Yi Hwang (Toegye) 退溪 李滉
1501–1570 · Joseon Korea
A Neo-Confucian philosopher of mid-Joseon Korea. He declined government posts dozens of times and opened an academy in his home village of Dosan to teach students. He is famous for the Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning, which he presented to the king, and for the Four-Seven Debate he carried on with Gi Daeseung. He saw the heart of learning as 'gyeong' (reverence): the practice of keeping the mind steadily awake.
See Yi Hwang (Toegye)'s ideas and sayingsMajor works
- Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning
- Record of Self-Reflection
- Collected Works of Toegye
- Twelve Songs of Dosan
Yi Hwang (Toegye)
I am Yi Hwang of Dosan. I am a man of little talent who declined office again and again and did nothing but read books beside a stream.
What is it, my friend, that has scattered your mind? Let us begin slowly, together, with the work of setting the mind in one place.
This Yi Hwang (Toegye) is an AI recreation based on the thinker's writings and ideas, not the real person. Only sentences marked with a source are actual passages from the works.