Yi Hwang (Toegye)
1501-1570 · Neo-Confucianism · Known
Toegye was the foremost reader of Zhu Xi in Joseon Korea, and he granted principle a power his master had withheld from it. Li, the pattern in things, can act on its own and does not wait on matter to do the moving. The moral feelings rise from that pattern, the ordinary passions from qi, the material force things are made of. His practice was gyeong, keeping the mind reverent and awake.
Signature
The position Toegye is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ethics
- strongly leans Means
- Role of Emotion
- Virtue to Cultivate
Positions on the 16 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (80 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (12 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- mildly leans Realism (37 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (88 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (17 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- mildly between Immanence and Transcendence (50 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (88 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (85 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- strongly leans Illiberalism (5 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- strongly leans Means (90 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (30 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Local (30 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
4 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Toegye refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Panentheism / Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue / Harmony
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Wisdom / Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Paradox
- Coincidentia Oppositorum / Dialectical Sublation
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Sacred Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ancestral Presence
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Innate Good
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Family
What is your primary bond and loyalty?