Discussions of the Uniqueness of the Sage’s Mind-and-Heart in the Horak Debate

The discussions on the uniqueness of the sages' mind-and-heart in the Horak debate of the late Joseon dynasty occurred in regard to two major points of contention. The first regarded the different interpretations of the meaning of weifa ..., or the original state of the mind, and the second concerned mingde ..., or the original power of the mind. The Horak debate discussed whether sages and commoners had identical mind-and-heart; the debate should be understood in terms of the serious social inequalities inherent in late Joseon as well as the self-identity of the literati-officials of the time. Han Won-jin claimed that physical endowment in the weifa state had gradations or variations, whereas Yi Gan claimed that, in the weifa state, qi was in its original condition and therefore not subject to gradations or variations. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)