Course: Introduction to Korean Philosophy

This week, we will look at how Koreans formed their own culture and ideas. What we consider to be “Korean” today is the result of their long-standing self-awareness and tenacious …

Have you ever heard of the Korean word “Uri(우리)”? If you look closely at the word “Uri,” you can see how Koreans understand themselves and their relationships with other beings. …

In the video in 2.1 , I mentioned the term “cultural boundary”. What does this mean? And how can this lead to cultural innovation? The term “cultural boundary” is in …

The Horak Debate was able to take place in Korea thanks to the long lineage of Korean philosophy spawned by the aforementioned Four-Seven Debate. Let’s explore what the Horak debate …

To learn about the Four-Seven Debate proper, let’s first talk about the history of Neo-Confucianism. Centred around Confucian philosophy, an initial form of Neo-Confucianism was created in China in the …

Before starting to study traditional Korean philosophy, I would like to introduce an opinion on the relationship between reason and emotion in Western culture. An Australian philosopher, Tom Cochrane, states …

The ancient Chinese culture had the deepest influence on pre-modern Korea. Out of this deep influence, “Confucianism”’ may be one of the most important. The two examples we will cover …

In our final lesson, we took a broad look at what constitutes the Korean Matrix. Remember, Korean philosophy is not only applicable to Koreans but is accessible to anybody who …

In the meantime, we have covered several themes, but they are actually just the tip of the iceberg. If you are curious, I would like to give you some tips …

Koreans have developed their way of thinking by innovating on knowledge at cultural boundaries. What we have talked about so far is mainly about what happened in the past; this …

This is the end of this week. We have gone from the term “philosophy” of the ancient Greeks to the term “philosophies” as used in the modern day, describing other …

Now, we are ready to explore Korean philosophy. For this, it is necessary to examine Chinese influences on Korean culture first. Pre-modern Koreans adopted many cultural influences from Chinese culture …

Korean has many Sino-Korean words. This is because Koreans had adopted the Chinese character, Hanja, which allowed for both an acceptance of Chinese culture and for the expression of the …

As we learned in the video in 2.6, Hangeul’s originality is in fact also an achievement developed from cultural boundaries. Behind the principles of Hangeul, there are three common heritages …

Let’s briefly recall the video in 1.4. In the video, we considered a changing landscape of philosophy from ancient Greece to the East Asian countries in the 20th century. These …