Philosophy › Reason, experience & Enlightenment › Yi I (Yulgok)
Silhak (Practical Learning) and Jeong Yak-yong (Dasan)
c. 1670–1850· School or movement· Asian traditions
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details uncertain.
Silhak (실학, 實學), 'practical learning': a Korean Confucian reform current that turned from abstract theory to land, taxes, technology and evidence.
See it on the Philosophy map →The idea
Idea: learning should fix real problems, not just refine theory; a later slogan was silsa gusi (實事求是), 'seek truth from facts'. After the Japanese and Manchu invasions, Yu Hyeong-won (유형원) and Yi Ik (이익) proposed land and tax reform. Jeong Yak-yong (정약용), pen name Dasan (다산), designed a lifting crane for Suwon's Hwaseong Fortress, then wrote on law and government during 18 years of exile after an 1801 crackdown on Catholics. Main limitation: few proposals became policy.
Why it matters
It shows Korean scholars turning to empirical, reform-minded learning well before Western pressure forced the issue; Dasan is honored in Korea as a model of practical thought.
Where it comes from
Dasan's works, some 500 volumes, survive, including Mongmin simseo (목민심서, 1818), a guide for local magistrates; Yu's Pangye surok and Yi Ik's Seongho saseol also survive.
Still debated
'Silhak' is largely a 20th-century label; historians debate whether these scholars formed one movement and how much Western learning shaped them.
Connections (2)
▸Yi I (Yulgok) foreshadowed Silhak (Practical Learning) and Jeong Yak-yong (Dasan)Mostly agreed
The connection
Yulgok paired Neo-Confucian theory with concrete reform proposals: lightening tax and tribute burdens, strengthening the military and governing for the people's livelihood. Later Silhak scholars, frustrated by court factions fixed on doctrine, built on that practical streak and turned it into detailed plans for land, taxes and technology.
When and how
Yulgok's memorials to King Seonjo, notably the Ten Thousand Word Memorial (만언봉사, Maneon bongsa, 1574); Silhak writers worked from about 1670 to 1850.
How sure are we?
Historians of Korean thought trace Silhak's reform streak partly to Yulgok's memorials; his tribute-reform idea foreshadowed the Daedong law (대동법), introduced from 1608.
Debates and open questions
Many Silhak thinkers, including Yi Ik and Dasan, belonged to the Southerner (Namin) faction linked to Toegye, not Yulgok's; how direct the lineage is remains debated.
▸The Scientific Revolution informed, via Jesuit books, Silhak (Practical Learning) and Jeong Yak-yong (Dasan)Mostly agreed
The connection
Jesuit missionaries in Beijing translated Western astronomy, maps and mathematics into Chinese. Korean envoys brought these books home, and Silhak scholars such as Yi Ik and Hong Dae-yong (홍대용) used them to question old cosmology; Hong argued that the Earth rotates and that China is not the center of the world.
When and how
Matteo Ricci's world map (1602) reached Korea by 1603 with returning envoys; Hong Dae-yong visited Beijing and its Jesuit astronomers in 1765–66.
How sure are we?
Yi Ik's Seongho saseol discusses Western astronomy and Ricci's writings, and Hong's dialogue Uisan mundap (c. 1766) argues for a rotating Earth.
Debates and open questions
How much Western learning shaped Silhak, versus internal Korean reform currents, is debated; after the 1801 anti-Catholic persecution, Western books became dangerous to own.