ABSTRACT
In early modern Korea, empiricism had ruled the mental life of many despite the dominance of Neo-Confucianism. When yangban men understood the world through Sino-classics and the Neo-Confucian metaphysics, yangban women built their own body of knowledge from real experience and trials and errors. Daoism provided a philosophical depth to practical learning in which the law of probability ruled the world. Instead of the unchangeable li, emotion (chŏng) well explained why things have some patterns to interact with one another. In the early nineteenth century, a female scholar Yi Pinghŏgak succeeded the tradition of Daoist alchemy and the rich collection of female know-hows. At the same time, it draws attention that she, like her male contemporaries, attempted to verify truth by using rational thinking and sense experience. So, I will argue in this chapter that Korean traditional empiricism also reformed its old method for the search of scientific knowledge on the eve of the modern era.
