Abstract
Despite the dominant practice in contemporary Korean academia since 1936 to define Dasan’s philosophy and Practical Learning (Silhak: 實學) as intellectual defiance against neo-Confucianism and neo-Confucian society, some scholarly efforts that have sought to disprove this understanding attract the unremitting attention of many modern skeptics. These efforts revolve around one point: they are not separated from neo-Confucianism philosophically, politically, and historically. In this view, these “new” intellectual trends are perceived as redemption of the ideal Confucian statecraft commonly cherished by all types of Confucians, and a natural development consequent on the expansion of neo-Confucian interest in Confucian classical texts. In stark contrast to the prevailing perspective on Dasan’s philosophy and Practical Learning, which sees them as estranged from their neo-Confucian predecessors probably with hope of positioning them closer to modernity, the opposition insists continuity exists between the two Confucian traditions, somewhat provoking disconnection of all Joseon intelligentsia from modernity.
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Notes
- 1.
Jeong Yak-yong 丁若鏞 (1762–1836) is a representative of Korean Confucianism in the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), and Dasan 茶山 is Jeong’s pen name. It was in 1936, the year of the one hundredth anniversary of Dasan’s death, that a new recognition and conceptualization of the intellectual movement of the late Joseon emerged and was initially named Silhak, Practical Learning. Primary references in English to Dasan’s life and philosophy include: Kalton (1981: 3–37); Keum (1986: 4–15); Setton (1989: 377–391); Henderson (1992: 305–314); Setton (1997); Lee (2004: 357–372); Han (2004: 357–372); Kim (2016: 1–30).
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Kim, H. (2019). Dasan Jeong Yak-yong: A Synthesizer of Korean Confucianism. In: Ro, Yc. (eds) Dao Companion to Korean Confucian Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2933-1_16
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