This paper outlines Wŏnhyo's theory of the One Mind as it is presented in his over 20 extant works. According to Wŏnhyo, the One Mind manifests itself in two aspects: “true-thusness” and “arising-and-ceasing.” In the first aspect, the One Mind is intrinsically pure and unchanging, able to see all things equally and without discrimination. However, in the second aspect the One Mind is subject to causality and manifests itself in various delusions, thereby appearing impure and ephemeral. Thus, the One Mind is the source of both enlightenment and delusion. We analyze the paradoxical relationship between these two aspects and how they open the path to enlightenment. Here Wŏnhyo distinguishes between original enlightenment, non-enlightenment and actualizing enlightenment. In the final section, we show what kind of subjective personhood is implied in Wŏnhyo's understanding of the One Mind and the various kinds of enlightenment.

What we regard as real are the objects of the phenomenal world which we perceive. We regard those that we see objectively, as in the third person perspective, as real. What then is the mind that perceives the world? Is it possible for us to realize the very mind that perceives the world?

This article discusses the existence of the world perceived by the mind in order to deal with the existence of the mind which perceives the world and the knowability of the mind. Phenomenal world is a perceptual world which is a fictitious world constructed by our conceptual language system. And the base of the fictitious phenomenal world, the object itself, is emptiness. The emptiness is the emptiness of the mind that perceives and constructs the world. Thus, the awareness of the emptiness of the world is the self-awareness of the mind.

Since the emptiness of my mind is the same emptiness of all other beings, the mind is the capacity to sympathize with the whole world, the universal mind, One-mind. Every man is aware of oneself as One-mind. “Gong-juk-young-ji” or the “original enlightenment” of Buddhism is the self-awareness of the mind as emptiness.

This paper elaborates on two classical theories of “Open Society,” i.e. Henri Bergson's and Karl Popper's. It outlines their differences, qualities, and limits. It provides some suggestions about the new enemies of open society in a globalized world, that these new enemies are identified in fanaticism which appears as religious fundamentalism, closed nationalism and political populism. Open society is characterized by the critical use of reason, freedom and tolerance.

Whereas the Humean accounts of causality in terms of contiguity, temporal priority, constant conjunction, and contingency face difficulties of one sort, the dispositional explanations of causality in terms of reciprocity, simultaneity, ubiquity, and holism seem to meet difficulties of another sort. But the difficulties which dispositionalism faces may be dissipated if one can appeal consistently to the logic of naturalism, rather than to the grammar of an implicit dualism, for example, as it is illustrated when G. Molnar tried to advance the analogy between the mental intentionality and the physical intentionality.

The notion of integration is taken to allow a conceptual space for naturalism of one kind. It may be expressed in the thesis that there is integrationality in any entity like dispositions, such that the integrationality is a power to realize the embedded objective of it in the context where it interacts with all others. The thesis would help to see how dispositions can be intentional, how the notion of information may be read integrationally from any object, and how the notion of fitting plays a role in the metaphysics of integrationality.

This paper considers a recent claim that Confucianism and feminism are compatible since both are care ethics. I examine some aspects of contemporary care ethics and compare them with Confucian ethics from a feminist viewpoint. I argue that for Confucianism to be made compatible with feminism, the former must be transformed to the extent that it loses its main features.

Care ethics can be feminist ethics only when women have been made moral subjects because of their perceived ability to care for others. Caring in a Confucian culture is not as much a feminine value as a male value. I do not find Confucian ethics as care ethics to be particularly liberating for women. For Confucianism to be viable in a contemporary democratic world, it must be supplemented by feminist ethics that take justice and equality as the primary values.

The term “self” refers to the subject which persists through the changing experiences of a person. We think of it at least as the center of personal identity, or the organizing function within the individual. It may be desirable to examine cultural identity if there is something like “the communal self.” Kant believed that there is a “transcendental self” which transcends our experiences. Following him, we may analogously claim that there is a communal self, which transcends the history and the culture of the community, maintaining their identity throughout time by means of providing the unity principle. Korea is a typical example of a nation whose process of transculturation is most dynamically ongoing. Such a nation should apply this concept to her current cultural situations in order to be successful in the age of globalization.

It is the aim of this paper to sketch the basic idea of the phenomenology of moral drive through a dialogue with Dasan and Fichte. In section 1, I will delineate Fichte's theory of moral drive; in section 2, I will discuss Chong Yak-Yong's theory of moral drive. In section 3, I will evaluate the theories of moral drive they have developed, and in section 4, I will sketch the basic idea of a phenomenology of moral drive.

Philosophy as an academic discipline was introduced to Korea at the end of the 19th century. Philosophical education and professional research did not begin, however, until the 1920s. The first institution in which Koreans could study philosophy as a major at college level was Keijō Imperial University, which was founded by the Japanese in 1924 in Seoul, Korea. The first graduates from this school produced their research in Korean and contributed to the settlement of philosophy on the Korean peninsula. They were joined by Koreans who had returned from study in Austria, Germany, France, and the United States. I call these the “first Korean philosophers.” In order for an individual to belong to this group, three conditions had to be met: first, he or she should have studied philosophy as a major at college level; second, he or she should have read Western philosophical texts in original or in translation; third: he or she should have written a treatise in the contemporary Korean language. Against this background, I am going to deal with three questions. The first question concerns their attitude towards philosophy. The second question concerns their conception of philosophy. The third question concerns the method of doing philosophy. Through this study, I have shown that the first Korean philosophers foreshadowed the struggle between the Marxist and liberal understandings of the world and of humanity, even though they lived in the time of Japanese occupation.

In this paper, I propose an interpretation of the Confucian concept of li or Ritual Propriety, and suggest a new philosophy of action and mind on the basis of the concept. To achieve this aim, I focus upon and analyze passages in The Analects, and try to establish major Confucian theses on human action. By comparing Confucian views on human action with Western ones, I shed light on the originality of the concept of li.

Major theses on li in The Analects are as follows: (1) As an essential characteristic of human behavior, li is ordinary and ubiquitous. (2) Li is a socialized form of our mind, is the outside of an inside, and as such presupposes the unity of the mind and body. (3) Li is a social medium through which we interact with others in order to achieve common values and to turn our society into a harmonious and aesthetic space. To argue for the above theses, I focus on the centrality of language in our life, and utilize Russian psychologist Vygotsky's theory of language learning as well as Wittgenstein's concept of language game, together with the Confucian theory of correct names.

This paper outlines some key ideas of the twentieth-century Buddhist monk Han Yong-un, or Manhae. It focuses in particular on Manhae's social engagement under the Japanese occupation. It underlines the role played by Manhae's doctrine in reviving a national sentiment and culture in Korea. It elaborates on his doctrine of the Loved one, or nim, sketches the mutual influences of Buddhism and Confucianism in his thought, and builds on his critique of imperialism, militarism, and Korean “self-ruination.”