Japanese Philosophy

Overview

Download PDF (94.9 KB)
pp. 43-50

Of the three streams of ethico-religious culture shaping Japanese philosophy over the past fourteen centuries—Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism— Buddhism has been the most influential in shaping how the . . .

Kūkai

Download PDF (710.4 KB)
pp. 51-74

Likely the most famous Buddhist figure in Japan, Kūkai founded the Japanese 'Shingon' (“Truth Word” or “Mantra”) School of Esoteric ('Vajrayana') . . .

Kakuban

Download PDF (607.1 KB)
pp. 75-80

Kakuban was the most creative and influential 'Shingon' philosophical thinker after Kūkai*. Born in Kyushu, he became a monk in Kyoto at Ninna-ji. Rising through the ranks to become abbot of the Shingon monastic center on . . .

Myōe

Download PDF (605.3 KB)
pp. 81-85

A Japanese monk ordained in both the 'Shingon' and 'Kegon' heritages, Myōe was an original and restive thinker who straddled the borders of traditional Buddhism and new directions of his age. His theory of universal salvation . . .

Nichiren

Download PDF (609.8 KB)
pp. 86-91

Among the founders of new Buddhist movements in the Kamakura period (1192–1333), Nichiren stands out for his strident opposition to the religious and political authorities of the day. Basing his teachings on an original . . .

Original Enlightenment Debates

Download PDF (114.4 KB)
pp. 92-103

The Buddhist term “original enlightenment” plays a special role in the development of Japanese Buddhist thought as a nonsectarian concept that represents specifically Japanese variations on the core theme of realizing . . .

Jiun Sonja

Download PDF (610.2 KB)
pp. 104-109

Jiun Sonja was a leading Buddhist reformer, scholar, and apologist during the Edo period (1600–1868). At a time when the Buddhist establishment was increasingly occupied with tasks imposed on it by the Tokugawa government, . . .

Ishizu Teruji

Download PDF (611.4 KB)
pp. 110-116

As an undergraduate at Tokyo Imperial University, Ishizu Teruji specialized in religious studies. Among his teachers were Anesaki Masaharu (1873–1949), an internationally known pioneer in the study of Japanese religions, . . .

Nakamura Hajime

Download PDF (619.6 KB)
pp. 117-124

Nakamura Hajime was one of the leading representatives of twentiethcentury scholarship in Buddhology and Indian philosophy. After completing undergraduate studies at Tokyo Imperial University in 1936, he went on to doctoral . . .

Tamaki Kōshirō

Download PDF (620.0 KB)
pp. 125-132

Tamaki Kōshirō graduated in 1940 from what was then the Tokyo Imperial University and taught there from 1959 until his retirement in 1976, after which he taught at Tōhoku University and Nihon University. Along with . . .

Overview

Download PDF (95.9 KB)
pp. 135-140

The Kamakura period (1185–1333) was a time of political upheaval, conflict, and an unusual series of natural disasters. The aristocracy had lost its political power to the newly risen samurai who aspired to capture the cultural . . .

Dōgen

Download PDF (695.4 KB)
pp. 141-162

In Japanese religious history, Dōgen (1200–1253) is revered as the founder of the Japanese school of Sōtō Zen Buddhism. Tradition says he was born of an aristocratic family, orphaned, and at the age of twelve . . .

Musō Soseki

Download PDF (624.3 KB)
pp. 163-171

Musō Soseki was one of the central figures in the extraordinary first generation of native-born and native-trained Japanese Zen masters who oversaw Zen’s emergence as a widespread spiritual and cultural force in fourteenth-century Japan. . . .

Ikkyū Sōjun

Download PDF (607.1 KB)
pp. 172-177

Ikkyū lived at a time marked by social unrest, a struggle for power, and large-scale destruction of Kyoto’s treasured monuments. It was also a time of an overturning of traditional values and of great creativity in classical arts and . . .

Takuan Sōhō

Download PDF (600.3 KB)
pp. 178-182

Beginning as a nine-year-old novice monk of poor farmer-warrior origins, by the age of thirty-six Takuan Sōhō had risen to become abbot of Daitoku-ji, the imperial Rinzai Zen monastic complex in Kyoto. Takuan’s Zen was . . .

Suzuki Shōsan

Download PDF (613.6 KB)
pp. 183-189

After serving for several years as an officer of the guard at Osaka Castle, Suzuki Shōsan shaved his head and spent two years wandering, homeless and in a life of severe austerity. He entered a temple and was ordained, but gradually became . . .

Shidō Bunan

Download PDF (600.3 KB)
pp. 190-194

A Zen master in the Myōshin-ji lineage of the Rinzai School, Shidō Bunan (or Munan) is best known for his teaching that the best approach to Zen would be “to die while you are alive” and then try to remain that way for the rest of . . .

Bankei Yōtaku

Download PDF (613.9 KB)
pp. 195-201

Bankei was a Zen monk of the Rinzai School who, after studying with both Japanese and immigrant Chinese Zen masters, initially settled into a quiet life away from the major cities, tending to the spiritual needs of his local . . .

Hakuin Ekaku

Download PDF (621.9 KB)
pp. 202-210

Born into a working class family, Hakuin Ekaku was attracted to Buddhism at an early age, studying its literature before dedicating himself to Zen practice at the age of twenty-two. Confident of his “awakening” two years later, he went . . .

Imakita Kōsen

Download PDF (595.5 KB)
pp. 211-213

During the final decades of the early modern period (1600–1868), Confucian scholars intensified their long-standing criticisms of Buddhism, depicting it as immoral and economically wasteful. Imakita Kōsen, an important Rinzai Zen . . .

Suzuki Daisetsu

Download PDF (614.6 KB)
pp. 214-220

Suzuki Daisetsu (Teitarō) enjoyed an extraordinarily productive career bringing Zen Buddhist ideas to the West. Born in Kanazawa, he grew up with Nishida Kitarō*, Japan’s most famous modern philosopher. While taking classes at . . .

Hisamatsu Shin’ichi

Download PDF (610.2 KB)
pp. 221-226

Born into a Pure Land Buddhist family and raised in Gifu Prefecture, already as a child Hisamatsu intended to become a 'Pure Land' priest. As he came into contact with scientific knowledge and critical reasoning, however, he found . . .

Karaki Junzō

Download PDF (610.5 KB)
pp. 227-232

Karaki Junzō was active throughout the Shōwa period more as a critic than a philosopher professionally trained in western sources. He studied under Nishida Kitarō* at Kyoto University and remained indebted to the thinking of Kyoto . . .

Overview

Download PDF (98.9 KB)
pp. 235-241

Like almost all forms of Japanese Buddhism, the Pure Land tradition was formulated in China in the sixth and seventh centuries, based on Indian scriptures that were interpreted according to indigenous Chinese thinking. . . .

Hōnen

Download PDF (612.8 KB)
pp. 242-248

Often referred to as the founder of a movement scholars call “Kamakura Buddhism” and revered by the "Pure Land" sect of Buddhism as its founder, Hōnen in fact spent his entire adult life as a traditional monk in the Tendai School, . . .

Shinran

Download PDF (664.0 KB)
pp. 249-261

The words and ideas of Shinran are probably more influential in Japan today than those of any other Buddhist thinker. Historically, he was the youngest of a small inner circle of disciples that formed . . .

Kiyozawa Manshi

Download PDF (628.8 KB)
pp. 262-272

Kiyozawa Manshi, who lived and wrote in the last decades of the nineteenth century, left an impression on generations of philosophers after him, including Nishida Kitarō*. As one of the first generation studying western philosophy at . . .

Soga Ryōjin

Download PDF (610.9 KB)
pp. 273-279

Soga Ryōjin was one of the most innovative Buddhist thinkers of the twentieth century, but unlike some of the other philosophical minds of modern Japan, he focused on his own tradition of 'Shin Pure Land Buddhism' throughout . . .

Yasuda Rijin

Download PDF (608.5 KB)
pp. 280-285

As a young man Yasuda developed a serious interest in Zen and then 'Shin Buddhist' thought. After the death of his mother, at age twenty Yasuda traveled to Kyoto, where he continued his study of both forms of Buddhism, in the end . . .

Overview

Download PDF (110.6 KB)
pp. 289-297

The standard translation of “philosophy” that emerged in the Meiji period (1868–1912) was a neologism fraught with ancient and modern Confucian nuances. Yet far more powerful than the new word tetsugaku for . . .

Fujiwara Seika

Download PDF (606.0 KB)
pp. 298-303

Aristocratic by birth and a Zen Buddhist by early education, Fujiwara Seika developed a passion for Chinese philosophy while a monk at the monastery of Shōkoku-ji in Kyoto. Seika eventually renounced Buddhism and served various . . .

Hayashi Razan

Download PDF (672.6 KB)
pp. 304-317

Hayashi Nobukatsu received training from an early age in Zen Buddhism at Kennin-ji in his native Kyoto, but soon turned his attention to neo-Confucian thought, which had been greatly . . .

Nakae Tōju

Download PDF (606.1 KB)
pp. 318-323

Though born in a peasant village in Ōmi province, Nakae Tōju was adopted by his grandfather, a samurai living on the island of Shikoku, where Tōju was trained in Confucian thought for service to the local daimyō. He has the . . .

Yamazaki Ansai

Download PDF (603.8 KB)
pp. 324-328

Yamazaki Ansai was both the most faithful and virtually unquestioning exponent of Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucian philosophy in Tokugawa Japan as well as a later pioneer of a syncretistic religious-philosophical system affirming the fundamental . . .

Kumazawa Banzan

Download PDF (608.2 KB)
pp. 329-334

A major Japanese advocate of the neo-Confucian philosophy of Wang Yangming, Kumazawa Banzan gravitated from the metaphysical toward more practical, sociopolitical, and economic applications of that intuitive, mind-centered . . .

Yamaga Sokō

Download PDF (667.7 KB)
pp. 335-346

Although born the son of a rōnin in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Yamaga Sokō became the first major neo-Confucian scholar to mature from the new intellectual milieu crystallizing in Edo, the shōgun’s capital. . . .

Itō Jinsai

Download PDF (684.3 KB)
pp. 347-359

Itō Jinsai’s family moved to Kyoto, the ancient imperial capital, towards the end of the sixteenth century, just before Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) was to consolidate the samurai rule of . . .

Kaibara Ekken

Download PDF (679.7 KB)
pp. 360-373

Kaibara Ekken, a prominent Japanese neo-Confucian scholar, who has been called the “Aris totle of Japan” because of his study of natural history, was born on the island of Kyushu. Until the age of fourteen . . .

Satō Naokata

Download PDF (612.6 KB)
pp. 374-380

Satō Naokata was one of the most orthodox advocates of Zhu Xi’s neo- Confucian philosophy in the early eighteenth century. Born in southwestern Japan, he studied neo-Confucianism with Yamazaki Ansai* in Kyoto, at a time when the . . .

Asami Keisai

Download PDF (602.6 KB)
pp. 381-386

Born in Ōmi Province, Asami Keisai was trained first as a physician and later studied with Yamazaki Ansai* in nearby Kyoto, where he was to spend the remainder of his life teaching his verson of Ansai’s “orthodox” reading of Zhu Xi’s . . .

Arai Hakuseki

Download PDF (608.9 KB)
pp. 387-392

Arai Hakuseki, a contemporary and rival of Ogyū Sorai*, served the Toku gawa 'shogunate' in the capacity of a Confucian scholar for a number of years. During this period he attempted to persuade the shōgun Ienobu to take . . .

Ogyū Sorai

Download PDF (683.9 KB)
pp. 393-410

Ogyū Sorai formulated one of the most politically oriented, authoritarian statements of Confucian philosophy to emerge from Japan. While claiming to do little more than offer a systematic exposition of . . .

Ishida Baigan

Download PDF (605.7 KB)
pp. 411-415

Ishida Baigan was a clerk at a dry-goods shop in Kyoto who dedicated himself to book learning early in the morning and late at night while his fellowworkers were sleeping. In 1729 he quit his job and began to give free lectures to the . . .

Andō Shōeki

Download PDF (678.4 KB)
pp. 416-429

Arguably one of the most systematic and profound metaphysical theorists of the early modern period, Andō Shōeki was virtually unknown as a philosopher in his own day. . . .

Tominaga Nakamoto

Download PDF (605.6 KB)
pp. 430-435

Tominaga Nakamoto was born and raised in Osaka, the son of a soy merchant who was one of the founders of the Kaitokudō academy, a center of neo- Confucian philosophizing for merchants and townspeople. Though he passed away . . .

Teshima Toan

Download PDF (603.3 KB)
pp. 436-440

Born into a prosperous merchant family of Kyoto, Teshima Toan became a follower of Ishida Baigan* in early adulthood and eventually inherited the leadership of the 􀅺Shingaku􀅻 movement as a whole. After Toan began teaching in 1760 he . . .

Miura Baien

Download PDF (607.2 KB)
pp. 441-446

Miura Baien lived in the small village of Tominaga (present-day Oita prefecture) on the island of Kyushu, where he taught and developed his philosophical ideas. In the meantime, he maintained contacts with neo-Confucian scholars, . . .

Ninomiya Sontoku

Download PDF (608.8 KB)
pp. 447-453

Ninomiya Sontoku was born into a dysfunctional family, but through dedicated hard work, a fascination with learning, and a survival-driven devotion to self-help, he was able to attain high office, an impressive following, and a legacy in . . .

Overview

Download PDF (113.7 KB)
pp. 457-465

Four elements of ancient Japanese culture formed the basis for a series of philosophical reflections and analyses that culminated in the eighteenth century with a movement called Native Studies. The first . . .

Kamo no Mabuchi

Download PDF (609.1 KB)
pp. 466-471

Born in Hamamatsu to a family with ancestral connections to Shinto, Kamo no Mabuchi’s early education took place in local scholarly circles that combined Shinto studies with the study of 'waka' poetry. In 1728 Mabuchi enrolled as a . . .

Motoori Norinaga

Download PDF (731.5 KB)
pp. 472-492

Motoori Norinaga, the preeminent scholar of the early modern nativist movement known as Kokugaku, was born to a cotton wholesaler in the town of Matsusaka. In 1852, he went to . . .

Fujitani Mitsue

Download PDF (662.9 KB)
pp. 493-508

Fujitani Mitsue, or Narimoto as he was also known, was born into a prominent family of intellectuals in Kyoto. His father, Fujitani Nariakira was an erudite and imaginative scholar who authored several works analyzing Japanese . . .

Hirata Atsutane

Download PDF (660.5 KB)
pp. 509-522

Hirata Atsutane, one of the most influential religious and political figures of the first half of the nineteenth century, was active in establishing what would later come to be known as restoration Shinto. Born the . . .

Ōkuni Takamasa

Download PDF (653.7 KB)
pp. 523-535

Ōkuni Takamasa was born into a samurai family in the Tsuwano domain compound of Edo. At age fourteen he joined the school of Hirata Atsutane* as one of the first disciples and at the same time he received . . .

Orikuchi Shinobu

Download PDF (612.8 KB)
pp. 536-542

Accomplished as a neo-nativist folklorist, Shinto theologian, scholar of classical literature, and tanka poet (writing under the name Shaku Chōkū), Orikuchi Shinobu was born in the rural surroundings of Osaka. He moved to Tokyo . . .

Ueda Kenji

Download PDF (612.0 KB)
pp. 543-549

Four years after completing a master’s degree in religious studies at the Shinto-affiliated Kokugakuin University in Tokyo with a thesis on the psychology of religion, Ueda Kenji moved to Harvard University to study with Paul Tillich. He . . .

Overview

Download PDF (216.9 KB)
pp. 553-582

Modern Academic Philosophy in Japan began with disputations about the meaning and scope of the very term philosophy. The word and the discipline it designated entered Japan in the mid-nineteenth century as part . . .

Nishi Amane

Download PDF (610.9 KB)
pp. 583-588

Nishi Amane is known for his pioneering work in introducing European philosophy and other disciplines into Japan. Born in the Tsuwano domain (presentday Tsuwano town in Shimane Prefecture), he was educated in Zhu Xi philosophy .. .

Fukuzawa Yukichi

Download PDF (652.0 KB)
pp. 589-603

Fukuzawa Yukichi, in his own estimation, was the initiator, or at least an inspiration for, many of the reforms that took place during Japan’s process of modernization. Be that as it may, his was a strong dissenting voice against the . . .

Nakae Chōmin

Download PDF (609.9 KB)
pp. 604-610

Nakae Chōmin (Nakae Tokusuke) was a journalist, an advocate of natural rights, free thinker, and politician. From 1862, he began to study “Western Learning” and the French language. As part of a government mission to Europe, he lived in . . .

Inoue Tetsujirō

Download PDF (611.5 KB)
pp. 611-618

Inoue Tetsujirō was one of the most important figures in the formation of philosophy as an academic discipline in Japan. His concern with the confusion surrounding philosophical concepts and categories in the Meiji period prompted . . .

Inoue Enryō

Download PDF (638.8 KB)
pp. 619-630

Inoue Enryō was probably the most influential and prolific Buddhist theorist of the Meiji period. He was expected to become a priest in the True 'Pure Land' sect of Buddhism, but after studying philosophy in Tokyo, decided to go his . . .

Ōnishi Hajime

Download PDF (602.0 KB)
pp. 631-635

Ōnishi Hajime, philosopher, Christian apologist and social critic, studied theology at Dōshisha Eigakkō (present-day Dōshisha University) from 1877 to 1884, and then philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University from 1885 to 1889. He . . .

Overview

Download PDF (101.6 KB)
pp. 639-645

Because of the important place it is recognized to have in the intellectual history of Japan, the Kyoto School has been extracted from the rest of twentieth-century philosophy for special treatment. Nishida Kitarō* and the . . .

Nishida Kitarō

Download PDF (724.5 KB)
pp. 646-669

Nishida Kitarō, generally considered Japan’s greatest academic philosopher, made it his lifelong task to wed the spiritual awareness cultivated through a decade of Zen practice with modern philosophy. . . .

Tanabe Hajime

Download PDF (719.4 KB)
pp. 670-691

Tanabe Hajime was first drawn to philosophy through his study of mathematics and the natural sciences. His early work on the philosophy of science brought him into contact with the neo-Kantians, which inspired . . .

Mutai Risaku

Download PDF (623.8 KB)
pp. 692-701

Mutai Risaku, a peripheral figure of the Kyoto School, was first attracted to psychology, but during his time under Nishida Kitarō* at Kyoto University he was persuaded to secure a solid basis in philosophy from Kant to the present day. . . .

Miki Kiyoshi

Download PDF (604.1 KB)
pp. 702-707

Miki Kiyoshi is a tragic figure among the Kyoto School philosophers. He studied under Nishida Kitarō* and Tanabe Hajime* in Kyoto and then under Martin Heidegger in Freiburg. He was gifted with both keen philosophical insight . . .

Kōsaka Masaaki

Download PDF (602.9 KB)
pp. 708-712

Less a metaphysician than a historian of philosophy, Kōsaka Masaaki was concerned with the continuity between “nation and culture” in the historical world. This shows up in his 1937 work . . .

Nishitani Keiji

Download PDF (704.1 KB)
pp. 713-732

Nishitani Keiji was born 27 February 1900 in a small town on the Japan Sea. He was fourteen when his father died of tuberculosis, a disease from which . . .

Shimomura Toratarō

Download PDF (604.4 KB)
pp. 733-737

After studying philosophy in Kyoto University under Nishida Kitarō* and Tanabe Hajime*, with a concentration on Leibniz and the philosophy of science and mathematics, Shimomura Toratarō began his teaching career in Tokyo. . . .

Kōyama Iwao

Download PDF (606.0 KB)
pp. 738-743

Kōyama Iwao’s broad interests in philosophy—ranging from history, society, and politics to logic, education, and ethics—reflect his education at Kyoto University, where he studied under such illustrious figures as Nishida Kitarō,* . . .

Takeuchi Yoshinori

Download PDF (609.0 KB)
pp. 744-749

Takeuchi Yoshinori was born in 1913 in the northern city of Sendai, Japan. He studied philosophy under Tanabe Hajime*, concentrating on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind and then broadening out to other major German philosophers

Abe Masao

Download PDF (620.3 KB)
pp. 750-757

Following the trail that had been blazed by D. T. Suzuki,* Abe Masao spent over thirty years in dialogue with western philosophers and theologians, representing Zen thought and the tradition of Kyoto School thought as he had . . .

Tsujimura Kōichi

Download PDF (616.0 KB)
pp. 758-764

Tsujimura Kōichi studied philosophy at Kyoto University under Tanabe Hajime,* and went on to assume his teacher’s chair from 1948 until retiring in 1982. More formative for his thinking, however, was the Zen he practiced with Hisamatsu . . .

Ueda Shizuteru

Download PDF (693.8 KB)
pp. 765-784

Ueda Shizuteru is the central figure of the third generation of the Kyoto School. A student and successor of Nishitani Keiji*and a foremost interpreter of Nishida . . .

Hase Shōtō

Download PDF (608.3 KB)
pp. 785-691

After completing his doctoral studies at Kyoto University in 1965, Hase Shōtō took up a teaching post at Kyoto Industrial University and for ten years threw himself into the study of French spiritualism from the eighteenth century on, . . .

Ōhashi Ryōsuke

Download PDF (614.1 KB)
pp. 792-798

After completing undergraduate studies at Kyoto University in 1969, Ōhashi Ryōsuke traveled to Germany where he entered the graduate program in philosophy at the University of Munich, receiving a doctorate in 1974 with a thesis . . .

Overview

Download PDF (99.5 KB)
pp. 801-807

In Japan the category “twentieth-century philosophy” is reserved by and large for philosophical thought as it is found in Europe and the United States, and for Japanese engagement with it. When writing of their own . . .

Hatano Seiichi

Download PDF (610.2 KB)
pp. 808-815

After completing studies at Tokyo Imperial University in 1899, Hatano began teaching the history of philosophy at Tokyo Senmon Gakkō (present-day Waseda University). Five years later, in 1904, after publishing his doctoral thesis on . . .

Abe Jirō

Download PDF (603.8 KB)
pp. 816-821

Born in Yamagata Prefecture in 1883, Abe Jirō entered Tokyo Imperial University in 1904 and studied philosophy under the guidance of Raphael von Koeber. In 1912 he was granted a research fellowship by the Ministry of Education to . . .

Takahashi Satomi

Download PDF (608.0 KB)
pp. 821-828

Takahashi Satomi studied philosophy at the Imperial Tokyo University. In 1921 he assumed a post in the science faculty at Tōhoku University in Sendai. He subsequently spent two years studying abroad in Germany with Rickert and Husserl . . .

Kuki Shūzō

Download PDF (731.9 KB)
pp. 829-849

Kuki Shūzō, a truly cosmopolitan philosopher, introduced existential philosophy and hermeneutics to Japanese academia and authored innovative accounts . . .

Watsuji Tetsurō

Download PDF (713.5 KB)
pp. 850-869

Watsuji Tetsurō was not only Japan’s premier ethical theorist and historian of ethics in the first half of the twentieth century, but also an astute philosopher of culture and interpreter of religious traditions and . . .

Miyake Gōichi

Download PDF (610.8 KB)
pp. 870-876

It was reading Nishida Kitarō’s* An Inquiry into the Good as a middleschool student that first turned Miyake Gōichi’s attention to philosophy. Already from the time of his undergraduate studies at Kyoto University Miyake was . . .

Tosaka Jun

Download PDF (599.9 KB)
pp. 877-881

Tosaka Jun entered Kyoto University in 1921, the same year as Nishitani Keiji*, to study philosophy. As students, the two of them took part in discussions at Nishida’s home and read Aristotle under the direction of Miki Kiyoshi*, whose . . .

Ichikawa Hakugen

Download PDF (619.6 KB)
pp. 882-889

Ichikawa Hakugen was a Rinzai Zen priest, professor at Hanazono University, and political activist who made his mark as the foremost scholar of “Imperial-Way Zen.” In his writings he chronicled Zen support for Japanese . . .

Imanishi Kinji

Download PDF (596.7 KB)
pp. 890-894

In 1941, within a year of completing his doctorate at Kyoto Imperial University with a specialization in entomology and ecology, Imanishi Kinji published perhaps his best-known and lasting contribution in the form of a philosophy of . . .

Funayama Shin’ichi

Download PDF (614.4 KB)
pp. 895-901

Funayama Shin’ichi, perhaps the most important figure in Japanese philosophical materialism during and after the war, is also widely respected for his studies of Hegel and Feuerbach as well as for his historical studies of modernb . . .

Takizawa Katsumi

Download PDF (603.2 KB)
pp. 902-906

Three years after completing undergraduate studies in philosophy at Kyushu University, Takizawa traveled to Europe where he studied briefly under Karl Barth until the latter’s expulsion in 1934 under the Nazis. He returned to a post at . . .

Ienaga Saburō

Download PDF (606.4 KB)
pp. 907-912

Historian and philosophical critic, Ienaga Saburō is one of those modern thinkers who defies classification. He is especially well known for his open criticisms of Japanese narratives of World War ii. In 1953 he wrote a Japanese history textbook . . .

Izutsu Toshihiko

Download PDF (627.5 KB)
pp. 913-921

Although brought up in the Zen tradition, Izutsu Toshihiko studied a wide range of philosophical and mystical traditions. Certainly the most linguistically gifted of all modern Japanese philosophers, Izutsu is reputed to have mastered . . .

Maruyama Masao

Download PDF (622.0 KB)
pp. 922-929

Few intellectuals in Japan have left such a conspicuous mark on postwar intellectual discourse as Maruyama Masao. He is known for his active political stance in the postwar period as well as for his academic accomplishments. During . . .

Minamoto Ryōen

Download PDF (610.8 KB)
pp. 930-935

After graduating from Kyoto University’s department of philosophy in 1948, Minamoto Ryōen joined the editorial staff of the Philosophical Quarterly and collaborated with a team of Kyoto professors in editing the Dictionary of Philosophy. . . .

Ōmori Shōzō

Download PDF (610.4 KB)
pp. 936-942

Ōmori Shōzō graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1944 with a degree in physics, but in order to grasp theoretical issues related to science, he gradually became interested in philosophy. After the war, in 1949, he received a . . .

Yuasa Yasuo

Download PDF (625.0 KB)
pp. 943-951

After graduating from Tokyo University’s Department of Ethics in 1949, Yuasa Yasuo went on to complete higher degrees in ethics and economics. During his final years at university he studied under Watsuji Tetsurō*, whose thought . . .

Nakamura Yūjirō

Download PDF (613.2 KB)
pp. 952-957

After completing studies at Tokyo University, Nakamura Yūjirō worked for a period as a director of cultural programs for radio broadcasting before returning to studies and teaching at Meiji University, where he remained until retirement. . . .

Kimura Bin

Download PDF (657.9 KB)
pp. 958-972

Perhaps no thinker in twentieth-century Japan better represents the interface between psychology and philosophy than Kimura Bin. While maintaining his psychiatric practice and publishing widely on abnormal psychology, . . .

Hiromatsu Wataru

Download PDF (604.4 KB)
pp. 973-978

Hiromatsu Wataru obtained his doctorate in philosophy from Tokyo University and went on to teach philosophy there for many years. He is well known for his novel interpretation of Marx’s concept of reification. In particular, he believed . . .

Sakabe Megumi

Download PDF (642.4 KB)
pp. 979-992

Sakabe Megumi did his undergraduate and doctoral studies in philosophy at Tokyo University. After lecturing at Kokugakuin University and Tokyo City University, he returned to his alma mater where he held a post until his . . .

Fujita Masakatsu

Download PDF (619.9 KB)
pp. 993-1001

After finishing his undergraduate and doctoral course work at Kyoto University in 1978, Fujita Masakatsu spent a number of years in Bochum, Germany, where he earned a doctorate in 1982 with a dissertation on the early Hegel’s . . .

Overview

Download PDF (226.2 KB)
pp. 1005-1037

Ever since Socrates accepted the Delphic oracle’s challenge to “know thyself,” the issue of personal identity has been part of the western philosophical repertoire. That issue typically broke down into two fundamental questions. The . . .

Fukansai Habian

Download PDF (625.5 KB)
pp. 1038-1046

Fukansai Habian, a native of the Kyoto area, received his early education in a Zen temple, where he was trained in East Asian systems of thought. In his late teens he converted to Christianity and in 1586 entered the Society of Jesus . . .

Mori Arimasa

Download PDF (603.9 KB)
pp. 1047-1052

Mori Arimasa was baptized a Christian at the age of two and tutored in French from the age of six, and by his early teens had been exposed to English, Latin, and classical Greek as well. He graduated from the department of philosophy . . .

Yagi Seiichi

Download PDF (606.2 KB)
pp. 1053-1058

Yagi Seiichi was born in Yokohama to a prominent Christian family in the “No-church” tradition of Uchimura Kanzō. Yagi studied New Testament at Tokyo University and the University of Göttingen, completing his doctoral studies . . .

Chūōkōron Discussions

Download PDF (145.6 KB)
pp. 1059-1077

Between November 1941 and November 1942, four second-generation professors of the Kyoto School famously discussed the theme “Japan and the Standpoint of World History.” Their discussions appeared in the journal . . .

Overcoming Modernity: A Symposium

Download PDF (85.7 KB)
pp. 1078-1084

A trio of literary critics from the magazine Literary World—Kawakami Tetsutarō, Kobayashi Hideo, and Kamei Katsuichirō—organized a symposium in 1942 to discuss “Overcoming Modernity.” In July, they gathered a group of thirteen . . .

Takeuchi Yoshimi

Download PDF (615.3 KB)
pp. 1085-1092

Takeuchi Yoshimi is remembered in Japan today as one of the leading intellectuals of the postwar period in his dual capacity as China scholar and literarysocial critic. He enrolled in the Chinese literature department at Tokyo Imperial . . .

Karatani Kōjin

Download PDF (616.5 KB)
pp. 1093-1099

The writings of Karatani Kōjin, like those of many other literary critics today, cross disciplinary boundaries and challenge the presuppositions of academic philosophy. Educated in economics and English literature at Tokyo . . .

Overview

Download PDF (112.2 KB)
pp. 1103-1112

Overview

Download PDF (174.5 KB)
pp. 1115-1137

Throughout most of Japan’s history, only a small number of women who had distinguished themselves in literature were able to express their ideas publicly. Not even the increased educational opportunities and the birth of . . .

Yosano Akiko

Download PDF (622.9 KB)
pp. 1138-1147

Yosano Akiko (née Hō Shō), poet, social critic, and educator, lived a rich and many-sided life. The wife of the poet Yosano Tekkan and mother of eleven children, she published fifteen volumes of collected commentaries on social issues, . . .

Hiratsuka Raichō

Download PDF (637.4 KB)
pp. 1148-1158

Hiratsuka Raichō (née Hiratsuka Haru) is Japan’s most celebrated feminist activist of modern times. She began her public career in 1911 with the organization of Seitō . . .

Yamakawa Kikue

Download PDF (601.5 KB)
pp. 1159-1164

Yamakawa Kikue (née Morita Kikue), a committed socialist, was one of the most influential opinion leaders and social activists of the twentieth century. Stimulated by firsthand experience of the conditions of the “mill girls,” she strived . . .

Overview

Download PDF (241.2 KB)
pp. 1167-1202

Kamo no Chōmei

Download PDF (604.5 KB)
pp. 1203-1208

Kamo no Chōmei was born the son of Nagatsugu, superintendent of the Lower Kamo Shrine, one of the most influential Shinto shrines in Japan. Unable to succeed his father to the prestigious post, Chōmei enjoyed the patronage of . . .

Zeami Motokiyo

Download PDF (609.1 KB)
pp. 1209-1215

Born into a family of 'sarugaku' performers in the Nara basin, Zeami was trained in performance and playwriting by his father Kan’ami. Kan’ami’s successes in Kyoto gave Zeami the opportunity to learn about classical Japanese waka . . .

Ōnishi Yoshinori

Download PDF (599.0 KB)
pp. 1216-1219

Ōnishi Yoshinori taught aesthetics at the University of Tokyo from 1922 until his retirement in 1949. As his voluminous writings reflect, he specialized in German aesthetics from the Romantics through Kant to twentieth-century

Izutsu Toyoko

Download PDF (618.7 KB)
pp. 1220-1227

After graduating from the Tokyo University’s Department of Arts and Letters in 1952, Izutsu Toyoko (alias Toyo) married the celebrated philosopher and orientalist Izutsu Toshihiko,* with whom she collaborated closely until his death in . . .

Overview

Download PDF (135.8 KB)
pp. 1231-1245

In spring of 1771, a small group of Japanese doctors gathered to perform an autopsy on the cadaver of an executed fifty-year old woman criminal known as the Green Tea Hag, with a copy of a recently acquired Dutch work . . .

Glossary

Download PDF (849.1 KB)
pp. 1249-1268

Bibliography

Download PDF (900.8 KB)
pp. 1269-1300

Chronology

Download PDF (738.1 KB)
pp. 1301-1304

Index

Download PDF (95.8 KB)
pp. 1305-1313

General Index

Download PDF (753.7 KB)
pp. 1314-1338

Credits

Download PDF (70.5 KB)
pp. 1339-1340

About the editors

Download PDF (94.0 KB)
p. 1341-1341