Korean Philosophy

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The center of philosophical tradition of eastern asia must be Confucianism. And, the master of Confucianism, Confucius wanted to live in the area of "Dong Yi"(the old name assigned by Chinese). You can see it in Confucian Analects;

The Master was wishing to go and live among the nine Yi country. Someone said, "That places are uncomfortable. How are you do such a thing?" The Master said, "If a superior man dwelt there, what would it matter with uncomfortableness?" (Confucian Analects, XIII, 13)

Here, we can see that Confucius said he wanted to live with old Korean people. Since Confucius emphasized etiquette, if old Korean people were not couteous, such dialogues would not have been possible. The coutesy is possible only based on spiritual and ideological culture. And actually, Korean people have their own unique philosophical texts, which cannot be found in Chinese or Japanese bibliographies. They are the oldest text of Korean Philosophy, which represents 3-1 philosophy with explanation of Sam jae that is foundational concept of metaphysics of philosophy of eastern asia.

But as time passes on up to present, many aspects of Korean philosophy have been influenced by Chinese philosophy. However, almost every scholars say, Korean people succeeded in building their unique philosophical tradition in spite of those much influences from China.

Here, you will see some of them