• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.37
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• pp.47-70
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• 2013

The purpose of this paper is to figure out T'oegye's philosophy and its characteristics in comparison with Zhuzi's. T'oegye is well-known as the representative of Neo-confucianism in Korea. But his posterior scholars and even contemporary scholars have various viewpoints about his philosophy. So they give him some different evaluation. After Zhuzi's death 300 years later, T'oegye has accepted Zhuzi's philopophical thoughts. In addition, he has added his own philosophical insights on them. First, he indicates concretely the metaphysical activity of li through lidong that Zhuzi has mentioned in some measure. Second, under the ontological aspect of li, he explains that Four beginnings come from li. It implies that li manifests and qi follows. Finally he points out lidao--i.e. li manifests itself, about wuge in his epistemology. Here we can say that whatever his metaphysics/the theory of mind and heart, and epistemology, the whole system of T'oegye's philosophy has its theoretical coherence. He has succeeded Zhuzi's philopophical thoughts thoroughly and furthermore developed Neo-confucian theory in East Asia that has not made before.