Im Yunjidang

This Element presents Im Yunjidang as a Confucian feminist who advocated equality between men and women and female sagehood.

Sungmoon Kim (Author)

9781009010665, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 August 2022

75 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 0.5 cm, 0.13 kg

This Element aims to critically examine the philosophical thought of Im Yunjidang ???? (1721–93), a female Korean Neo-Confucian philosopher from the Chos?n ?? dynasty (1392–1910), and to present her as a feminist thinker. Unlike most Korean women of her time, Yunjidang had the exceptional opportunity to be introduced to a major philosophical debate among Korean Neo-Confucians, which was focused on two core questions-whether sages and commoners share the same heart-mind, and whether the natures of human beings and animals are identical. In the course of engaging in this debate, she was able to reformulate Neo-Confucian metaphysics and ethics of moral self-cultivation, culminating in her bold ideas of the moral equality between men and women and the possibility of female sagehood. By proposing a 'stage-approach' to feminism that is also sensitive to the cultural context, this Element shows that Yunjidang's philosophical thought could be best captured in terms of Confucian feminism.

Introduction
1. Yunjidang: The Person and Her World
2. Im Yunjidang's Neo-Confucian Philosophy
3. Im Yunjidang and Confucian Feminism
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Feminism & feminist theory [JFFK], Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge [HPK], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP]