Jeong Dojeon
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Jeong Dojeon (1342-1398), also known by the pen name Sambong, was a medieval Korean scholar and politician. He was an influential Neo-Confucian ideologue and served as a close advisor to Yi Seonggye, the founder of the Joseon dynasty.
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Background and early career
Jeong's family had emerged from commoner status some four generations before, and slowly climbed up the ladder of government service. His father was the first in the family to obtain a high post. However, despite his office he left a poor household, with almost no property for his heir. The experience of childhood poverty appears to have had a profound effect on Jeong's thought.
Together with other leading thinkers of the time such as Jeong Mong-ju, Jeong Dojeon was a student of Yi Saek.
Relationship with Yi Seonggye
Jeong's ties with Yi Seonggye and the foundation of Joseon, were extremely close. He is said to have compared his relationship to Yi to that between Zhang Liang and Gaozu of Han. Jeong's political ideas had a lasting impact on Joseon Dynasty politics.
The two first became acquainted in 1383, when Jeong visited Yi at his quarters in Hamgyong province.
Intellectual activity
Jeong Dojeon was a major opponent of Buddhism at the end of the Goryeo period. He was a student of Zhuxi's thought. Using Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucian philosophy as the basis of his anti-Buddhist polemic, he criticized Buddhism in a number of treatises as being corrupt in its practices, and nihilistic and antinomian in its doctrines. The most famous of these treatises was the Bulssi japbyeon ("Array of Critiques Against Buddhism" ). He was a founding member of the Seonggyungwan, the royal Confucian academy, and one of its early faculty members.
Jeong was among the first Korean scholars to refer to his thought as silhak, or "practical learning." However, he is not usually numbered among the members of the Silhak tradition, which arose much later in the Joseon period.
Political thought
Jeong argued that government, including the king himself, exists for the sake of the people. Its legitimacy could only come from benevolent public service. It was largely on this basis that he legitimized the overthrow of the Goryeo dynasty, arguing that the Goryeo rulers had given up their right to rule.
Jeong divided society into three classes: a large lower class of agricultural laborers and craftsmen, a middle class of literati, and a small upper class of bureaucrats. Anyone outside this system, including Buddhist monks, shamans, and entertainers, he considered a "vicious" threat to the social fabric.
References
- Han Yeong-u. (1974). Jeong Do-jeon's philosophy of political reform. Korea Journal 14(7-8). Reprinted in Lee et al. (2004), Korean philosophy: Its tradition and modern transformation, pp. 55-74. Seoul: Hollym. ISBN 1-56591-178-4
- Korean Institute of Philosophical Thought. (1995). 강좌 한국철학 (Gangjwa Hanguk Cheolhak, Guide to Korean philosophy), pp. 333-345. Seoul: Yemoon Seowon. ISBN 89-7646-032-4.