• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.32
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• pp.113-159
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• 2011

The self-segmentation of Seoin(西人) School and the appearance of Soron(少論) School in the 17th century Joseon society has an important meaning in the political history. Soron School(少論學派) had quite different line in their thought and public position from the Noron(老論) School represented by Song Shi-yeol. With such thought and position, Soron School added a vitality to the barren climate of Joseon intellectual society and soon became an important school of it. Especially, the senior leaders of early Soron School shared the culture of discussion and dialogue which was represented by the phrase, "the forest of debate and the hill of argument". Accordingly, Soron School could form an unique academic tradition which was different from other schools. For instance, Park Se-dang(朴世堂), Nam Gu-man(南九萬), Yoon Jeung(尹拯) and Park Se-chae(朴世采) had relatively flexible Conception of Heresy; which was in the same context with the academic position of Soron School that allowed diverse approaches to truth each as the path of justice. Furthermore, the leaders of Soron School continued dialogue and discussion on the wide range of current issues. They deeply sympathized with the Tangpyeong-ron(蕩平論), which was to appoint important government positions equally from multiple schools. They thought that the Tangpyeong-ron(蕩平論) was to avoid the harmful influence of conflicts between schools, the Bungdang(朋黨), and tried to tune and compromise the different opinions of different schools. In fact, the "Hwanggeuk Tangpyeong-ron" (皇極蕩平論) submitted by Park Se-chae was the summarization of the discussions shared by the Soron School leaders. Consequently, the seniors of Soron School practiced their philosophy that "the true academic practice is the communication" by keeping the dialogue with other schools while respecting the difference of each other, rather than staying comfortably in the closed academic fence of uniformity. Such communicative academic practice adopting discussion and dialogue had been succeeded to the second generation of Soron School and it remained as an unique academic tradition of Soron School.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.59
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• pp.121-156
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• 2015

Memorials in Joseon Dynasty created a arena where the intellectual and political power met. This thesis traces the process of a certain political faction's rebuilding of the political structure of the elite groups by leading the intellectual controversies through memorials, especially those about the evaluations of Pak Setang(朴世堂) and I Gyeongseok(李景奭). This is what happened: Song Siyeol(宋時烈) submitted a memorial which disputed I Gyeongseok's petition, which provoked complete controversies around the memorials between Noron(老論) and Soron(少論). This led to the academic censorship against Sabyeonrok written by Pak Setang. The analysis of act of writing and submission of memorials by Noron and the role of the Kim Family of An-dong(安東 金門) specifically is the main topic here. The members of Soron ceaselessly criticized Song Siyeol, while the Kim Family strongly defended him. The trigger of the strife was a letter written by Kim Chang-Heup(金昌翕), a member of the Kim Family and the Kims played a significant role in the background during the process of political fights using memorials. The series of memorials criticized or supported certain political figure or his writings, but the opinions of Noron and Soron were directly opposite to each other. Even though the expressed difference was the result of the existing political factions, however, it also caused the new power structure of elite groups. The expressions and logics used in the arguments also have its significance. The Noron's memorials evaluated the contemporary people and their writings based on Chu-Hsi and Song Siyeol, who was regarded as a identical figure of Chu-Hsi. The arguments and writing strategies in this regard gained political strength enough to reorganize the intellectual society by changing alignment of political parties, and this led to the rebuilding of academic environment afterward.