Yulgok Yi I's publication ideology

This paper aims to reconstruct and reconceptualize the writings, books, and reading-related texts scattered among the works of Yulgok Yi I under the theme of “Yulgok Yi I's Publishing Ideas.” The study results show that the characteristics of Yi I's perspective on authorship related to writing and authorship emphasize the prudence in writing and authorship. To Yi I, books were like a repository containing the standards of Taoist judgment, the standards of truth judgment, and criteria for distinguishing between good and evil. For Yi I, reading was not just the act of reading books but finding the principles of things and everyday life through books. The essence of reading emphasized by Yi I in this paper appeared as reading for inquiry, reading for discernment, reading for practice, and reading for practicality. Yi I perceived the knowledge gained through reading as lower-level knowledge, believing that ultimate knowledge was achieved through final practice. The factors Yi I saw as hindrances to reading included the illness of reading without thought (無念), the illness of reading with only the mind ahead, the illness of separation between the text and the reader, and the illness of reading with high barriers and difficult behavior.