• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.38
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• pp.251-273
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• 2013

This paper deals with mind and human nature dispute between Si-Ma guang and Han-Yu in the Northern Sung Dynasty, focused upon the "zhong-hua". The letter exchange between Si-Ma guang and Han-yu, which were the mind and human nature debate between a representative intellectually of the Confucianism and a scholar who absorbed in the Buddhism, can provide the discussion on various ideological origins that affected the development of the mind and human nature theory. Moreover, the contents of a letter from both of them can be used as an important cue to observe the discussion under what ideological foundations the mind and human nature theory could be embodied in the future and what advance it has made and what is its philosophical meaning.