulfillment of humanity. This is the way to serve Heaven. Tasan insists that theses are the core thoughts of Confucius and Mencius.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.36
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• pp.375-402
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• 2009

In this study, the researcher put together the changing process of Chinese Confucian into Korean Confucian Thought in the dimension of Chiin 'Governing of Others. By analyzing 'Seonghak jibyo' which is reinterpretation of 'Daehak' and also academic enrichment, the researcher investigated the aspects of acceptance of 'Daehak' in Joseon Period. 'Daehak' was the basic textbook for 'Emperorship Learning'(帝王學, 'Jewang Hak') as well as 'Sage Learning'(聖學, 'Seong Hak') over the whole Joseon Period, and it can be understood that 'Seonghak jibyo'- the Essentials of Sagely Learning compiled by Yulgok(栗谷) is the totalization of such learning. Yulgok organized the system of 'Seonghak jibyo' largely in five volumes and placed Samgangnyeong(三綱領, Three Doctrines or Essential Principles) and Paljomok(八條目, Eight Articles) of 'Daehak' in an appropriate manner. Among those, 'Chiin' was discussed intensively in the Volume Three, 'Jeonga'(正家-Family in Correct State) and also the Volume Four, 'Uijeong'(爲政 the king exercises government by means of his virtue). In the volume, 'Jeonga', Yulgok clearly arranged the core virtues for which the family is obliged to put into practice in everyday life having segmented the contents of the doctrine of Jega(齊家-to order family relationships) in 'Daehak', and, in 'Uijeong', Yulgok deepened the contents of 'Chiguk Pyeongcheonha'(治國平天下, ordering the state, bringing peace to the whole world) and presented consciousness on the spirit of contemporary as well as the practice of the state managements in an affirmative manner. These prove the validity of learning steps by presenting the practice guideline to fit the situation while well preserving the basic system of Confucian thought that leads to 'Chiin' (治人-'Governing of Others' or Governance of humankind) based on 'Sugi'(修己, the cultivation of the self). And such viewpoints feature the characteristics of Joseon Confucian Thought which had been through more abundant enrichment process than Chinese Confucian. Therefore, Yulgok's thoughts expounded in The Essentials of Sagely Learning(聖學輯要, 'Seonghak jibyo') can be regarded as criteria to understand humanity and arts cherished by Joseon people, as well as the distinctive features of politics.

• (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 Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.50
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• pp.37-74
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• 2016

Song Joon Kil(宋浚吉, 1606-1672) intended to establish the subjectivity of people as a "Great Justice". He declared that at that time "Great Justice" was meant to respect 'Ming(明)' and reject 'Ching'(淸). He understood 'Ching' as a country which destroyed the human community and reasoned that if we put Ching's uncivilized behavior out of our mind in favor of the pursuit of present existence and merits, a temporary peace may be got but eternal peace and stability would not be achieved. 'Ming' doesn't refer only to the name of a country, but a country with the capacity to perform 'humanity and justice' with a human culture. On the other hand, he considered 'Ching' to signify the uncivilised country that destroyed or repressed the humanity and peaceful order of the world. He thought the international order can only be maintained under the organization respectful and protective of humanity. He believed a country should act to unify the whole world guaranteeing life and stability. He possessed this cultivated spirit which acted to protect the civilised world from the perils of an uncivilised world. But because of the great famine for a lot of years and the international state(Ming was regressing, and Ching was continuing to make rapid strides) was timely unsuitable to revenge and to wash the shame off. So Song propeled to stabilize the government and to strengthen the national ethics. Song focused on administering the domestic affairs. To him a high priority was a internal affairs, and a low priority was a external affairs[military aggression]. Song considered 'providing for the welfare of the people'(安民) before 'pushing ahead with military aggression'(外攘). And a high priority was 'restoring the people'(養民), a low priority was 'the military affairs'(治兵). Song regarded 'domestic affairs'(內治) as a fundamental affairs. He putted 'to nurse people'(養民) and 'to straighten King's mind'(格君心) first, than 'to buildup military'. His foreign policy was 'respecting Ming' and 'rejecting Ching'. Song was bothered about defining Chosun dynasty's moral obligations to the southern Ming government(1644~46) at Nanjing at that time.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.49
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• pp.225-260
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• 2012

The poetry of Haseo Jo Gyeong is first characterized by its fantasy content with mysterious and strange beings such as mountain wizards, gods of flowers, ghosts, Jujos and dragons. Such works imply the huge gap between his political ideal of Neo-Confucianism and the reality of society and are expressions of his resulting sorrow. Of course, he did not just look at reality pessimistically. Like other Neo-Confucianism scholars, he used the symbol of "spring" in his poems, which indicates that he did have optimistic belief in the world in spite of despair. In his poems, the symbol of "spring" implies the political world where the noble man grabbed the power and the sinister groups were extracted or the world where the political ethics of Neo-Confucianism was implemented. His works depicting the essence of natural objects, mountains, and rivers exhibit the characteristics of his poetry more clearly. He described the law of the universe behind natural objects and the vibrant aspects of natural objects by depicting their movements in a clear and sharp manner. Unlike the old Neo-Confucianism scholars that often created poems on the topic of acquirement of natural law and nature, he expanded his poetic world in a direction of revealing the secrets of objects. His works describing the spirit of mountains and rivers are especially noteworthy in that they implied a life attitude of moving forward in an deteriorating world bravely by manifesting strong and dynamic power. Paying attention to the secrets of natural objects, Haseo displayed his life ideal in richer ways by painting the new forms of ume flowers. Unlike the old ume flowers poems in the past, his ume flowers poems present ume flowers as ascetics that obtained truth, men of virtue that inspired contemporary people, or retired gentlemen that revealed the profound secrets of nature. While it is unique that he manifested the forms of ume flowers in ascetics and men of virtue while perceiving the dark reality of society, it is more noteworthy that he described ume flowers as the beings revealing the profound secrets of nature. It was the expression of his yearning for an innocent personality and his fear for losing the personality, clearly depicting a human form of his ego. He created a more human and realistic personality ideal by embracing the contemporary thinking based on the profound secrets of nature in his Dohak poetry[道學詩], which is a significant achievement in that it showed new changes to Dohak poetry in the 18th century.

• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.36
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• pp.319-352
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• 2013

This paper aims to compare Liang Shu-Ming and Lee Don-Hwa's perceptions of modernization and the philosophical grounds of their perceptions during the New Cultural Movement period in Korea and China. Although Liang and Lee had different levels of enthusiasm towards New Cultural Movement, they shared many commonalities in their attitudes to Western modernization and their philosophical justifications for such attitudes. Liang Shu-Ming not only held positive views of Western modernization, but also examined the spiritual dynamics contributing to the development in science and democracy in Western countries. By analyzing the three fundamental questions of life, three kinds of human attitudes toward life, three types of culture derived from human attitudes, and the recapitulation theory, Liang systematically reviewed the spiritual dimension of Western modernization. Liang defined the spirit of Western modernization as a calculative rationality based on egoism and the separation of Self and Other. Such a statement demonstrates Liang's keen insights towards Western modernization. Meanwhile, although Lee Don-Hwa basically held positive views of Western modernization, from the beginning, he pointed out the problems with Western modernization and attempted to overcome these problems by employing the "human is heaven" doctrine of Cheondogyo. While Lee embraced modern science and the theory of evolution, he also insisted on the legitimacy of mysticism and the compatibility of the creation theory of Cheondogyo and the theory of evolution. Although Lee employed the concepts in Western philosophy of life, he also emphasized the interdependence, reciprocal relationship, and connectedness between Self and Other from the perspective of Cheodogyo doctrine. From the fact that Lee Don-Hwa transcended the modernization theory when he was applying it to answer questions, it seemed that Lee preceded Liang Shu-Ming. Nevertheless, Lee did not demonstrate the keen insight into the spiritual dimension of Western modernization, and his criticism against Western modernization did not touch upon the problem of rationality as Liang did.

• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.23
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• pp.295-316
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• 2008

This is to study the military philosophy of Wangzhen's Commentary on Daodejing written by a famous military officer in the end of Tang Dynasty, Wangzhen. Historically, many scholars consider Laozi's Daodejing as a book on military science. Wangzhen, however, is the only person to interpret Daodejing genealogically from a military perspective. Wangzhen thinks that the fact that human beings like competing naturally causes the constant competition in the world. Human beings are born with the most outstanding spirit among all beings. But, when God created human beings, they had greed and avarice in the middle of their heart. Accordingly, human beings look for a success and a profit, and follow the wicked way, leaving the right way. The contractions among each greed and avarice bring about small or big competitions. Human beings have greed and avarice. It means human beings have emotions. As a result, the competitions in the world are not able to disappear because human beings have emotions. To win the completion human beings use weapons. According to Wangzhen, the war is the most devilish deed due to the weapon's atrocious, dangerous quality. Yet, the world's interests are decided by how efficiently the weapons are used. Consequently, the weapon techniques are worthy and play an important role in the real world. Morality, however, should be in the first priority in ruling over a country and commanding the army. The national security and the war victory could be secured when civil and military affairs have a balance. Wangzhen thinks that Laozi emphasizes "Not-Competing" as a basic solution of competition. The competition is the root cause of war and disorder. Therefore, Not-Competing is the main idea of Daodejing. Not-Competiting is a basis of Wangzhen's military philosophy as well. For Wangzhen, Not-Competing is Wuwei. Wuwei has political and military meanings at the same time. Wangzhen build up the "Not-Competing" military philosophy by applying Loazi's Daodejing to his military philosophy.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.49
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• pp.357-392
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• 2012

An author is bound to reflect his or her own thinking and inclination in his or her works. The previous studies on Changam(蒼巖), however, mostly discussed the aesthetics in the forms of his introductions and works, hardly addressing his thinking reflected in his works. Recognizing that he had the "reactionism tendency" unlike the Bukhak-School(北學派), which was the cultural mainstream of the days, this study examined the specific patterns of the reactionism calligraphy style in his learning and calligraphy processes and works. He loved to write xing-cao-shu(行草書) with a focus on the materials written in one's own calligraphy, but he also emphasized that one should obtain the force of his or her calligraphy style by mastering kai shu before calligraphy xing cao shu. He thus left a lot of works in the xiao kai(小楷) of the Wang Xzhi(王羲之) calligraphy style throughout his life, which is attributed to the influences of the calligraphers of dong-guk-jin-che(東國眞體) in the latter half of Joseon(朝鮮) and those of Lee Gwang-sa(李匡師), his master in spirit. He is distinguished from the other calligraphers of the times in that he made lifelong efforts to compensate for the lacking stroke of the pen in the model calligraphy of Wang Xzhi. In the calligraphy theory, he put importance on the traditional method of Han-Wei(漢魏) and took Cai Yong(蔡邕) and Zhong Yao(鍾繇) as the fundamentals. For da kai(大楷), he constantly practiced the with the stroke of the pen by added to it, the letters of Wei(魏) Wudi(武帝), by Yan Zhenqing(顔眞卿), and letters of Kim Saeng(金生). His late works using the intended conception of and , in particular, present his unique calligraphy style that added the crooked forms of to the shapes of characters of that were in the kai-shu(楷書) style. It is a limitation that a considerable number of calligraphy materials Changam studied or consulted were either reprint copy or block book rather than original rubbing edition due to time and space restrictions. However, it is also true that those restrictions made an important contribution to his creation of his unique calligraphy style with deep local colors at the result of his constant efforts.

• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.31
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• pp.53-86
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• 2011

Taoism exercised its influence and has made much progress apparently under the aegis of the Tang dynasty. But since the external alchemy, a traditional way of eternal life that they have pursued, met the limitation, they were placed in a situation where they needed to seek a new discipline. From this period to the early North Song dynasty, three religions have established the unique theoretical systems of their own theory of ascetic practices. They showed their own unique formats as follows. Neo-Confucianism established the theory of moral training, Buddhism did the theory of ascetic practices and Taoism had theory of discipline. By this time, a person who claimed the Intermixture of Three Religions composed the new system of theory of ascetic practice by taking advantage of other religions and putting them into his own view. Chen tuan established the theory of internal alchemy of Taoism and was the most influential figure in the world of thought since North Song dynasty. He clearly declared that he accepted the merits of other religions in his theory. He added I Ching of Confucianism in I Ching of secret of Taoism to stop the logical gaps during the process of disciplines in Taoism and took ascetic practices on mind of Buddhism into his system while he sought a way to integrate the dual structure of body and mind. The theory of Chen tuan's internal alchemy was training schema with stages of 'YeonJeongHwaGi', 'YeonGiHwaSin', and 'YeonSinHwanHeo' based on the concepts of vital, energy and spirit. The internal alchemy practice that Chen tuan was saying started from the practice of Zen to keep the mind calm with the basis of fundamental principles of interpretation of book of change according to Taoism. When a person reached the state to be in concert with all changes at the end of the silence and be full of wisdoms, he finally returned to the state of BokGwiMuGeuk by taking the flow of subtle mind and transforming it into energy. He expressed this process by drawing 'MuGeukDo'. Oriental philosophy categorized human into 'phenomenal existence' and 'original existence'. The logic of theory of ascetic practice has been established from these 'category of existence'. It would be determined whether it will return to 'original existence' or be stepped up from 'phenomenal existence' according to how the concept of 'self' or 'I' was made. Chen tuan who established the theory of internal alchemy in Taoism has established the unique theory of internal alchemy discipline and system of intermixture of three religions in this aspect. Today is called 'era of self-loss' or 'era of incurable diseases' caused by environmental pollution. It's still meaningful to review the theory of discipline of Chen tuan's connecting the body and the soul to heal the self, and keep life healthy and pursue the new way of discipline based on it.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.36
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• pp.163-202
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• 2009

The poems of Shin Suk-ju can be divided into two periods around the political change by King Sejo; his poems from the former period show that the poet enjoyed abundant pride and leisurely spirit in the self-satisfying world driven by his determination to maintain a pure heart and save and awaken the people during the reign of King Sejong. His ideology of awakening the people, however, was the product of his heroic consciousness to achieve immortal fame. It was his heroic consciousness and determination to sacrifice his life for fame according to the mandate from Heaven that made him join the political change by King Sejo. His poems from the latter period clearly reveal that the way of his life to pursue fame didn't bring him spiritual satisfaction and happiness. He confessed that his conscience was destroyed as he joined King Sejo in his political change and the deeds he achieved and further his life itself were all in vain. He lost the values or orders he pursued, which caused instability in his life. Facing such instability head-on, he argued that right and wrong, true and false, and good and evil mentioned in the world were all subjective and groundless. Furthermore, he realized all the things and creatures of the world were nothing but phantoms. Those perceptions he had were based on Madhyamaka of Buddhism. Going through such a thinking process, the poet wrote about his mentality of a false reputation with ideal mentality. Heroic consciousness, Buddhist thinking, and pursuit of mentality of a false reputation found in his poems make also frequent appearances in the poems by major literary men in the latter half of the 15th century such as Seo Geo-jeong. His serious searches to overcome his conscientious agony and sense of futility about life had influences on the attitudes toward life and literature of the official literary men of the times. Seong Hyeon's statement that the major literary figures of the times inherited the literary tradition of Shin Suk-ju was not a rhetoric by courtesy.