Abstract

This paper shows that the natural knowledge of the Sirak Scholars in the Late Chosŏn Dynasty was developed continously from the traditional philosophy of Confucianism. I looked for such a historical fact in some Sirak Scholars' - Yi Ik, Hong Tae-Yong, and Choi Han-Ki - scientific knowledges as the Earth-Rotating theory, Earth-Moving theory, and Newtonian Force of attraction, which were important Western sciences. They accepted such Western scientific facts, but did not throw away traditional paradigm of East Asian science. Mechanism of Qi was their epistemological system, through which they read and understood Western scientific theories. It was not the late nineteenth century until Korean scholars rejected the traditional paradigm of Qi.