Korean philosophy philosophy in traditional Korea. Situated on the eastern periphery of the Asian mainland and cut off by water on three sides from other potential countervailing influences, Korea, with its more than two millennia of recorded history and a long tradition of philosophical reflection, was exposed from early on to the pervasive influence of China. The influences and borrowings from China – among the most pervasive of which have been the three major religiophilosophic systems of the East, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism – were, in time, to leave their indelible marks on the philosophical, cultural, religious, linguistic, and social forms of Korean life. These influences from the Asian continent, which began to infiltrate Korean culture during the Three Kingdoms era (57 B.C. to A.D. 558), did not, however, operate in a vacuum. Even in the face of powerful and pervasive exogenous influences, shamanism – an animistic view of man and nature – remained the strong substratum of Korean culture, influencing and modifying the more sophisticated religions, philosophies, and ideologies that found entry into Korea during the last two thousand years. Originally a philosophical formula for personal salvation through the renunciation of worldly desire, Buddhism, in the course of propagation from its point of origin, had absorbed enough esoteric deities and forms of worship to constitute a new school, Mahayana, and it was this type of Buddhism that found ready acceptance in Korea. Its beliefs were, at the plebeian level, further mixed with native shamanism and integrated into a shamanistic polytheism. The syncretic nature of Korean Buddhism manifests itself at the philosophical level in a tendency toward a reconciliatory synthesis of opposing doctrines. Korean Buddhism produced a number of monk-philosophers, whose philosophical writings were influential beyond the boundaries of Korea. Wonhyo (617–86) of Silla and Pojo Chinul (1158–1210) of Koryo may be singled out as the most original and representative of those Buddhist philosophers.
As Buddhism became more entrenched, a number of doctrinal problems and disputes began to surface. The most basic and serious was the dispute between the Madhyamika and Vijnaptimatrata-vadin schools of thought within Mahayana Buddhism. At the metaphysical level the former tended to negate existence, while the latter affirmed existence. An epistemological corollary of this ontological dispute was a dispute concerning the possibility of secular truth as opposed to transcendental truth. The former school denied its possibility, while the latter affirmed it. No mediation between these two schools of thought, either in their country of origin, India, or Korea, seemed possible.
It was to this task of reconciling these two opposed schools that Wonhyo dedicated himself. In a series of annotations and interpretations of the Buddhist scriptures, particularly of the Taeseung Kishin-non (‘The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana’), he worked out a position that became subsequently known as Hwajaengnon – a theory of reconciliation of dispute. It consisted in essence of seeing the two opposed schools as two different aspects of one mind. Wonhyo’s Hwajaeng-non, as the first full-scale attempt to reconcile the opposing doctrines in Mahayana Buddhism, was referred to frequently in both Chinese and Japanese Buddhist exegetical writings.
The same spirit of reconciliation is also manifest later during the Koryo dynasty (918–1392) in Chinul’s Junghae-ssangsu, in which the founder of Korean Son Buddhism attempts a reconciliation between Kyo-hak (Scriptural school of Buddhism) and Son-ga (Meditation school of Buddhism), which were engaged in a serious confrontation with each other. Although many of its teachings were derivations from Mahayana Buddhist metaphysics, the Son school of Buddhism emphasized the realization of enlightenment without depending upon scriptural teachings, while the Scriptural school of Buddhism emphasized a gradual process of enlightenment through faith and the practice of understanding scriptures. Himself a Son master, Chinul provided a philosophical foundation for Korean Son by incorporating the doctrines of Scriptural Buddhism as the philosophical basis for the practices of Son. Chinul’s successful synthesis of Kyo and Son served as the basis for the development of an indigenous form of Son Buddhism in Korea. It is primarily this form of Buddhism that is meant when one speaks of Korean Buddhism today. Ethical self-cultivation stands at the core of Confucianism. Confucian theories of government and social relationships are founded upon it, and the metaphysical speculations have their place in Confucianism insofar as they are related to this overriding concern. The establishment in . . 372 of Taehak, a state-oriented Confucian institute of higher learning in the kingdom of Kokuryo, points to a well-established tradition of Confucian learning already in existence on the Korean peninsula during the Three Kingdoms era. Although Buddhism was the state religion of the Unified Silla period (668–918), Confucianism formed its philosophical and structural backbone. From 682, when a national academy was established in the Unified Silla kingdom as a training ground for high-level officials, the content of formal education in Korea consisted primarily of Confucian and other related Chinese classics; this lasted well into the nineteenth century. The preeminence of Confucianism in Korean history was further enhanced by its adoption by the founders of the Choson dynasty (1392–1910) as the national ideology. The Confucianism that flourished during the Choson period was Neo-Confucianism, a philosophical synthesis of original Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism achieved by the Chinese philosopher Chu Hsi in the twelfth century. During the five hundred years of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, a number of Korean scholars succeeded in bringing Neo-Confucian philosophical speculation to new heights of originality and influence both at home and abroad. Yi Hwang (better known by his pen name T’oegye, 1501– 70) and his adversary Yi I (Yulgok, 1536–84) deserve special mention. T’oegye interpreted the origin of the four cardinal virtues (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge) and the seven emotions (pleasure, anger, sorrow, joy, love, hate, and desire) in such a way as to accord priority to the principle of reason I over the principle of material force Ki. T’oegye went a step further than his Sung mentor Chu Hsi by claiming that the principle of reason includes within itself the generative power for matter. This theory was criticized by Yulgok, who claimed that the source of generative power in the universe lay in the matter of material force itself. The philosophical debate carried on by these men and its implications for ethics and statecraft are generally considered richer in insight and more intricate in argumentation than that in China. T’oegye’s ideas in particular were influential in spreading Neo- Confucianism in Japan.
Neo-Confucian philosophical speculation in the hands of those lesser scholars who followed T’oegye and Yulgok, however, became overly speculative and impractical. It evolved, moreover, into a rigid national orthodoxy by the middle of the seventeenth century. Dissatisfaction with this intellectual orthodoxy was further deepened by Korea’s early encounter with Christianity and Western science, which had been reaching Korea by way of China since the beginning of the seventeenth century. Coupled with the pressing need for administrative and economic reforms subsequent to the Japanese invasion (1592–97), these tendencies gave rise to a group of illustrious Confucian scholars who, despite the fact that their individual lives spanned a 300-year period from 1550 to 1850, were subsequently and collectively given the name Silhak. Despite their diverse interests and orientations, these scholars were bound by their devotion to the spirit of practicality and utility as well as to seeking facts grounded in evidence in all scholarly endeavors, under the banner of returning to the spirit of the original Confucianism. Chong Yag-yong (1762–1836), who may be said to be the culmination of the Silhak movement, was able to transform these elements and tendencies into a new Confucian synthesis.
See also BUDDHISM , CHINESE PHILOSOPHY , CONFUCIANISM , JAPANESE PHILOSOPHY , NEO – CONFUCIANIS. Y.K.