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Philip J. Ivanhoe and Hwa Yeong Wang, Korean Women Philosophers and the Ideal of a Female Sage: Essential Writings of Im Yungjidang and Gang Jeongildang, Oxford University Press, 2023, 304 pp., $30.99 (pbk) ISBN 9780197508695.
Reviewed by Erin M. Cline, Georgetown University
“Are there any lineages of women philosophers in Confucianism?” When students in my Chinese Philosophy classes ask this question, I enjoy answering yes. Now, I am delighted to be able to assign the work of the philosophers I tell them about. This book collects and translates, for the first time, the work of the first and only explicit lineage of Confucian women philosophers: Im Yunjidang (1721-1793) and Gang Jeongildang (1772-1832).[1] They are rooted in the Korean Confucian tradition, a much-neglected but extraordinarily rich and sophisticated branch of Confucianism that has had a deep and enduring impact in East Asia.
Im Yunjidang and Gang Jeongildang argued that women are fully capable of attaining the highest levels of moral and spiritual achievement required to become…
