Dasan Jeong Yak-yong: A Synthesizer of Korean Confucianism

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.