Use of Neo-Confucian Universalism and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Chosŏn Korea

Abstract

The privileged position and countrywide leadership of the ruling sa elites in the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) survived wars − the Japanese Invasions (1592–98) and the Manchu Invasions (1627, 1636) − as well as occasional domestic unrest and natural disasters from the late sixteenth century into the seventeenth century. Some elites, as in the case of Cho Sŏnggi (1638–89) and Yi Tensing (1628–69), parlayed the Neo-Confucian jargon-laden articulation of Principle i 理  into an omnipresent metalanguage able to combine the natural (ontology), the knowable (epistemology), and the ethical (morality/norms) in terms of universalism. Specifically, their expositions on the relationship between the universal principle and human mind-and-heart sim 心  helped afford a resource for theoretical flexibility in which to translate the essence of the metalanguage into the maintenance of the Chosŏn establishment under their hegemony and to objectify the changing reality surrounding Chosŏn after the fall of Ming China. Exploring this correspondence between practical need and cerebral creativity in the seventeenth century will enable us to chart a new perspective for the vital reproduction of Neo-Confucian universalism in post-Ming East Asia before the advent of new universalisms from Europe.