GOODNESS AND QI: THE LATE CHOSŎN DEBATE ON HUMAN NATURE

Abstract

In the course of the great disputes of Korean Confucianism, the Four-Seven and Horak Debates, multiple perspectives came to be formulated on the problem of human nature; these were later taken up as orthodox stances by competing lineages of Korean scholars. Thinkers active during the late eighteenth century often sought to replace this authoritative corpus by means of alternative approaches represented by reform-ist sirhak currents or inspired by so-called ‘Western Learning’; nonetheless, the vast majority of scholars continued to explore the basic questions of Confucian discourse within the limits of previous tradition. A leading example of a scholar faithful to orthodox legacy, yet formulating radical and new perspectives on the basic questions of Confucian doctrine and the problems of human nature, can be found in the personage of Nongmun Im Sŏngju (1711–1788) and his work Nongnyŏ chapchi (Miscellaneous records of the Deer Hut). The focus of this study is to present the strategies and arguments Nongmun used to defend the concept of goodness of human nature in relation to both the Chinese and Korean authorities of previous tradition.