Chǒng Yagyong: Korea's Challenge to Orthodox Neo-Confucianism (review)

BOOK REVIEWS165 Chöng Yagyong: Korea's Challenge to Orthodox Neo-Confucianism , by Mark Setton. Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1997. xiv, 232 pp., appendix, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. In their research on Chosön intellectual history after the seventeenth century, Korean historians have noted the development of Sirhak, or Practical Learning, thought. Practical Learning had long ties with many of the reforms of the late Chosön period and is believed to have developed in opposition to the orthodox Söngnihak, or Neo-Confucianism, of Chöson. Neo-Confucianism, because of its close links to the painful collapse Korea experienced in the late nineteenth century, is viewed as being antithetical to modernization. Practical Learning, on the other hand, which struggled to enact reforms and took a view highly critical ofNeo-Confucianism, is seen as being a pioneer movement leading to the modernization of Korea and a new philosophy to replace Neo-Confucianism. Furthermore, Chöng Yagyong (Tasan) is considered to be a thinker who brought Practical Learning to fruition and was in the vanguard of modern Korean philosophy . Mark Setton, in presenting a well-rounded critique of this view of Chöng Yagyong and Practical Learning offered by Korean academics, has given us new interpretations of this subject. Although Chöng Yagyong left numerous writings on all sorts of topics, Korean academics have focused on Chöng's criticism of political, economic, and social realities. Setton, however, shows that he not only wrote about current reforms but also about the Confucian classics. And although many of his reform proposals were written on the necessities of the age, his analysis of the Confucian classics from the start was systematic and detailed. Of course, other Korean scholars have studied Tasan's writings on the Confucian classics, but none has studied this issue as deeply as Setton. Although Tasan presented considerable criticism on the realities of late Chosön, he was a product of the Chosön elite and was reared in the Confucian culture. In terms ofpolitical alignments, he was not a member ofthe Noron (Old Doctrine) faction, the group in power, but rather a part of the Namin (Southerners ), who had been removed from authority. Nevertheless, his philosophical foundations rested firmly in Neo-Confucianism. The reforms that he offered went beyond Neo-Confucian prescriptions, and the source of these ideas can be found in his writings on the Confucian classics. Others have recognized that Tasan's interpretations were quite different from those of Neo-Confucian scholars, but most of these have looked only at Tasan's criticisms of NeoConfucianism and have shown no interest in his analysis and its relation to Confucian traditions. Setton has thoroughly examined this issue and closely analyzed how Tasan's interpretation of the Confucian classics differed from those of Neo- 166KOREAN STUDIES, VOL. 23 Confucian scholars of Sung China. He quotes most frequently from Tasan's studies on Mencius and examines early Chinese scholarship on Mencius. When Tasan disagrees with Chu Hsi's interpretations, he does not hesitate to criticize. Setton examines the differences between Chu Hsi and Tasan in their analyses of Mencius and in the same way analyzes such important classics as the Analects , the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean. Chu Hsi, in his commentary on the Great Learning, strongly emphasized that "only after things are comprehended (ko-wu) is knowledge completed (chih-chih)" To form an idealized government in the world, Chu Hsi proposed eight items: comprehension of things, extension of knowledge, sincerity of the will, rectifying the mind, cultivation of the person, establishing harmony in the household, governing the state, and bringing tranquility to the empire. If one cannot achieve the first item, the comprehension of things, Chu Hsi asserted, the second item will be unachievable. And without this, governing the state and bringing tranquility to the world is impossible. To achieve these goals, one has to control one's feelings and work toward achieving a pure understanding. To Tasan, however, the basic nature of man was not the dual quality of original nature and feeling but the mixing of these two. Anyone can do good acts or bad acts, but these all depend upon individual moral...