The Four–Seven Debate of Korean Neo-Confucianism and the Moral Psychological and Theistic Turn in Korean Philosophy

This paper discusses how Korean Neo-Confucian philosophers in the Joseon dynasty (1392&#8315;1910) explained the moral nature of the mind and its emotions. Among the philosophical debates of Korean Neo-Confucianism, the author of the paper focuses on the Four&#8315;Seven Debate (a philosophical debate about the moral psychological nature of the four moral emotions and the seven morally indiscrete emotions) to analyze its <i>li</i>&#8315;<i>qi</i> metaphysics (a philosophical explanation of the universe through the intricate and interactive relation between the two cosmic processes, <i>li</i> and <i>qi</i>) and its conflicting viewpoints on the moral psychological nature of emotion. Because of the ambiguities and inconsistencies in the Neo-Confucian explanation, specifically those of the Cheng&#8315;Zhu schools of Neo-Confucianism on the nature and functions of the mind, Korean Neo-Confucians struggled to bring Neo-Confucian <i>li</i>&#8315;<i>qi</i> metaphysics to the moral and practical issues of the human mind and moral cultivation. Later in the Joseon dynasty, some Korean Neo-Confucians discussed the fundamental limitations of <i>li</i>&#8315;<i>qi</i> metaphysics and developed their explanations for the goodness of the moral mind and the world from an alternative (i.e., theistic) viewpoint.