## 1. Prolegomenon: Names and Realities



"Confucianism" is a term used by westerners to refer to a
diverse set of philosophical movements that have been variously known
in Japanese as *Jugaku* (the learning of the scholars),
*Jukyo* (the teachings of the scholars), *seigaku*
(the learning of the sages), *seirigaku* (the learning of human
nature and principle), *rigaku* (the learning related to
principle), and *shingaku* (the learning of the mind). There
was no single word in the traditional East Asian lexicon that
corresponded exactly and consistently to "Confucianism,"
yet by late-medieval and early-modern times, there was a fairly
distinct understanding among Japanese intellectuals of an essential
unity to the diverse Confucian teachings otherwise variously referred
to. This is clear in references to the "three teachings",
Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism (and/or Shinto). One of many
examples is Matsunaga Sekigo's (1592-1657)
*Irinsho* (*Selected Writings on Ethics*, 1640),
which opens by stating, "Between heaven and earth, there are
three major ways: the Confucian, which is the way of Confucius; the
Buddhist, which is the way of Shakyamuni; and the Daoist, which is the
way of Laozi."



The most commonly used references to Confucianism in Japanese history,
traditional and modern, are the terms *Jugaku* and
*Jukyo.* In these, *Ju* is the Japanese reading of
the Chinese word *Ru*, literally referring to
"weaklings." The latter was a reference to scholars who
tended to work with their minds rather than their bodies and were, as
a result, perceived as being weaker. The term was used by later
scholars in explaining the teachings of Confucius (551-479
B.C.E.). Acceptance of the term partly reflected Confucius'
distaste for coercive force as opposed to the softer power of ethical
examples and the allegedly irresistible efficacy of moral suasion.



In the west, the term "Confucianism" first came into use
following contacts between Jesuit missionaries and Chinese scholars.
The Jesuit term "Confucianism" is a Latinized version of
the honorific reference to the great sage of China, Kong Fuzi. Minus
the honorific *fuzi*, Confucius' name was Kong Qiu. The
relatively recent origins of the western term should not obscure the
fact that there had long before developed, among East Asian
intellectuals, an understanding of Confucianism expressed not through
a root reference to the founder Confucius, but instead to those who
followed his teachings, the *Ju*, or scholars.



Viewing Confucianism as "philosophy" began, in western
studies, with the Jesuit anthology, *Confucius Sinarum
Philosophus* (*Confucius, China's Philosopher*),
published in Paris in 1687 and dedicated to King Louis XIV. This work
introduced Confucius' thought with high praise and selected
translations from the *Great Learning*, the *Analects*,
and the *Doctrine of the Mean*. Originally published in Latin,
*Confucius Sinarum Philosophus* was soon translated into
French, German, and English. It influenced early admirers of
Confucianism and Chinese philosophy, as it quickly came to be known,
including Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) and Voltaire
(1694-1778). The anthology was also known to those who later
disparaged Confucianism, including G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831)
who remarked that Confucius' reputation would have been enhanced
had his works never been translated. Regardless, Hegel never flatly
denied that Confucian thinking merited consideration as
"philosophy," even though he did not regard it highly.



In this article, the term "Confucian" is used in reference
to things (people, practices, discussions, texts, etc.) that derive
from or relate directly to the *Analects*, as well as other
works of ancient literature associated with the *Analects* and
Confucius. The five classics of ancient China - including the
*Book of History*, the *Book of Changes*, the *Book
of Poetry*, the *Book of Rites*, and the *Spring and
Autumn Annals* - are here considered as Confucian classics
because they were, for the most part, thought to have been edited by
Confucius. While modern scholars might well doubt that claim, most
scholars in Chinese and East Asian history accepted the traditional
accounts crediting Confucius' editorship. The term
"Neo-Confucian" refers to thinkers, ideas, texts,
practices, and institutions that developed out of Confucian traditions
as they were reinterpreted in the wake of Chinese and East Asian
encounters with Buddhism. The term "Confucian" could
equally apply to Neo-Confucians for simplicity's sake, though
differences between Confucian and Neo-Confucian teachings are
sufficiently substantial to merit the distinction between the two
groups.



Understood most comprehensively, the importance of Confucianism in
Japanese history is undeniable: as in China and Korea, Confucian
philosophizing in Japan came to define one major if not dominant layer
of the early-modern and modern worldviews. Its lexicographic legacy is
omnipresent in modern Japanese discourse, with Confucian terms playing
new roles in discourses ranging from modern philosophy to science,
religion, the humanities and the social sciences. One indication of
the importance of Confucianism to Japan today is that the modern word
for "university" (J: *daigaku*; C: *Daxue*)
is taken from the title of the first of the four books of
Neo-Confucianism, the *Daxue* (*The Great Learning*; J:
*Daigaku*), a text that was understood as the gateway to
learning for adults. This legacy, incidentally, is one that originated
in Japan, with the founding of Tokyo Imperial University and a number
of other imperial universities including Kyoto Imperial University,
but soon spread throughout East Asia. The acceptance of this
designation signaled the consensus among East Asian statesmen and
intellectuals regarding the significance of Confucianism for the
advanced educational values of the region as well as the multifaceted
lexicon of Confucianism as the most apt for conceptualizing and
ultimately translating modernity.



Hegel's view that the history of philosophy
encompassed Asian philosophy including Chinese philosophy, with
Confucius as the prime representative of the latter, influenced the
first definition of "Japanese philosophy" and
"Japanese Confucian philosophy." Between 1884 and 1890,
Inoue Tetsujiro (1855-1944), studied in Heidelberg and
Leipzig, focusing on German Idealism and Hegel. A decade after his
return to Japan and appointment as the first Japanese professor of
philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, Inoue began publishing his
monumental three-volume account of Japanese Confucian philosophy, the
*Philosophy of the Japanese School of Wang Yangming* (*Nihon
Yomeigakuha no tetsugaku*, 1900), the *Philosophy of the
Japanese School of Ancient Learning* (*Nihon kogakuha no
tetsugaku*, 1902), and the *Philosophy of the Japanese School
of Zhu Xi* (*Nihon Shushigakuha no tetsugaku*, 1905).
Standing as Hegel's antithesis, Inoue presented a detailed and
fairly positive account of Japanese Confucian philosophy. In
doing so, Inoue suggested that well before the introduction of western
philosophy, Japan had developed a substantial philosophical tradition
of its own, one that in terms of volume and diversity compared
impressively with any national tradition of philosophy in the
west.



Although overtly nationalistic and so not always cited in contemporary
scholarship on the history of philosophy in Japan, Inoue's
trilogy remains the first extended statement of what Japanese
philosophical thought consisted of. Its descriptions of Confucian
thinking as philosophical in nature decisively impacted later East
Asian estimations of Confucianism. Even as Inoue elevated Japanese
Confucian thinking as philosophical, late-Qing China abandoned its
civil service examination system which for over five centuries had
tested one's mastery of Confucian texts. That Chinese thinkers
did later recognize value in Confucianism as the most compelling
statement of traditional Chinese philosophy owed much, ironically
enough, to Inoue's earlier vision of the role of Japanese
Confucianism in the philosophical development, prior to western
contact, of Japan. It is no exaggeration to say that the study of
Japanese Confucianism as philosophy began with Inoue's
trilogy.



Many western scholars distinguish Confucianism from
Neo-Confucianism. As an interpretive category, Neo-Confucianism has a
variety of nuances but most scholars who use the term do so in
reference to forms of Confucian philosophizing that emerged in the
wake of Buddhism. Many philosophical positions that Buddhism
endorsed had not been well addressed by earlier Confucian
philosophers. For example, Buddhists often affirmed that
metaphysically all things are empty of self-substantial being. Along
similar lines, Buddhists offered a psychology of introspection
claiming that the reality constructed by ordinary experience is
permeated with delusions arising from egocentrism and ignorance. As
such, the reality of common sense is the realm of suffering. Early
Confucians had not typically discussed metaphysics, apparently
thinking that common sense assumptions about the reality of this world
were not in question. As Buddhist estimations of reality gained a
greater hearing, Confucians formulated a metaphysics affirming the
reality of the world of ordinary experience, explaining the
substantial nature of the world by way of the notion of *ki*, a
term indicating the generative force that is the transformative stuff
of all that exists in an unending process of becoming. In positing
this metaphysics of *ki* along with various other ideas related
to ethics, politics, spirituality, and humanity, Confucian scholars
expanded upon the basics of early Confucian thinking so much so that
many modern interpreters have referred to them as
"Neo-Confucians."


## 2. Origins and Varieties of Confucian Philosophy



Confucianism began with the teachings of Confucius, despite the fact
that Confucius in no way saw himself as founding a school of
philosophy. Arguably his foremost concern was to effect a restoration
of the kind of socio-political order that had prevailed, at least in
his mind, at the beginning of the Zhou dynasty (1027-256
B.C.E.). In search of a position of influence that would enable him to
contribute to a return to such order, Confucius traveled from realm to
realm within the Zhou kingdom, hoping that his ideas about how
government and society ought to be aligned would find an enthusiastic
patron. Although Confucius never succeeded in this, along the way a
group of interested students came to associate themselves with him.
For his followers Confucius appears to have emerged as much as a
teacher as a political figure. While Confucius never wrote any
independent treatises or dialogues that were meant to serve as
systematic expressions of his personal ideas, over time reports about
his discussions with his disciples came to be recorded and edited into
a work most commonly translated as the *Analects*. Some
scholars have long questioned the extent to which the
*Analects* actually represents a true and consistent expression
of Confucius' thought. Nevertheless, the text has been accepted
(perhaps naively) by sufficient numbers of followers over the
centuries to make it, whether authentic or not, a work that must be
read and understood by anyone hoping to develop more than a
superficial appreciation of what have been received as
Confucius' teachings.



Confucius set in motion the project of philosophy as a search for and
love of wisdom in ancient China. Shortly after his passing, around 500
B.C.E., a variety of philosophical teachings emerged, including those
associated with Daoism, Mohism, and Legalism. So many were the
philosophical positions that commentators of the time noted, with
hyperbole, that a "hundred schools of thought" had
appeared. Each of these new developments in classical philosophy,
which interestingly enough appeared at about the same time as did the
ideas of the ancient Greek philosophers, emerged at least in part as a
pointed critique of the ideas associated with Confucius.



The most original philosophical notion attributed to Confucius was,
first and foremost, that of humaneness (C: *ren*; J:
*jin*). Though never so much clearly and concisely explained as
it was discussed and explored, the *Analects* suggests that the
practice of humaneness consists in not treating others in a way that
one would not want to be treated. Not surprisingly, this notion has
been characterized as the Confucian "golden rule," and
likened as well to Kant's categorical imperative calling on
people to act according to rules that they would be willing to deem
universal laws. The *Analects* situates humaneness at the
center of its moral philosophy, emphasizing it as the most universal
ethical notion. Indicative of that quintessential nature, almost all
thinkers in East Asian history who could in any way be considered
"Confucian" had to address it in their own writings.



Equally significant in the *Analects* is the notion of the
*junzi* (Japanese: *kunshi*), or the
"prince." The term literally refers to the "son of a
ruler," but the *Analects* emphasizes that anyone who
cultivates himself to the extent that his virtue is worthy of a prince
is indeed a "prince." Conversely, it makes clear that
those born to high standing who do not cultivate their virtue are not
worthy of being deemed a prince. In effect, by developing this notion,
the *Analects* was outlining an ethical perspective whereby
even the highest levels of the socio-political hierarchy could be
critically assessed.



Politically, the *Analects* suggests that rule by moral example
is far more effective than rule by law and the threat of punishment.
The latter might elicit compliance, but not a sense of moral
conscience. Rule by virtue, on the other hand, not only brings forth
compliance when the coercive power of the ruler is manifest, but also
when it is not. Confucius also emphasized the primary importance of
language and its correct use for rightly governing the realm. In one
passage, Confucius suggests that making sure language and words are
used correctly is the first step to good government (13/3). Without
denying the importance of rule by law, Confucius rejected
narrow-minded legalism. At one point, the *Analects* (13/18)
even portrays Confucius as affirming that it would be right for a
father to conceal the crimes of a son rather than turn him over to the
authorities. The *Analects* hardly meant to endorse evasion so
much as the responsibility of family members to take care of their
kin.



The *Analects* is also well known for what it does not discuss:
metaphysics and spiritual matters. In particular, Confucius is known
for asking students who wanted to hear about spiritual matters why
they were interested in such topics when they had yet to master the
moral way of humanity. In another context, the *Analects*
suggests that Confucius revered spirits, even while keeping his
distance from them. These passages imply that Confucius was not so
much uninterested in metaphysical issues as he was in what he
considered to be more fundamental and practical moral teachings.



Confucius' teachings were advanced by various disciples in the
late-Zhou period, the most systematic being Mengzi (371-289
B.C.E.), known most commonly in the west by his Latinized name,
Mencius. A text by the same name conveys Mencius' most important
elaborations of Confucian philosophy. Undoubtedly the most significant
contribution Mencius made to Confucian thought was his unequivocal
affirmation that human nature is, at birth, good. Confucius had
observed that people are alike by birth, but differ in practice.
However, it was not entirely clear how or in what sense people were
actually alike. Mencius argued for the inborn goodness of humanity,
noting how that goodness issued naturally from a mind endowed with the
beginnings of humaneness, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. Yet,
Mencius also acknowledged that evil, all too evident in the world,
resulted when people abandoned the beginnings of goodness they were
born with. The project of Confucian learning as Mencius described it
was to maintain this mind of goodness and recover it if
lost. This Mencian view of the inherent goodness of human nature
won out over the opposing view of his influential Confucian
contemporary Xunzi. (See entry on "Xunzi," Sect 2).



Politically, Mencius defined a more aggressive and confrontational
approach than evident in the *Analects*. In one passage,
Mencius suggests that when a ruler forsakes ethical behavior and
engages in extreme misrule, he can and should be removed, even
executed, without such amounting to regicide. According to Mencius,
one who claims to be a ruler but in fact engages in extreme
misrule forfeits any claims to being a true, legitimate
ruler, and is nothing more than a common criminal who may rightly be
executed for his crimes. In another instance, Mencius defines a more
people-centered understanding of legitimacy, suggesting that crucial
to acquiring legitimate rule is the ability to win the
hearts-and-minds of the people. Without that, a ruler might never hope
for success. Equally important was Mencius' affirmation that
legitimate government consists of ethical, humane government, or
*renzheng* (J: *jinsei*).



Confucius was credited, according to traditional accounts, with
editing the various classics of ancient Chinese writing that
supposedly existed prior to his day. While there might be some truth
to this attribution, the classics that were known to Chinese history
have been shown to derive, as a matter of textual fact, from the
early-Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.). These classics, often
referred to as six in number, only consisted of some five books by Han
times: the *Book of Changes* (*Yijing*); the *Book of
History* (*Shujing*); the *Book of Poetry*
(*Shijing*); the *Book of Rites* (*Liji*); the
*Spring and Autumn Annals* (*Chunqiu*). Whatever the
truth of the matter, it was widely believed among later Confucians
that the classics they studied had been in part edited by Confucius
and so, in subtle ways, conveyed his understandings of history,
literature, etiquette, and even change itself. In the Han dynasty,
these texts came to be studied widely as part of the expanding
"Confucian" curriculum. After a brief but brutal
persecution of Confucian scholars and Confucian literature during the
Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.E.), Confucius began to emerge, during
the Han dynasty, as the much exalted and revered sage-philosopher of
China, and Confucians as a more distinctly identifiable group of
scholars.



It was also in the Han that another philosophical system, that of
Buddhism, entered China. Following the fall of the Han, Buddhism
gradually expanded, often in association with the ruling power of
non-Chinese elites. While a conspicuous presence during the Sui and
most of the Tang dynasties, Buddhism eventually fell victim to
imperial persecution at the highest level and widespread ethnocentric
reactions issuing from an increasing consciousness of the foreign
nature of the teachings. In tandem with the reaction against Buddhism
and all of its philosophical claims, Confucian teachings were
variously reasserted. In many cases, these reassertions of
Confucianism were made along such distinctively novel lines that
western scholars have referred to them as expressions of Neo-Confucian
philosophy. The term does have its counterparts in East Asian
discourse in the form of designations such as *Songxue*,
"the learning of the Song dynasty," *xinglixue*,
"the learning of human nature and principle,"
*xinxue*, "the learning of the mind," and
*lixue,* "the learning of principle."



Undoubtedly the newest thing about Neo-Confucianism was its
metaphysics: while Confucius and Mencius had apparently assumed the
reality of the world, they had not felt obliged to explain that
assumption theoretically, even in passing. In the wake of
Buddhism's sway during much of the Tang dynasty, Neo-Confucians
of the Song and later dynasties explicitly accounted for the reality
of the world by positing a generative substantial force, *qi*
(: *ki*), capable of assuming a variety of forms: liquid,
solid, and ethereal. This generative force was the Neo-Confucian
response to Buddhist claims regarding the essential insubstantiality
of the world. Providing a sort of intelligible order to the world of
generative force was the Neo-Confucian conception of an essential
rational principle (C: *li*; J: *ri*) inhering in all
things. Together, rational principle and generative force constituted
the basic ingredients of a variety of expressions of the Neo-Confucian
affirmation of the reality of the world. Theorists often differed
regarding the priority of one notion in relation to the other, or
whether there was in fact any priority between them at all, but rarely
was it the case that later Confucian forays into metaphysical
speculation abandoned either of the two metaphysical ingredients
entirely.



Another novel area of philosophical speculation was that related to
spiritual forces. Confucius said little about them, other than that
people's proper concern should be how to live in the world of
humanity. Yet following the Buddhist discourses on the afterlife,
rebirth, and various heavens and hells, Neo-Confucians were compelled
to articulate various understandings of the spirit world. One of the
more commonly accepted positions defined ghosts and spirits (C:
*guishen*; J: *kishin*) in terms of the spontaneous
activities of *yin* and *yang* in the world. Without
denying that there were spiritual forces, this account provided for a
kind of naturalistic understanding of spiritual phenomena.



Neo-Confucians were not always so innovative. Virtually all affirmed
the Mencian line that human nature was at birth good. Furthermore,
most acknowledged that the mind is endowed with the four beginnings of
this goodness as expressed in humaneness, righteousness, propriety,
and wisdom. Supplementing Mencius' claims, however, many
Neo-Confucians added that human nature was rational principle, giving
all of humanity a common bond with the rational structure of the
world, and conversely giving the rational structure of reality common
ground with the essential goodness that otherwise characterized
humanity through human nature.



The interpenetration of the cosmos and the individual was pursued
along several other lines as well, perhaps most notably in the new
explanations of the ancient Confucian notion of humaneness in terms of
forming one body with everything in the universe. This sort of
mysticism, more characteristic of Daoism than classical Confucianism,
was one of the more distinctive features of many expressions of
Neo-Confucianism. Clearly the theoretical insights of the later
Confucian scholars were not formulated simply to oppose Buddhism: not
a few instances of Neo-Confucian philosophizing emerged as
reformulations of appealing aspects of either Buddhism or Daoism. Such
reformulations prompted many later critics of these innovative ideas
to see in them offensive amounts of heterodox thinking that should
have been given no harbor in Confucian thought.



One example of Neo-Confucians reformulating ideas and/or introspective
practices from Buddhism took the form of the often practiced, albeit
somewhat controversial, method of meditation known as *jingzuo*
(Japanese: *seiza*), or "quiet-sitting." With this
practice, Neo-Confucians developed an alternative to the popular Chan
(Zen) form of meditation known as *zuochan* (Japanese:
*zazen*). The latter was meant to help the practitioner intuit
the essential emptiness of the ego, also understood as intuiting their
Buddha nature, as well as the emptiness or insubstantiality of all
things. Neo-Confucians, however, emphasized that the introspective
moments achieved during quiet-sitting would lead to a comprehensive
enlightenment wherein the person realized clearly the essential
goodness of their original nature as moral principle and its
simultaneous identity with the principle informing all things in the
universe. This understanding of the ethical unity of the self and
world was the ground, as Neo-Confucians understood quiet-sitting, not
for withdrawal or inactivity but instead for a dynamic engagement with
the world.


## 3. Introduction of Confucianism into Japan: Early Developments



With the territorial and cultural expansion of the Han dynasty into
what is today known as the Korean peninsula, the stage was set for the
introduction of Confucian texts and teachings into Japan by way of the
Korean kingdom of Paekche in the mid-6th century, along with Buddhism
and the essentials of Chinese civilization. It must be noted that an
ancient Japanese text, *Records of Ancient Matters*
(*Kojiki*, 712), relates that earlier, Keun Ch'ogo, the
ruler of the kingdom of Paekche, had sent an instructor named Wani,
along with a copy of the *Analects* and another Chinese text,
the *Thousand Character Classic* (*Qianziwen*; Japanese:
*Senjimon*), to the ruler of Yamato around 400 C.E. Presumably
the intent was that of educating the Yamato prince in Confucianism and
the Chinese language. Controversy surrounds this account, however,
making acceptance of it problematic. Still, if nothing more, Wani was
a figure of considerable legendary and cultural significance who,
according to traditional accounts, was the first scholar-teacher of
the *Analects* to enter the Japanese islands.



By all accounts, Paekche served as an effective transmitter of
Confucian texts and scholars in the mid-6th century. The most
conspicuous new philosophical force conveyed by this transmission was
that of Buddhism, especially as represented in art and architecture.
Yet, alongside Buddhism came Confucianism, especially evident as a
conceptually-defined philosophical system informing social, political,
and economic relations and institutions.



An enduring early Confucian contribution to Japanese culture related
to conceptions of historical time. In particular, it was in the wake
of the introduction of Buddhism that the Japanese imperial court came
to use *nengo* (C: *nianhao*), or
"year-names," as a means of counting the years within the
reign of an emperor. This system had originated in China, during the
Han dynasty, as emperors named the span of their rule to reflect the
agenda and values they sought to embody. In 1912, with the founding of
the Chinese republic, the practice ended in China, but it is followed
even today as the standard means of counting years in Japan. Insofar
as virtually every one of the *nengo* used in Japanese
history as names for annual time has derived from Confucian texts,
there can be little question that Japanese understandings of calendric
time have been nuanced in accordance with Confucian philosophy.



Much the same can be said about the names associated with emperors.
Though supposedly descended from an unbroken succession of Shinto
deities tracing back to Izanagi and Izanami, progenitors of Amaterasu
and Susanoo, Japanese emperors, mythic as well as historical, have
taken names that were distinctly Confucian in character. This
connection has remained throughout Japanese imperial history. In this
respect, the Confucian nuances of imperial names in Japan reveal
significant limits of Shinto as the sole foundation for all
things imperial.



To an extent, ancient Japanese conceptions of space also reflected
distinctly Confucian nuances. Yamato and Nippon were terms used to
refer to the imperial realm that came to be known, in the West, as
Japan, but when ancient Japanese spoke in the most universal terms,
referring not just to their own socio-political realm but to the
larger world, they often did so by use of the expression
*tenka* (C: *tianxia*), or
"all-below-heaven." This term first appears in the ancient
Confucian classical literature including in particular the *Book of
History* and *Book of Changes* (*Yijing*).



Cosmologically, the ancient Japanese explained their origins, in part,
in terms that were noticeably Confucian. Both the *Records of
Ancient Matters* (*Kojiki*) and the *Chronicles of
Japan* (*Nihon shoki*) open with cosmological narratives
accounting for the origins of the world, Japan, and the Japanese
people. One noteworthy ingredient in the narratives was that of the
"five processes" (C: *wuxing*; J:
*gogyo*): wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. These
processes were in effect ontological forces that unfolded in
progressive incremental combinations, giving in turn a particular
metaphysical character to a time, place, or thing, as well as a
discernible dynamic rhythm to change. Not surprisingly, the cosmology
of the *Kojiki* and *Nihon
shoki* reflects the eclectic outlook of Han Confucianism.



Textually, perhaps the most conspicuously Confucian-influenced writing
of ancient Japan is the so-called "Seventeen-Article
Constitution" (*Jushichijo kenpo*)
attributed to Prince Shotoku (573-621). Although this
document was not so much a constitution in the sense of a blueprint
for government and political organization as a set of maxims meant to
serve as standards for political society, it is clearly influenced by
Confucianism throughout. The opening article states, "Harmony is
to be valued," alluding to the *Analects* (1/12). In most
of the remaining articles, the Constitution advances a secular
advocacy of Confucian social principles such as the importance of the
natural hierarchy informing the political realm, as well as political
virtues such as loyalty, obedience, ritual decorum, impartiality,
diligence, trustworthiness, moderation, and public-mindedness. Though
these could be easily dismissed as mere platitudes, their affirmation
reflected the extent to which even at an early stage of political
development Confucian notions were privileged at the very core of
official discourse.



The political nomenclature that came to be used in ancient Japan,
including the term, *tenno*, meaning
"emperor," also derived, at least in part, from a host of
Confucian texts. To a large degree, Confucius and later Confucians
were teachers who emphasized the importance of learning as both a
source of pleasure and as a means for self-cultivation and even
perfection in the form of sagehood. Given the political orientation of
Confucianism, it should come as no surprise that study and learning
came to be considered the prerequisites for properly governing the
realm and bringing peace to the world.



Important political policies of ancient Japan also derived from
Confucian philosophical teachings. The *handen* system of equal
land distribution in Japan was an outgrowth of the
*Mencius*' account (3 A/3) of "humane
government." Mencius explained that people cannot be expected to
be good law-abiding members of society if they do not have the basic
material needs of life including food, clothing, and shelter. To
ensure that people have these, Mencius advocated the
"well-field" (C: *jingtian*) system of land
distribution, allotting an equal share for all families. According to
Mencius, humane government begins with this system of land
distribution. Although promulgated in the wake of the Taika reforms of
the seventh century, this idealistic approach to land distribution was
incrementally compromised by special allowances of semi-permanent land
holdings for Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, aristocrats, and
samurai rulers. Still, the very attempt at its implementation
reflected the extent to which the ancient Japanese initially sought to
realize egalitarian Confucian thinking about landholding as a means of
establishing the ethical foundations of political society.



Another noteworthy institution was the *daigakuryo*, or
the imperial academy, established for the education of imperial
princes and aristocrats who were likely to be involved in government
service. Ancient Japan never followed the Chinese practice of
selecting bureaucrats by way of civil service exams based on Confucian
learning and its practical applications. Yet, in sponsoring the
*daigakuryo* and a variety of provincial schools modeled
on the blueprint articulated in the Confucian *Book of Rites*,
ancient Japan established an elite educational system centered largely
around the study of Confucian texts and the socio-political values
advanced in them.



Following the Genpei War (1180-1185), a samurai regime was
established in Kamakura. Religiously and philosophically, the Kamakura
regime was far more eager to advance the development of Rinzai Zen
Buddhism, for example, rather than the teachings of Confucius. While
the latter had spread significantly during the peaceful years of
aristocratic imperial rule, they suffered for centuries during the
medieval period when warrior regimes preferred the arts of war as a
means to power over the Confucian foundations of moral virtue and
ritual refinement. The upheaval of the medieval period thus witnessed
a relative eclipse of Confucianism as it came to be enveloped, at
best, in a new syncretic cultural order, typically dominated by either
one form of Buddhism or another as they responded to the social and
personal suffering of the times.



Confucianism and Buddhism were, however, always closely interrelated
throughout Japanese history. The introduction of Confucianism, for
example, came alongside of the introduction of Buddhism. Later the
Neo-Confucian teachings of various Song philosophers including the
Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi, and Lu Xiangshan, were introduced to Japan
beginning in the thirteenth century, by Zen monks who had traveled to
China for advanced study of Chan teachings there. For centuries, the
teachings of the Song philosophers remained subjects of study largely
within the confines of Zen monasteries, attaining no independent
existence or philosophical integrity apart from Zen. This should
hardly be surprising, given that Neo-Confucian philosophers such as
Zhu Xi had themselves come to develop their Confucian thinking after
earlier study and practice of Chan Buddhism. While Zhu Xi came to
criticize Buddhism, other Neo-Confucians did not see Buddhism as
necessarily antithetical to Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism.
Ultimately, however, many Neo-Confucians did come to be more
distinctive and unrelenting critics of Buddhism than tolerant
competitors.



Some of the first indications of an effort to establish Neo-Confucian
learning as an independent branch of study and practice can be seen in
the reigns of Emperor Hanazono (r. 1308-1318) and Godaigo (r.
1318-1339). Godaigo's ill-fated Kenmu Restoration, an
attempt at restoring full political power to the imperial line, was
grounded in part in his understanding of imperial authority as defined
by Neo-Confucian texts. This complemented efforts by Watarai
Shinto theorists like Kitabatake Chikafusa who, at about the same
time, were trying to shore up Shinto arguments for imperial
authority. Also, during the Ashikaga period, some Rinzai Zen monks
returned from study in China advocating forms of Neo-Confucian
learning for their shoguns. And in the early 15th century, the
Ashikaga shogunate established the Ashikaga Academy where supposedly
several thousand students of Neo-Confucian teachings studied. Yet
still, the students were Zen monks.



If the inclusion of Confucian icons within samurai architecture can be
construed as evidence of the philosophical comeback of Confucianism,
Oda Nobunaga's (1534-1582) Azuchi Castle, featuring
paintings of Confucius and a host of Confucian sage figures, is surely
worthy of mention. The ultimate standing accorded Confucianism in
Azuchi Castle suggests that Nobunaga's thinking was moving away
from battlefield strategies and toward the task of governing the realm
and providing for peace and order throughout, especially as he
understood Buddhist institutions to be a threat rather than aid to his
plans for political control.


## 4. Early-Modern Confucianism: Major Philosophical Themes



Japanese developments of Confucian philosophy are often discussed in
relation to the Tokugawa period (1600-1868), with scant mention
of what came before, other than to say that Confucian thought had been
submerged earlier in an eclecticism dominated by Zen monks. Tokugawa
Confucianism is typically described by recitation of a succession of
names and schools. Much of this approach to the philosophical history
of Japanese Confucianism derives from interpretations advanced by
Inoue Tetsujiro (1855-1944), professor at Tokyo
Imperial University, in his monumental trilogy dating from the late
19th and early 20th centuries. Inoue is noteworthy for having viewed
Japanese Confucianism as "philosophy"
(*tetsugaku*), and for affirming that Confucian scholars had
set forth substantial and diverse philosophical perspectives in Japan
well in advance of the introduction of Western philosophy.



Vaguely following Hegelian notions of thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis, Inoue described the unfolding of Japanese philosophy by
explaining the dialectical relationships of three major philosophical
schools: the Zhu Xi School, the Wang Yangming School, and the School
of Ancient Learning. Ever since Inoue, Japanese Confucianism has been
most typically explained in terms of these three schools, as
represented by a succession of philosophers associated with each,
including Zhu Xi philosophers such as Fujiwara Seika
(1561-1617), Hayashi Razan (1583-1657), Yamazaki Ansai
(1619-1682); Wang Yangming philosophers such as Nakae Toju
(1608-1648) and Kumazawa Banzan (1619-1691); and
so-called Ancient Learning philosophers such as Yamaga Soko
(1622-1685), Ito Jinsai (1627-1705), and Ogyu
Sorai (1666-1728).



Rather than recite this interpretive schema, which in many respects,
despite its trilogistic appeal, simply does not accurately represent
developments of Japanese Confucianism, this essay will offer an
alternative approach. Here, Confucian philosophy is explained as a
discourse comprised of major concepts addressed by virtually all who
would be called Confucian philosophers. Quite typically, Japanese
Confucians articulated their philosophical visions by defining terms
that were at the core of their systems. While accounts of the meanings
of words varied widely, an easily discernible discourse developed.



Overall, Japanese Confucianism from the seventeenth through the
early-nineteenth centuries reasserts the integrity of language,
meaning, and discursive truth. This reassertion was made in opposition
to the Buddhist view of language which was, despite myriad sutras in
the Tripitaka, or the Buddhist canon, rather negative. Or at least
this was how many early-modern Japanese Confucians understood it.
According to these Confucian critics, the Buddhists held that ordinary
language lacked ultimate meaning and the ability to convey absolute
truth. Rather than packed with significant meaning, Buddhists insisted
that words were to be viewed as inherently empty. If wrongly
understood as conveyors of substantial meaning, they became the source
of profound error. Perhaps the unifying feature of Confucian
philosophizing in the early modern period was the view that words were
crucially important as vehicles for substantial meaning. Moreover,
words and their correct usage were deemed by Confucians as absolutely
essential to self-understanding, self-cultivation, and at the grandest
level, to governing the realm and bringing peace and prosperity to the
world. In this regard, Japanese Confucian philosophy can be viewed as
an East Asian philosophy of language engaged in a search for right
meaning. This "right meaning" was considered fundamental
to any attempt to resolve philosophical problems.



Insofar as the ultimate achievement of Japanese Confucian
philosophizing amounted to a relative turn away from nominalist
Buddhist claims about the semantic emptiness of words and the merely
conventional nature of meaning and truth, it set the philosophical
stage in profound ways for the conceptual assimilation of Western
philosophical learning during the Meiji period (1868-1912).
Because it was, when viewed comprehensively, a conceptual movement of
enormous consequence relative the development of modern philosophy in
Japan, the period from the seventeenth through the early-nineteenth
centuries is referred to here as "early modern,"
emphasizing its role in establishing the foundations of modernity,
rather than in terms of the more traditional terminology of historical
periodization where the "Tokugawa" or "Edo"
period is often associated with either "late medieval" or
"feudalistic" developments. Apart from the contributions
of Confucian philosophy to early-modern understandings of language,
meaning, and discursive truth, Confucian philosophizing in Japan
during this period was simply not always related to or an expression
of the interests of the Tokugawa shoguns, nor did it always issue from
the shogun's capital, Edo. Thus, the terms
"Tokugawa" and "Edo" as historical categories
do not satisfactorily convey the generally progressive proto-modern
thrust of Confucian philosophizing as a whole during this period.



Additionally, Japanese Confucian philosophy emerged in no small part
in opposition to the western religion of Christianity and all that was
associated with it, including the threat of possible domination. While
this was true throughout the Tokugawa period and in the Meiji as well,
it is nowhere more conspicuous than in an early Tokugawa work,
*Ethics* (*Irinsho*) by Matsunaga Sekigo. Writing
shortly after the brutal defeat of the Christian-nuanced Shimabara
Rebellion of 1637-38, Sekigo used words rather than swords to
combat what he viewed as the dangerous foreign heterodoxy might mean
ruin to the Japanese polity. Unlike the earlier debates against the
Christians carried out by the Buddhists on strictly metaphysical
grounds Seikigo aimed to demonstrate the superiority of Confucianism
as a philosophy that was universal, in his view, and yet distinctively
East Asian and Japanese in its cultural roots. Arguably, later
affirmations of Confucianism were meant to do much the same, even long
after the effective threat of the spread of Christianity had been
stopped by government policies such as Buddhist temple registration.
Somewhat similarly, in the late Meiji, Inoue Tetsujiro defined
Japanese Confucianism as Japan's first philosophy, yet he also
stood as one of the most outspoken and vehement critics of
Christianity as a system of thought that was inherently mistaken and
completely inappropriate for Japanese. Throughout much of its history,
Japanese Confucianism has therefore implicitly if not explicitly
opposed Christianity on philosophical grounds.


### 4.1 Language



As various forms of Buddhism dominated the medieval period of Japanese
philosophical history, so did Buddhist estimations of words and
meaning come to inform the minds of many of the philosophically
inclined. While some aspects of Rinzai Zen esteemed components of
traditional Chinese arts and letters, the more central spiritual
praxis was more renowned for its their anti-intellectualism. This
latter stance was well expressed in the use of *koan*, or
paradoxical exchanges meant to facilitate realization of
Buddha-nature. The gist of the Zen teachings was that words, at best,
are mere conventions useful for everyday communication. The
transitory, insubstantial way of things (suchness or emptiness) cannot
be adequately captured by the fixed meanings of conventional language.
When transmitted from teacher to disciple, the highest level of truth
could only be conveyed in a mind-to-mind transmission, one that
typically eluded simple discursive language.



Generally speaking, the Neo-Confucian position of early-modern Japan
was defined in opposition to assertions of the semantic emptiness or
radical nominalism so often advanced by Buddhists. While the
Neo-Confucian affirmation that words convey significant meaning might
seem commonplace, it was hardly so at the juncture of Japan's
medieval and early modern history. Indeed, the rise of Neo-Confucian
discourse in the Tokugawa should be understood as a reassertion of the
meaningfulness of language and its ultimate value in relation to any
understandings of truth.



An early expression of the Neo-Confucian belief in the ultimate value
of language and meaning was made by Hayashi Razan in the preface to
his colloquial rendition of Chen Beixi's (1159-1223)
*The Meanings of Neo-Confucian Terms* (*Xingli ziyi*).
Incidentally, the latter text can easily be interpreted as a sustained
reaffirmation of the correct meanings of terms in the wake of an age
of semantic skepticism, and as a defense of Confucian realism over
rampant Buddhist nominalism. That Razan devoted much of his final
years to authoring a lengthy colloquial explication of Beixi's
*Ziyi* speaks volumes about his view of the importance of
language. In his preface, Razan explained the crucial nature of
language by reasoning that "the minds of the sages and worthies
are manifest in their words, and their words are found in their
writings. Unless we understand the meanings of their words, how can we
comprehend the minds of the sages and worthies?" Elsewhere Razan
emphasized that people could never realize the minds of the sages and
worthies in themselves unless they first understood the remarks of the
sages and worthies as recorded in the words of texts communicating
them.



Razan even suggested that thorough immersion in the words of the sages
was the best way to achieve a kind of comprehensive, mystic
enlightenment experience. Thus when asked about the methods involved
in the study of words, Razan explained,



> 
> Read them horizontally! Read them vertically! Read them from the left
> and from the right! Comprehend their source! Analyze them and
> synthesize them until you thoroughly penetrate them from beginning to
> end. Ultimately you will understand that everything in the
> sages' writings culminates in a unified grasp of principle. When
> you realize a mystical unity with the sages' writings, one in
> which the self and those texts are non-dual, you will have read them
> well! How could that be true only of the *Six Classics*? The
> same method holds for reading other classics!
> 



Razan was hardly alone in emphasizing the semantic integrity of words.
Ito Jinsai's most comprehensive philosophical text, the
*Gomo jigi* (*The Meaning of Words in the Analects and
Mencius*), articulates both a defense of the meaningfulness of
words, and in-depth, systematic analyses of the meanings of some two
dozen high-level philosophical terms. In his preface to the
*Gomo jigi*, Jinsai explained his pedagogical approach in
terms of the study of language and meaning. There he stated,



> 
> I teach students to scrutinize the *Analects* and
> *Mencius* thoroughly so that they will discern the lineage and
> semantic importance of the sagely Confucian concepts. When so trained,
> students recognize the true lineage of [philosophical] notions and
> fathom their meanings without error. Too few scholars study such
> philological matters as they relate to the study of meaning, despite
> the fact that a single misinterpretation can lead to errors that are
> hardly trivial. Detailed philological studies of the *Analects*
> and *Mencius* facilitate understanding of those sagely texts
> and keep students from erratically manipulating them by imposing their
> subjective thoughts on them.
> 



Jinsai's emphasis on semantic etymology and philological
instruction was meant to offset Buddhist training and presuppositions:
he wanted his students to recognize the difference between Buddhist
terms with their various nuances and those of Confucianism. In
particular Jinsai was offended to see so many seemingly Buddhist terms
in Neo-Confucian discourse. In an attempt to rid such terms from
Neo-Confucianism, Jinsai took great pains to document the heterodox
lineages of words so that they could be eliminated from Neo-Confucian
writings.



Brief introductory essays defending the ability of language to refer
to reality are relatively common in early-modern Neo-Confucianism.
Ogyu Sorai's (1666-1728) *Benmei*
(*Distinguishing Names*), presents an even more in-depth
analysis of philosophical terminology than Jinsai's
*Gomo jigi*. In the preface to his *Benmei*, Sorai
highlighted the political edge intrinsic to language and meaning, at
least as understood by many Confucians and Neo-Confucians alike. After
allowing that some words are coined by commoners, Sorai emphasized
that the more abstract and philosophical terms are the very ones
articulated by sages for the sake of instructing people in the
foundations of civilized life. Sorai then added that because these
terms convey such powerful teachings, princes are cautious in using
them.



Sorai next alludes to a passage from the *Analects* (13/3)
which relates that Confucius had said that if given charge of the
government of a state, his first priority would be correcting the
meanings and usages of words. When asked the reason for this,
Confucius replied in effect that socially and politically, all else
depends upon correct usage of language. Without that, there would be
no limits to which people might go. Sorai proceeds to sketch his
understanding of the problems related to philosophical meaning in his
day, adding that his intent in authoring the *Benmei* was to
understand the right relationships between words and things so that
the minds of the sages could be fathomed.



In essence, Sorai believed that by rightly defining words he was
providing the foundations for the integrity of a rightly governed
social and political order. Ultimately, then, Confucians and
Neo-Confucians in their repeated reaffirmations of the importance of
language and meaning were not simply indulging in philological
exercises or arcane semantic research. Instead, they were engaged in
an effort to recover the way (C: *dao*/J: *michi*) for
the sake of establishing a means to sagely truth, and a ground for a
righteous political order.



Many other examples of the Confucian reassertion of meaning in the
early-modern period could be given. Suffice it to say that the concern
for language so evident in Confucian writings reflected both a
profound turn away from what they considered to be the empty talk of
Buddhists, especially Zen Buddhists, and toward a concern for defining
the conceptual bases for a well-ordered society. The need to defend
the integrity of language gradually subsided as Japanese thinkers
increasingly recognized the importance of words and meaning for
philosophical analysis. This reinforced an emphasis on linguistic
truth and meaning as a means for providing political order, an
emphasis that continued well into the modern period.


### 4.2 Metaphysics



An important Neo-Confucian contribution to the philosophical
consciousness of early-modern Japan was its metaphysical account of
the world of ordinary experience as fully real. Early in the Tokugawa
period, Hayashi Razan was among the leaders of those Japanese
theorists who reiterated, with some distinctive variations, the
metaphysical accounts synthesized by Zhu Xi during late-Song China.
Essentially, this metaphysics explained reality in terms of two
components, *ri* ("principle" or
"pattern") and *ki* ("generative
force"). *Ri* referred to the rational and moral order of
things generally, as well as that of each and every thing in terms of
their particulars. In Razan's view, there is a *ri* for
each aspect of existence, making all particulars what they are in
actuality. At the same time, there is an essential universal element
in *ri* that defined a larger realm of commonality in terms of
what things can potentially be. Thus, for example, the human nature
that defines all people as people is referred to as *ri*,
indicating that the rational order integral to humanity is shared in
common. But more importantly, there is a normative, moral side of
*ri* which makes it as much an ethical aspect of existence as
it is a rational one. In the case of humanity, as well as virtually
all of the ten-thousand things of the cosmos, *ri* is defined
as morally good. This affirmation means, in the case of humanity, that
human nature is good. Viewed in the perspective of all things existing
between heaven and earth, the goodness of *ri* means that the
world as such is also ethically good by nature and in terms of what it
is to become as well. No doubt evil enters in, but that is not the
original state, nor should it be the ultimate fate of things.



The other component of reality, that of *ki*, accounts for the
substantial, creative reality of all that exists in the world. *Ki
i*s the vital, transformative stuff of all that exists, including
things that are solid, liquid, and gaseous. This *ki* is
described variously in terms of its clarity or turbidity, but
invariably things that exist have it as their substantial being.
Simply put, nothing exists without *ki*. In certain respects,
Neo-Confucian philosophers such as Zhu Xi and Razan affirmed that
*ki* was the stuff of reality in order to counter the Buddhist
claim that all things are insubstantial or empty. While admitting that
things are not always as they might seem, Neo-Confucians typically
affirmed that there was a substantial basis even behind the illusory
and ephemeral.



Generally speaking, Razan and other Neo-Confucian philosophers who
affirmed the duality of *ri* and *ki* added that it was
impossible for there to be *ri* without *ki*, or
*ki* without *ri*. In reality, the two were absolutely
inseparable. Yet there were moments of equivocation, especially while
analyzing the two notions, when Razan, following a long line of
Neo-Confucian philosophers including Zhu Xi himself, emphasized the
priority of *ri* over *ki*. No sooner was this broached,
however, than it was also denied, with the appended insistence that
one could not exist without the other. Nevertheless, later critics of
the more standard Neo-Confucian line rarely bypassed the opportunity
to criticize at length those who privileged *ri* over
*ki.*



Ito Jinsai was one such critic. It would be easy to conclude that
since Jinsai differed with orthodox Neo-Confucians such as Zhu Xi and
their Japanese exponents, including Razan and others, that he was not
a Neo-Confucian himself. There can be no doubt that Jinsai was not an
orthodox, Zhu-Xi style Neo-Confucian. But then being a Neo-Confucian
did not necessarily mean that one had to agree with Zhu Xi on all
counts. Indeed Neo-Confucians often criticized one another to no end,
but nonetheless remained Neo-Confucians. Doubt, questioning, and
rigorous critique were at the heart of Neo-Confucianism as a
philosophical movement. Jinsai's inclusion of a metaphysics of
*ki* and *ri,* along with his critical disagreement with
Zhu Xi over their relative priority, arguably made him an exemplary
Neo-Confucian. Certainly, there was scant ground for such a systematic
metaphysics as Jinsai affirmed in any of the ancient texts, especially
the *Analects* and *Mencius*, that he otherwise
identified with. In this respect, the common characterization of
Jinsai as an "ancient learning" (*kogaku*)
philosopher who simply rejected Neo-Confucianism is misleading.



Rather than a dualism of generative force and principle, Jinsai
affirmed an ostensible monism of *ki*, one which held that
nothing existed other than *ki.* Yet Jinsai did not deny that
there is *ri* in the world: rather, he simply subordinated it
to *ki*, suggesting that while only *ki* exists,
*ri* dwells within *ki.* Apart from its embedded nature
within *ki*, *ri* has neither priority nor independent
ontological status of any sort. It is wholly enveloped within
*ki*. In making these claims, Jinsai was in effect rebalancing
the more orthodox but often ambiguous Neo-Confucian metaphysics, away
from its more standard equivocation hesitantly favoring some sort of
prior status for *ri* by insisting in a more thoroughgoing
manner a monism of generative force.



A corollary of Jinsai's outspoken subordination of principle
within generative force was his denial of the relatively orthodox
Neo-Confucian claim that human nature is united in morally good
*ri*. Rather than a universalistic affirmation of the goodness
of human nature, Jinsai emphasizes the diversity of human nature as a
person's inborn disposition, ranging from good to bad. Needless
to say, Jinsai saw the Cheng-Zhu claim that human nature is principle,
or *ri*, as profoundly mistaken. After all, in Jinsai's
view, *ri*, which as a written word depicts the veins in a
piece of jade, was a "dead word," i.e., one that refers to
an inanimate order not typically associated with the vitality of the
human world. In contrast to *ri*, Jinsai extolled
*michi*, or the way, as a "living word," i.e., one
which symbolized the dynamism of human activity.



Jinsai and Sorai both criticized the Neo-Confucian metaphysical notion
of principle, stating that rather than a word with ancient, and
therefore legitimate, Confucian origins, *ri* was a term that
had derived in part from Daoist and Buddhist discourse and so was
often wrongly construed in Neo-Confucian discussions out of ignorance
of, or disregard for, the sanctity of the original teachings of
Confucianism. Jinsai's standard on this count was supposedly the
lexicon of the *Analects* and *Mencius*, while
Sorai's was the more ancient *Six Classics*. Despite
their disagreements on the level of antiquity that should be
considered as the source of legitimate philosophical discourse, both
agreed that principle was a problematic part of it and so should not
be naively highlighted in metaphysical discussions.



Jinsai and Sorai's critiques notwithstanding, the metaphysics of
*ri* and *ki* came to enjoy a degree of philosophical
domination in the remainder of the early modern period, especially
among orthodox Neo-Confucians. Although often modified in one respect
or another, the dualism of substantial, energetic generative force and
rational, ethical order seemed like a compelling and sufficient
account for the diversity of experience. Not surprisingly, both
*ri* and *ki* were appropriated in any number of
neologisms of the Meiji period to refer to terms from western
philosophy and the sciences as they were translated into Japanese. One
example is the word "logic," or *ronri* in
Japanese. The word *ronri*, when considered not as a unified
word but as two words that can be read apart, indicates
"discussions (*ron*) of principle (*ri*)," a
typically Neo-Confucian activity. Although there were Huayan Buddhist
usages of these terms, when the modern lexicon of theoretical
discourse crystalized in the Meiji period, it was the Neo-Confucian
usages that were then most relevant to the new terms coined such as
*ronri*.


### 4.3 Doubt and the Critical Spirit



One of the more distinctive features of the various expressions of
Neo-Confucian philosophy in early-modern Japan was their shared
emphasis on the importance of doubt in learning. Chinese philosophers
from the Song dynasty, from Zhang Zai (1020-1077) through Zhu
Xi, emphasized the need for doubt and skepticism in relation to
achieving any real progress in philosophical learning. In Japan, doubt
came to have notable advocates, first with Hayashi Razan, one of the
earliest and most consistent advocates of Neo-Confucianism, and later
with Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714), to the end a professed
Neo-Confucian, but one who advanced one of the most systematic
expressions of philosophical doubt in the early-modern period. With
Razan and Ekken, skepticism was never an end in itself, but rather a
significant waypoint on the way toward coming to more solid
conclusions regarding philosophical questions, and indeed, all matters
related to informed engagement in this world.



One of Ekken's most famous texts, the *Taigiroku*, is an
account of his professed doubts about the validity of the teachings of
Zhu Xi. Ekken opens his work by quoting Lu Xiangshan
(1139-1192), Zhu Xi's contemporary, who observed,
"In learning, a person should be worried when he has no doubts.
If he has doubts, then progress follows. As a result, he will learn
something." Zhu Xi made the case for doubting along similar
lines, noting, "Those with major doubts make much progress.
Those with minor doubts make little progress. Those without doubts
make no progress." Such remarks relating to the need for doubt
and its resolution were quoted and paraphrased repeatedly by Razan,
Ekken, and a number of others, as they sought to realize higher levels
of philosophical confidence or even certitude regarding their
positions.



One reason for the invitation to doubt extended by Neo-Confucians
seems to have been their realization that many Neo-Confucian tenets,
especially metaphysical ones, were profoundly novel. Upon first
hearing these new ideas, students might have many questions before
they could accept them. So, the Neo-Confucians typically encouraged
students to ask questions and reflect critically on the matters
prompting their doubts. By doing so, the critical spirit so often
associated with philosophy as a discipline in the West was clearly
instilled in the early-modern students of Neo-Confucian thought. There
can be little question that the number of extended critiques of
Neo-Confucian thinking in the early-modern period were in part an
outgrowth of the invitation to doubt advocated by proponents of
Neo-Confucianism. Far from a rigid and unchanging orthodoxy that
allowed for little if any questioning and doubt, Neo-Confucianism
actively engaged doubt as a prerequisite to progress in learning.


### 4.4 Ethics



Confucian philosophy in Japan, ancient, medieval, and early-modern, is
often caricatured as a teaching of loyalty and trustworthiness, that
is, one suited to authoritarian rulers and obedient subjects, as well
as warrior-lords and their samurai followers. No doubt loyalty and
trustworthiness were integral to the Confucian ethic, but equally
important were more universal ethical prescriptions such as humaneness
(*jin*). Humaneness was described variously, but most often
associated with the injunction not to do to others what one would not
want done to oneself. Humaneness might well be deemed the most
quintessential of all Confucian and Neo-Confucian virtues. While
Neo-Confucians affirmed the ancient and fundamental meaning of
humaneness as the "golden rule," they added substantially
to the meaning of humaneness by suggesting that being truly humane led
one to become mystically one body with everything in existence. While
such a unity was grounded substantially in the single generative force
constituting all reality (*ichigenki*), it was equally a
function of recognizing other selves as oneself, and other entities,
sentient or not, as part of a cosmic, familial continuum of essential
oneness and wholeness. Moreover, the unity reflected one's
immersive participation in the generative activities of heaven and
earth, and ultimate identification with the all-inclusive unity of the
limitless creative potential of the cosmos. At a more rationalistic
level, this unity was equally grounded in a cognitive grasp of the
rational principles defining human nature's goodness and the
core ethical goodness of all things and their limitless becoming.



Another ethical notion crucial to Confucian and Neo-Confucian ethics
was that of *gi*, or justice. Often translated as
"righteousness" and "rightness," *gi*
also conveys a sense, in some contexts, of duty, responsibility, and
obligation. To affirm that something or someone is *gi*
amounted to ethical praise of the highest order, while denying the
same meant virtual condemnation. *Gi* was often combined with
humaneness to form the compound, *jingi*, indicating humaneness
and justice, inherently political virtues that established the clear
legitimacy of a regime embodying them.



From Mencius forward, fidelity to *gi* was often defined in
terms of one's willingness to sacrifice one's life if
realization of *gi* and one's continued existence could
not be realized in tandem. One of the most famous debates of the
Tokugawa period centered around an incident occurring in 1703
concerning a group of forty-seven samurai who had been left masterless
(*ronin*) due to the shogun's forcing the suicide of
their lord. The question was whether the *ronin* were
acting according to *gi* in taking revenge upon the man who
had, in the first place, prompted their deceased lord to commit the
offense that led to his being condemned to self-destruction. Clearly,
the issue was not the legal one of whether the *ronin*
obeyed or disobeyed the law, but instead the moral one of whether they
acted on the basis of a sense of rightness and justice. Opinions
varied, of course, but that the debate was widespread and meaningful
reveals the extent to which Neo-Confucian ethical notions such as
*gi* had become integral, substantive factors in public
discourse in early-modern Japan.


### 4.5 Mind



The early-modern Neo-Confucians commonly described mind as the master
of the body. All of the body's activities are under the control
of the mind. As a combination of *ri* (principle) and
*ki* (generative force), the mind can serve as the master of
the body because of its capacity for clear and unclouded intelligence.
Due to the *ri* within it, the mind is originally good. Though
evil might intrude into its workings, the mind's original state
is one of ethical goodness.



The Neo-Confucian position may not seem particularly profound unless
we consider a Buddhist position it opposes. Namely, some Buddhists
held that the mind is essentially empty delusion and ignorance. Rather
than dismissing the everyday mind as the source of error, or
advocating the realization of a mind that is "no-mind,"
Neo-Confucians sought to describe the mind as a real, substantial
entity in which intelligible ethical and rational principles
indwelled, enabling humanity to know both what is, and what is right.
The knowledge provided by the mind was not considered delusional or
unreal, but rather as real as any could possibly be. Insofar as the
principles that dwell within the mind are identical with those
pervading the external world, the mind became the foundation for a
mystic union with all existent things.



Often the mind was discussed in relation to the feelings issuing from
it. Most Neo-Confucians considered human feelings - pleasure,
anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, and desire - to issue from the
mind when it encounters things. As long as these feelings are
expressed in accord with principle, they are considered natural
outgrowths of the mind. If manifested insufficiently or to excess, the
feelings are judged to be negative and in need of control. So as to
enable the mind to master itself appropriately, Neo-Confucians
sometimes advocated a Zen-like practice called
"quiet-sitting." Essentially a meditation upon one's
original, moral nature, quiet-sitting perceives the calmness and
stillness of the mind before its engagement with the world of
activity. The latter was typically seen as a source of
overstimulation, one which could easily distract or distort the mind.
If properly practiced, quiet-sitting could enable one to engage in any
activity without overstepping or falling short in terms of emotive
reactions. Such a mind was viewed as one well-regulated in accordance
with the mean.



Neo-Confucian critics such as Ito Jinsai and Ogyu Sorai
objected to characterizations of the mind in terms of
"stillness" and "calmness," asserting that
those attributes harked back to Buddhism or Daoism, not Confucianism.
Whereas their criticisms had some merit, previous orthodox
Neo-Confucians such as Hayashi Razan had insisted that the Confucian
usage of terms such as "stillness" and
"calmness" meant something profoundly different from what
was meant by Buddhists and Daoists. Ultimately, Razan insisted, the
mind is an active thing, meant to be engaged in ongoing relations with
the world at large and so, "stillness" is being poised for
engagement, rather than an end in itself.


### 4.6 Human Nature



One of the many terms used in East Asian philosophical discussions to
refer generally to the ideas of the Song philosophers of the Cheng-Zhu
tradition and their exponents in later dynastic periods, was
*seirigaku* (C: *xinglixue*), or "the school of
human nature and principle." The two words "human
nature" (C: *xing*; J: *sei*) and
"principle" (C: *li*; J: *ri*) were joined
in part as a reflection of the Neo-Confucian identification of human
nature with principle. In Japan, this position, equating human nature
and principle, was affirmed by orthodox proponents of the Cheng-Zhu
teachings such as Hayashi Razan and later, Yamazaki Ansai and their
followers. In many respects, their accounts of human nature can be
construed as an egalitarian affirmation of the commonly shared nature
of all people. The grammar of most statements asserting the identity
of human nature and principle support this understanding: they leave
little room for doubt that orthodox Cheng-Zhu thinkers were saying
that all people have the same human nature, and that that human nature
is principle. To the extent that they explained the myriad differences
in humanity, they did so by reference to variations in the clarity or
turbidity of the generative force (*ki*) of particular
individuals.



The ethical nuance assigned to human nature was a function of the
Cheng-Zhu understanding of principle in both positive and normative
terms. Not only did principle indicate what "is," it also
referred to what "ought to be" in a particular entity. In
all matters, including human nature, principle was considered to be
morally good. Thus at the macrocosmic level, the world of ordinary
life was viewed not as the Buddhists saw it in terms of delusion,
error, and anguish, but rather as the bountiful and morally good
creation of heaven and earth, leading to the on-going production and
reproduction of the ten-thousand things of the world in which we live.
At the microcosmic level, rather than stressing human thoughts and
feelings as given to attachments leading to one painful rebirth after
another, the orthodox early-modern Neo-Confucians viewed the person as
ethically good by virtue of their human nature. Those with clear
generative force perhaps better understood and manifested the goodness
of their human nature, while those with more turbid generative force
did so less aptly. Nevertheless, with education and effort all could
perfect themselves so as to realize fully the original goodness of
their human nature. The human ideal of sagehood, more sought after
than perhaps ever actually realized, was recognized as one that all
could, with sufficient effort, achieve.



The orthodox Neo-Confucian explanation of human nature was frequently
affirmed in early-modern Japan, especially in philosophically informed
circles. However, those circles tended to be populated by individuals
representing hereditary, status-bound social estates. At the top of
the social system were the aristocrats of the ancient imperial
capital, Kyoto, including the imperial family. Yet, during the
Tokugawa period, the aristocracy was both respected and controlled by
the samurai leadership exercising coercive governing power. Apart from
the aristocracy, which was by and large restricted to the ancient
imperial capital, the samurai were at the top of the secular social
system. Below them were peasant farmers, then artisans, and finally
merchants. Shinto and Buddhist clergy, often defined by
hereditary lines as well, were esteemed as outside the secular social
system. Thus, in practice, there was precious little egalitarianism in
the early-modern social system.



Reflecting the inequalities of the day, Ito Jinsai challenged the
orthodox Neo-Confucian view by asserting that human nature is simply
the physical disposition (*kishitsu*) that each person is born
with. In formulating this view, Jinsai was essentially agreeing with
Dong Zhongshu (ca. 179-104 B.C.E.), who defined human nature as
"the inborn disposition" of each person. But Jinsai also
sympathized with the thinking of Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073), a Song
philosopher who is often considered an early exponent of the
Neo-Confucian philosophy that found its most complete form in the
thought of Zhu Xi. Zhou Dunyi differentiated five natures including
the morally strong, the immorally strong, the morally weak, the
immorally weak, and the mean which relies on neither strength or
weakness.



Jinsai did not seek to advance Zhou's position as much as to
expand it into a recognition of the manifold diversity of human
natures. A scholar by profession, Jinsai's own social standing
was that of a townsperson, presumably of merchant background. The
orthodox Neo-Confucian egalitarian position was at odds with the
official hierarchy, but so was Jinsai's view insofar as it
affirmed a far more individualized diversity than the established
hierarchy allowed. Though Jinsai's theory of human nature as
innate, individual physical disposition was reformulated by Ogyu
Sorai, it did not achieve wide acceptance in early-modern Japan.
Despite the extent to which it was at odds with reality, Confucian
pronouncements on human nature in the early-modern period tended to
repeat the Neo-Confucian line that human nature, as principle
(*ri*), is morally good.


### 4.7 Political Thought



There is always a political nuance to Confucian philosophizing.
Confucius himself first sought to offer his teachings to a ruler,
thinking that they would provide an effective solution to the
political crises of his times. The human ideal extolled by Confucius
was that of the *junzi* (J: *kunshi*), or the "son
of a ruler" that is, a "prince." (Some translators
have rendered this term as "gentleman," "noble
person," or "exemplary person.") But for Confucius,
the true prince was not one born to the position. Rather, Confucius
most admired the person who cultivated himself to such a point that he
embodied a host of virtues associated with royal birth. Confucius had
little use for the person who was born to that station but neglected
the task of self-cultivation. Such a person, in Confucius' view,
hardly merited the standing accorded by birth. This understanding of
the true prince implied that those born to high rank must strive to
earn, through self-cultivation, the kind of respect and right to
exercise power otherwise associated with their standing.



Mencian political thought was grounded in the view that government
ought to be humane, and provide for the best interests of humanity. In
this context, the ruler was characterized as the parent of the people,
and his subjects as his own children, emphasizing the importance that
he should attach to their welfare. Mencius at points explained success
in governing as a matter of gaining the hearts-and-minds of the people
at large, suggesting that without popular support rule would not be
effective. In addressing questions related to instances in the past
where tyrants had been executed, Mencius argued that there had been no
instances of regicide. Instead, those put to death had been common
criminals, having forfeited their legitimacy by their very
mistreatment of people. Implied, of course, was that rulers who did
the same might be legitimately dealt with in a similar manner.



Given the conditional perspective that Confucianism affirmed in
relation to governing, it is not surprising that Confucian teachings
tended to circulate first and foremost among the ruling elite
throughout most of Japanese history. After all, had they had a wider
circulation, the political implications might have resulted in even
more challenges to those in power than actually occurred. Even more
problematic than the views of Confucius and Mencius were those in the
*Book of Historical Documents* related to the notion of
*tianming* (J: *tenmei*), or "the mandate of
heaven." According to numerous passages in the *History*,
if a ruler repeatedly abandoned his concern for the people, heaven
would eventually give the mandate to rule to a new line, one that
distinguished itself on the basis of concern for the people. In this
process, the role of the people was instrumental. One passage in the
*History* even states that heaven and the people are nearly the
same: "heaven sees with the eyes of the people, and hears with
the ears of the people."



There can be no question that this notion entered Japan, as surely as
the classical literature of China did. That the *tianming*
notion attained no wide circulation reflects the extent to which
Confucian political teachings in particular were restricted to the
ruling elite rather than taught to the population at large. It must be
added, however, that as Confucian learning became more widespread,
even the peasantry began to understand the basics of Confucian
political thought and developed clear expectations regarding humane
government. Early-modern peasant protest movements and uprisings were
often grounded in the notion that righteous and humane rulers ought to
provide for the just interests of society as a whole. When such
expectations were not fulfilled, it was not uncommon for peasants to
make their dissatisfaction evident through remonstration and
rebellion.



By comparison with the ancient, foundational writings, Neo-Confucian
political philosophy was far more concerned with the project of
ensuring that the ruler understood the benefits of self-cultivation.
One of the most pertinent texts, the *Great Learning* (C:
*Daxue*; J: *Daigaku*), outlines how a ruler should
proceed if he wishes to manifest luminous virtue, noting that the
project most fundamentally involves self-cultivation. For the latter
to be realized, the ruler must first make his mind correct and his
thoughts sincere. To realize this project, he must extend his
understanding of things by studying and investigating them. If those
ruling could cultivate themselves in this way, then they would find
their families well ordered, their states well governed, and all below
heaven enjoying great peace. Effective rule was thus cast as a matter
of self-cultivation on the part of those ruling. This was the central
political philosophy taught by orthodox Neo-Confucians such as Hayashi
Razan, Yamazaki Ansai and their followers in Tokugawa Japan.



One major challenge to this approach came from Ogyu Sorai.
According to Sorai, the orthodox Neo-Confucian position was
impractical because it was based on the assumption that the human mind
can control itself. In Sorai's view, this was simply impossible
because it would entail dividing the mind into two entities: the
controlling mind and the controlled mind. Rather than expect the mind
to control the mind, Sorai appealed to the *Book of History*
and its teaching that the rites of "the early kings" be
used to control not only the mind, but the socio-political realm at
large. Sorai claimed that his philosophy was based on a correct
reading of the ancient classics, especially the *Book of
History*, but it is clear that he leaves a great deal out. Most
particularly, he passes over the *tianming* notion completely,
even though it is at the very core of the *Book of History*.
Sorai also extolled the rites and music and their effectiveness for
ruling, but never provided great clarity regarding what these
included. Moreover, he repeatedly praised "the early
kings" as the only sages who had and would ever exist in human
history. The sagehood of the early kings was a function of their
having established the way of social and political organization, a way
that could never be surpassed, only followed. Sorai identified that
way, "the way of the sages," as consisting in the rites
and music, as well as the laws and bureaucratic forms necessary for
good government.



Ultimately, it seems that Sorai's political philosophy meant to
extol in later history those who stood as the representatives of the
early kings. For him, these were the samurai ruling elite of his day,
and their imposition of rites, laws, and administrative government as
a means of implementing the greatest peace and prosperity for the
greatest number. Sorai surely had little faith in the efficacy of
internal means of self control; instead, he consistently advocated
external strategies such as rites and music, penal laws, and
administrative government as the means for providing, along
utilitarian lines, for the welfare of all.



Sorai's political philosophy, though one of the most systematic
statements offered during the early-modern period, was never fully
accepted as the philosophy of the ruling elite, despite the fact that
that seems to have been Sorai's explicit intent. Rather, his
political philosophy ended up being viewed as a heterodox alternative,
one much akin to that of Xunzi in ancient China.


### 4.8 Education



A most important contribution of Neo-Confucianism to early-modern
Japanese culture was its emphasis on education at virtually all
levels. Orthodox Neo-Confucianism viewed learning as one of the most
basic methods of self-cultivation, one that contributed positively to
the full realization of a person's morally good human nature. At
the highest level, education and learning were considered integral
components in the realization of a well-governed state and peace
throughout the world.



According to Zhu Xi, learning involved most basically the process of
emulation. This account of learning came to be widely endorsed in
early-modern Japan, even by heterodox thinkers such as Ito Jinsai
and Ogyu Sorai. The model that Jinsai used in explaining learning
as emulation was that of calligraphy. In learning to write, a student
is presented with the example of his teacher, and then is expected to
emulate it. Sustained efforts at emulation lead eventually to
comprehension and the ability of the student to perform thoughtfully
the task that has been learned.



While the practice of learning as emulation was widely endorsed,
early-modern philosophers disagreed over the subject matter of
education. Orthodox Neo-Confucians typically emphasized broad learning
in the ancient classics and historical literature, but most
importantly they extolled the value of studying the *Four
Books* and Zhu Xi's commentaries on them. Reflecting the
orthodox Neo-Confucian value placed on education is the first of the
*Four Books*, the *Great Learning.* Described as
the "gateway" to all subsequent learning, the *Great
Learning* outlines the series of methods to be mastered in order
for a person to manifest luminous virtue. In this process, the
investigation of things is preliminary. With such investigation, our
understanding of things becomes complete and our thoughts sincere.
Then, our minds are rectified. With this comes the realization of a
cultivated self, one capable of regulating families, governing states,
and bringing peace to the world.



Orthodox Neo-Confucians viewed the *Great Learning* as a work
for mature students. To provide for the most widely educated society
possible, other texts, such as the *Elementary Learning*,
addressed topics for younger minds. In early-modern Japan, the
Neo-Confucian emphasis on education also led to the formulation of a
curriculum for women, as is evident in the *Great Learning for
Women* (*Onna daigaku*), attributed to Kaibara Ekken, the
*Elementary Learning on Samurai Teachings* (*Bukyo
shogaku*) by Yamaga Soko, and other educational works
for townspeople and farmers.



Heterodox thinkers such as Jinsai and Sorai often challenged orthodox
Neo-Confucians on matters related to the texts elevated for study.
Jinsai in particular affirmed that the most important works for
students were the *Analects* of Confucius and the
*Mencius*. Distancing himself considerably from the orthodox
position, Jinsai offered a series of arguments seeking to prove, on
textual and philosophical grounds, that the *Great Learning*
was not a Confucian text. While he admitted that there was value in
the study of the ancient classics, Jinsai believed that the
*Analects* and *Mencius* were by and large sufficient
for meaningful education.



By contrast, Ogyu Sorai emphasized the efficacy of studying the
*Six Classics*. In Sorai's view, the *Six
Classics* conveyed the words of the sages predating Confucius. He
considered their words unique insofar as they enabled humanity to
fathom the minds of the sages themselves. Sorai did value texts such
as the *Analects,* but decidedly less so. After all, Sorai
reasoned, Confucius had not been fully a sage, at least not in his
strictest sense of the term. For him, the sages were those ancient
figures who had established the basic way of socio-political civilized
life, the way that Confucius later championed as a transmitter. Yet,
far more than learning through books, Sorai valued learning gained
through practice in following the way. With this kind of performative
learning, students were expected to come gradually to realize a full
level of practical knowledge: knowing how to do something rather than
knowing that something is the case.



The proliferation of education in early-modern Japan, producing
mid-nineteenth-century literacy rates comparable to those of the most
advanced Western nations, resulted from a complex set of factors,
including the development of mass printing, the creation of schools in
the various samurai domains, and the rise of educational movements
related to Japanese literature and culture that were highly critical
of Chinese-style philosophy of any sort. Yet, at the base of much of
this was the Neo-Confucian view, shared generally by orthodox and
heterodox thinkers, that education, whether practical or discursive or
both, was a necessary ingredient in the life of all persons who might
hope to realize their full potential.


### 4.9 Critiques of Buddhism



The liberation of Neo-Confucianism from the domination of Zen learning
only became possible in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth
centuries, following Toyotomi Hideyoshi's (1537-1598)
invasions of the Korean peninsula. As a result, a number of
Neo-Confucian texts that included pointed critiques of Buddhism came
into Japan. As the anti-Buddhist perspectives of these texts came to
be ever more influential throughout the seventeenth century, an
increasingly common theme in Japanese Neo-Confucian discourse was its
relationship, positive or negative, to Buddhism.



One of the more interesting Confucian critiques of Buddhism was
articulated by Ito Jinsai (1627-1705), a Kyoto-based
scholar who, significantly enough, had neither been brought up nor
educated by Buddhists. In his discussion of "the way,"
Jinsai suggested that the Buddha believed emptiness was the way, and
that mountains, rivers, and land masses were all unreal. In
opposition, Jinsai argued along distinctly commonsensical lines: that
for myriad ages heaven and earth have sustained life; the sun and moon
have illuminated the world; mountains have stood and rivers flowed;
birds, beasts, fish, insects, trees, and grasses have lived as they do
now. Given this evidence from the phenomenal world, Jinsai asked how
the Buddhists could claim that all is emptiness or nothingness.
Answering his own question, Jinsai said that their emphasis on
emptiness derived from their tending to retire to mountains and to sit
silently while emptying their minds. Thus, Jinsai argued, the
theoretical principles affirmed by the Buddhists - emptiness and
nothingness - exist neither within this world nor outside it.



Instead of Buddhist emptiness which he claimed to be groundless,
Jinsai affirmed that the principles of love and social relations are
found in every aspect of life from humanity down to bamboo plants,
trees, grasses, insects, fish, and even grains of sand. Jinsai denied
that Buddhist principles received any corroboration in any level of
existence whatsoever, dismissing them as heterodoxies utterly lacking
any basis in reality.



Jinsai maintained that the Confucian way is how people should conduct
themselves ethically in their daily lives. In doing so, he asserted
that the Confucian way is both natural and universal insofar as it is
understood by everyone in every part of the universe as the
inescapable path of all. Because this has been and will be true for
all time, it is simply called "the way." Amplifying his
point, Jinsai added that the Confucian way does not exist simply
because it is taught. Rather, its vitality is naturally and
universally so. By contrast, the teachings of Buddhism exist only
because certain people revere them. If those people vanished, Jinsai
maintained, so would Buddhism. Emphasizing their lack of practicality,
Jinsai observed that even when Buddhist teachings are accepted, they
bring no benefits. If they are rejected, people lose nothing. Worst of
all, Jinsai said, when the world followed the teachings of the ancient
Confucian sages, it was at peace, but since Buddhism had become
dominant, great chaos and disturbances have ensued. Thus,
Jinsai's rejection of Buddhism follows, at least in part,
pragmatic lines, emphasizing that at best there is no gain from it,
and at worst that it brings chaos and disorder to the world.



Jinsai also criticized Buddhists for abandoning ethics, in particular
righteousness and justice (*gi*). While he allowed that
Buddhists taught the virtue of compassion, Jinsai added that they
ultimately extolled nirvana as the way. This led them to downplay
righteousness rather than recognize it as "the great path of all
below heaven."



Jinsai emphasized the mind as the seat of the moral sentiments giving
rise in action to the virtues of humaneness and righteousness. In
making this point and at the same time emphasizing the vital activity
of the mind, Jinsai enthusiastically endorsed the views of Mencius.
Jinsai pointedly criticized Buddhists and others who followed them for
claiming that the mind is empty. He also argued against the Buddhist
belief that the mind ought to be made pure, utterly rid of human
desires, and empty like a bright mirror or calm like still water.
Jinsai rejected such images for being at odds with the energetic
approach to moral action that Confucianism endorses. For Jinsai, moral
action emerges from moral sentiments and can never be divorced from
the passions. Because the Buddhists sought, according to Jinsai, to
eliminate passions in their pursuit of *nirvana*, their view of
the mind was fundamentally mistaken.



Yet for all of his criticisms of Buddhism, Jinsai explained, in one of
the appendices to his *Gomo jigi*, that the best way to
refute Buddhism and heterodoxies generally was not by means of debate,
but instead by manifesting the Confucian way of ethical engagement
with the world in daily practical activities. Debate, argument, and
rhetoric were, in Jinsai's view, little more than empty
formulations reflecting descent into the same kind of emptiness that
so characterized the Buddhist teachings one sought to oppose.



It might be added in this connection that Tokugawa Confucians often
sought to outdo one another in their opposition to Buddhism. In one of
his more tolerant moments, Jinsai wrote a farewell letter to a
Buddhist monk, Doko (b: 1675?), who was about to depart
Kyoto after a period of study there. In the letter, which Jinsai
surely never meant to be construed as a definitive statement of his
views on Buddhism, he praised Doko's study of
Confucianism. At one point, Jinsai graciously added, "From the
perspective of scholars, both Confucianism (*Ju*) and Buddhism
(*Butsu*) definitely exist. However from the vantage point of
heaven and earth, there is most fundamentally neither Confucianism nor
Buddhism. Rather, there is only one way and that is all."
Jinsai's letter, which was subsequently published, shocked many
Confucians who were far more doctrinaire in their opposition to
Buddhism. One scholar, Sato Naokata (1650-1719), went so
far as to republish Jinsai's letter with a running commentary,
sharply critical of both Buddhism and Jinsai. The latter was the
subject of Naokata's wrath because Jinsai, in Naokata's
intolerant view, had been insufficiently hostile to the "evil
thing," namely, Buddhism.



Confucian discourse on Buddhism, then, was much more complex than
Jinsai's critiques alone might suggest. But what is clear is
that during the early-modern period of Japanese intellectual history,
Confucianism and Buddhism came to be fairly distinct philosophical
forces, with much critical antipathy issuing from the Confucian camp.
As Confucian learning became increasingly secure and respected in its
own right, these critiques tended to diminish. Ogyu Sorai, for
example, rarely discussed Buddhism, though when he did his remarks
were critical. Still one senses that for Sorai and his audience,
Buddhism did not need to be subjected yet again to a Confucian
critique. Buddhism had its own relevance for some people at certain
times, and Confucianism had its own. Confucianism had arrived,
apparently, as a largely secular ethic with clear and distinct
socio-political relevance that to many suggested not just
independence, but even philosophical dominance.


### 4.10 Ghosts and Spirits



Neo-Confucian philosophical discussions, often featuring lengthy
explanations of "ghosts and spirits" (C: *guishen*;
J: *kishin*), differed markedly from ancient Confucianism.
Confucius declined to discuss spiritual matters at length, even when
asked about them specifically. Why address the world after, Confucius
asked, when one has yet to master the way of humanity within this
world? Confucius was not disrespectful of ceremonies for the spirits,
but he did emphasize that he maintained a respectful distance from
them. Still, if he found himself in attendance at such a ceremony, he
behaved as if the spirits were actually there. Confucius'
reluctance to discuss the spiritual dimension in any real detail has
led many to speculate that he was an atheist, or perhaps a polite
agnostic.



In the wake of Buddhism, however, it was impossible for Confucians to
ignore the topic of ghosts and spirits. Buddhist literature went into
great detail about the Western Paradise, or the Buddhist Pure Land,
and the many layers of hell where sinners would be punished by wardens
of hell. Graphic depictions of the spirit world, heaven, hell, demons,
hungry ghosts, and angelic bodhisattvas made the accounts seem all the
more credible. In Japan, Shinto as well had its own traditions of
ghosts, spirits, goblins, and changelings. To counter such discourse,
Neo-Confucians formulated their own explanations of spiritual
phenomena, ones offering a more naturalistic account of the apparent
activities of ghosts and spirits. These accounts can be interpreted as
bordering on atheism or agnosticism and so are in keeping with
Confucius' position, at least as some have interpreted it. Yet,
they were far more lengthy overall than anything that Confucius or
most prior Confucians had offered.



A key feature of Neo-Confucian philosophical discussions of ghosts and
spirits is their naturalistic metaphysical character. Rather than
purporting to describe particular spirits, many Neo-Confucians,
following Cheng Yi, explained ghosts and spirits as "traces of
the creative transformations of the world." More specifically,
Neo-Confucians often interpreted what appeared to be ghosts and
spirits as "the spontaneous activities of the two generative
forces," yin and yang. As yin and yang expanded and contracted,
spiritual forces purportedly emerged with yang, and ghostly forces
with yin.



While casting ghosts and spirits in metaphysical terms that in certain
respects seemed intent on explaining away ghosts and spirits,
Neo-Confucians also affirmed that just as yin and yang pervade
reality, so do ghosts and spirits. The spirits are simply the
expansive and ghosts, the contractive forces of the world. Recognizing
the interrelatedness of ghosts and spirits with the world at large,
many Neo-Confucians associated spirits with heaven, spring and summer,
morning, the sun, light, music, and so on, while ghosts were linked to
the earth, fall and winter, evening, the moon, darkness, rituals, and
so forth. With this analysis, Neo-Confucians did not deny spirits, but
instead asserted that they infuse every aspect of reality just as
surely as do yin and yang.



Providing a basis for ancestor worship, Neo-Confucians typically
claimed that within a family line, there is a shared generative force,
which entails a shared spirituality. This common spirituality is
communicated through the male line in ancestral rites performed by
sons to their fathers, grandfathers, and so on. Because the shared
family line was considered essential to the shared spiritual basis,
Neo-Confucians emphasized that if a family had to adopt a child, then
it should take care to adopt a son from a male relative of the father
so that the sacrifices offered by the adopted son might be happily
accepted by the spirits. If adoption was outside the male line of the
family, then offerings to the family ancestors would actually be
communicated to the family line of the adopted son, leaving the family
that had adopted the son unhappily neglected. In an effort to curb
popular involvement in spiritualistic movements and practices,
Neo-Confucians generally described as wanton and improper any
participation in a religious ritual or ceremony that had no
relationship with the larger family involved with them.



One of the more heterodox Neo-Confucian accounts of ghosts and spirits
came from Ogyu Sorai. Unlike the naturalistic explanations
provided by most Neo-Confucians, Sorai emphasized the integrity of the
accounts of ghosts and spirits set forth by the ancient sage kings.
Sorai asserted that since the ancient kings had said that there were
spirits, then there must indeed be spirits. Likewise with ghosts, as
well as a host of other spiritual beings. To question the existence of
ghosts and spirits was, in Sorai's view, to disrespect the
ancient sage kings. Sorai's insistence upon an unquestioning
belief in ghosts and spirits, however, was more the exception than the
mainstream view among early-modern Japanese Confucians.


### 4.11 Environment: Mountains, Rivers, and Forests



One of the great texts of Song dynasty Confucianism is Zhang
Zai's (1020-1070) "Western Inscription"
(*Ximing*). In its opening lines, Zhang states that he views
heaven as his father, earth as his mother, and the ten thousand things
of the world as his brothers and sisters. All that fills the space
between heaven and earth he considers as his body. Elsewhere Zhang
spoke more metaphysically, describing that which fills all between
heaven and earth as *qi*, or the generative force (J:
*ki*) that is the creative substantial being and energy of
becoming in all things. Zhang also explained *qi* in terms of
the great vacuity, a notion that sounds Buddhistic but was meant to
capture the openness of all becoming to change and transformation. Yet
in the end, *qi* was the rock bottom of Confucian realism,
metaphysically speaking, and was in large part the ontological
dimension of things that prompted Confucians throughout East Asia to
take the world seriously not as a site of delusion and ignorance, but
instead as a both the crucible of their being and an extension of
themselves in becoming. Reportedly, Zhang's sense of oneness and
kinship with everything between heaven and earth left him unable to
cut the grass and bushes outside his window. Other Song Confucians
offered their own vision of oneness with reality by declaring that the
humane person forms one body with the ten thousand things of
existence. These visions of oneness and kinship prompted Confucians to
paint landscape (*shanshui*) paintings, literally paintings of
mountains (*shan*) and water (*shui*), compose poetry
alluding to the interrelatedness of things, and to direct public works
projects meant to maintain the harmony and balance of heaven, earth,
and humanity.



Zhang's "Western Inscription" inspired Confucians
throughout East Asia to develop philosophical thinking about their
oneness with the natural world and its generative being, and to
advance practical thinking about how to respectfully engage with the
realm of heaven and earth. In Tokugawa Japan, this environmental
concern took many forms. Kaibara Ekken's *Plants of
Japan* (*Yamato honzo*), a kind of botanical study of
Japanese medicinal plants and herbs, is one example. In his
*Instructions of Cultivating Life*
(*Yojokun*), Ekken emphasized the importance of
nourishing one's *ki*, or generative force, in harmony
with that of all between heaven and earth. Equally important,
especially as an indicator of the perennial significance of Zhang
Zai's "Western Inscription" is Kumazawa
Banzan's (1619-1691) "Western Inscription for
Japanese" (*Yamato nishi no mei*), an expansive,
vernacular commentary on Zhang Zai's brief text. In his
*Questions and Answers on the Great Learning* (*Daigaku
wakumon*), Banzan outlined various policy proposals, including
limits on the construction of Buddhist temples and samurai castles, as
a means of preventing deforestation. He also declared mountains,
forests, and rivers - metaphors for the natural world - to
be the foundations of the state, and essential components in the
longevity of political lines. If a ruler forfeited these components of
nature and his realm's balance with the natural world, then his
line would pay the price. Banzan's writings reveal that even
Confucians in the private sector were thinking proactively about
achieving a sustainable equilibrium with the forces of nature, one
that provided for both the best interests of human society and the
integrity of natural growth and development.


## 5. Confucianism in Modern Japan



An important legacy of Confucian philosophy in modern Japanese history
derives from Confucian understandings of the philosophy of history.
This is evident in the transition from the Tokugawa period, dominated
politically by a samurai regime led by a shogun, to the Meiji period,
at least billed as a restoration of imperial rule. Rather than
assuming that history was progressing ever forward to incrementally
better levels, Confucians tended to see ideals in the past. Therefore,
they often advocated a return to a supposed golden age as a means to
improve conditions in the present. Confucius himself had denied that
he was an innovator, insisting that he only sought to transmit the
ideals of the past. Although Confucius might have cast his work as
mere transmission, he was clearly innovating in revolutionary
philosophical ways. The political transformation giving rise to the
Meiji imperial regime, at least in terms of its philosophical
presentation as a return to an ancient, supposedly more ideal model,
was characteristically Confucian. So was the fact that this purported
return to the past ushered in a profoundly new historical period, one
that revolutionized most aspects of life.



One of the philosophical minds behind the Meiji restoration, at least
insofar as several of the anti-Tokugawa, pro-Meiji samurai leaders
were concerned, was the Confucian scholar, Yoshida Shoin
(1830-1859). He was a hereditary master, in the Choshu
domain, of the Confucian teachings of Yamaga Soko.
Philosophically, Soko is best known for his *Essential Records
of the Sagely Teachings* (*Seikyo yoroku*), a
brief but pointed critique of orthodox Neo-Confucian thinking. It
advocated instead Soko's own understanding of the
*Analects*. As transmitted to Shoin through the Yamaga
line of scholarship, and then embodied by Shoin's students
such as Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909), a Choshu
revolutionary turned Meiji statesman, the restorationism that was at
the core of both Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism was clearly echoed
in the spirit of the Meiji restoration.



The Meiji period, however, soon involved a profound turn away from
traditional patterns and toward more distinctively Western ones. This
was true in philosophy as well, resulting in the relative atrophy of
Confucian studies. However, it is significant that most of the Meiji
leaders who promoted Western philosophical ideas had backgrounds in
Confucian studies. Nishi Amane (1829-1897), often referred to as
the father of western philosophy in Japan, read Ogyu
Sorai's philosophical works before turning to the study of the
ideas of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill. During the people's
rights movement of the 1870s and early 1880s, advocates such as Nakae
Chomin (1847-1901) often cast their understandings of
liberty, equality, and natural rights in terms of notions drawn from
Confucian discourse.



With the swing toward conservatism and nationalism in the late-Meiji
period, philosophical voices such as that of Inoue Tetsujiro
advocated not so much a faithful return to Confucianism per se but to
what Inoue called *kokumin dotoku*, or "national
ethics." This set of teachings was based largely on selective
Confucian virtues such as loyalty and filial piety. Inoue is also
noteworthy for having led the way, albeit along highly nationalistic
lines, in interpreting Confucian developments of the early-modern
period as movements in "philosophy," using the newly
coined Japanese word, *tetsugaku*. This Japanese word chosen as
the gloss for "philosophy" alluded back to, in Chinese
literature, the *Book of History*, a Confucian classic, where
*tetsu* (C: *zhi*) refers to the "wisdom"
manifested by the ancient sages of China. In that respect, the
"study of wisdom," the literal meaning of
*tetsugaku*, was as much an apt characterization of the
Confucian project as it was one of the western field of
philosophy.



Unfortunately, Inoue's claim that there had been traditional
forms of philosophy, specifically the Neo-Confucian schools of the
early-modern period, well prior to the introduction of western
philosophy had one disturbing side effect. He increasingly elevated
the status of Confucian notions not necessarily as Confucian notions
in themselves, but as integral parts of a nationalistic,
imperialistic, and militaristic blend serving the interests of
Japanese militarists of the 1930s and 1940s. In particular,
Inoue's later years were devoted to expounding
*bushido*, the so-called "way of the warrior,"
as a core ingredient in *kokumin dotoku*. Inoue produced
such a large corpus of *bushido*-related literature that
one might claim that the way of the warrior was far more his invention
than something grounded in tradition.



With the defeat of Japan in 1945, Confucian notions came to be
regarded negatively because of their unfortunate appropriation by
Inoue and other philosopher-ideologues. They had manipulated the core
ethics of Confucian philosophy into a teaching of loyalty to the
imperial state and self-sacrifice for the sake of its glory. Those
Confucian philosophers whose writings had been most enthusiastic about
Japan, and so easily appropriated - as was the case with Yamaga
Soko who had argued at one point in his multifaceted
philosophical corpus, that Japan, not China, was the true Central
Kingdom - have consequently suffered from significant neglect in
the postwar period. By contrast, those earlier Confucians whose
writings had disparaged Japan and celebrated China, such as those of
Ogyu Sorai, rebounded from their former pariah status in
jingoistic Japan to becoming the focus of repeated postwar studies.
Usually, however, because of the overall feeling that Confucianism of
any sort was more ideology than philosophy (and this was surely the
most egregious legacy of its prewar appropriation) Confucianism has
most frequently been interpreted simply as "thought"
(*shiso*) or "ideology" (*ideorogii*),
typically of a "feudalistic" sort. In other countries,
including contemporary China, interpreters are reexamining
Confucianism as a living philosophy of ongoing significance, but
Japanese scholars have more viewed it as a historical artifact, not a
vital philosophy. Instead, philosophy departments in most major
Japanese universities today continue to define
"philosophy" as western philosophy, finding relatively
little place for the study of Confucianism under its rubric.



Exaggerating the extent to which the fortunes of Japanese Confucianism
declined in the postwar period, one scholar, Kiri Paramore, in his
*Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural Study*, has suggested that
in Japan, Confucianism ended up becoming taboo, a topic shunned by
scholars and public intellectuals who would not so much utter the
word, "Confucianism," in their writings. As evidence,
Paramore cites the oeuvre of Maruyama Masao, one of the greatest
political thinkers of the mid-twentieth century. One of
Maruyama's most widely read works, *Studies in the
Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan* (*Nihon shisoshi
kenkyu*), had discussed Neo-Confucianism in some detail,
albeit in the flawed interpretive framework that Hegel had provided.
Thus, Maruyama saw Neo-Confucianism as antithetical to change, and its
continuative metaphysics linking the natural and ethical spheres, in
need of dissolution.



Written during Japan's war years, Maruyama identified a
succession of Japanese Confucian scholars, including Ogyu Sorai,
as vanquishers of the Zhu Xi mode of thought. The latter was, in
Japan, little more - according to Maruyama - than an
expression of spiritual slavery to the ossified philosophy of Song
dynasty China, that of Zhu Xi. The dissolution of the Zhu Xi mode of
thought credited to Japanese thinkers such as Sorai seemingly echoed
the battlefield advances of the imperial Japanese forces in their
conquest of large swathes of China and East Asia. Even though Maruyama
was ideologically opposed to the war, his narrative hardly transcended
the war rhetoric of Japanese nationalism in its ascent over China.
Despite the fact that Maruyama later acknowledged errors and
misjudgments in his presentation of Japanese Confucianism, his
thinking came to be widely deemed as "a starting point"
for future studies of the subject. There can be little doubt that as
translated by Mikiso Hane and published by Princeton University Press,
Maruyama's *Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa
Japan* prompted many students of Japanese thought to renewed
thinking about Confucianism and its importance in Japanese
history.



Paramore claims that in the postwar period, Maruyama soon turned away
from Confucian studies and only rarely used the term,
"Confucianism" (*Jukyo*). This shunning of the
notion supposedly announced a new era in which, according to Paramore,
Confucianism was "taboo." Put differently,
Maruyama's avoidance of the term, "Confucianism,"
established the so-called "Maruyama rule" that
"Confucianism" was not to be broached. However,
familiarity with Maruyama's oeuvre proves this analysis
mistaken. After all, well after *Studies*, Maruyama authored a
lengthy essay on the Yamazaki Ansai school, "Yamazaki
Ansai's Learning and the School of Yamazaki Ansai"
(*Ansai gaku to Ansai gakuha*). Maruyama's essay was
published in a substantial volume on Ansai's school, *The
School of Yamazaki Ansai* (*Yamazaki Ansai gakuha*) in
1980. This volume was co-edited by Maruyama himself, and published by
Iwanami shoten as part of its *Nihon shiso taikei* series.
In the essay, Maruyama discusses Confucianism repeatedly, and
admittedly, critically. Nevertheless, in discussing Confucianism,
Maruyama violated the so-called "Maruyama rule" that had
supposedly rendered Confucianism taboo. Clearly, Maruyama's
continued engagement with Confucianism proves that that was hardly the
case.



Evidence of the continued vitality of Confucianism within Japanese
philosophical discourse is also at the University of Tokyo Center for
Philosophy. Since its founding in 2002, UTCP has sought to establish
itself as an international base for the discussion of philosophical
problems. UTCP has also sponsored discussions addressing dimensions of
Confucianism within Japanese philosophy. In doing so, UTCP has emerged
as a leader in affirming the notion of "Japanese
philosophy" and that of "Japanese Confucian
philosophy." Much the same is true with the recently established
journal, the *Journal of Japanese Philosophy* published by the
State University of New York Press. Along with the longstanding
efforts of the East-West Center and the University of
Hawai'i's Department of Philosophy, the UTCP and
*JJP* promise to significantly contribute to the revival of
interest in Japanese Confucianism and its contributions to Japanese
philosophical discourse.



Along similar lines, the International Association for Japanese
Philosophy (IAJP), founded in 2014 by the editors of the Journal of
Japanese Philosophy, provides opportunities, through regular
conferences and panels, for discussion of a range of topics and themes
in Japanese philosophy, including Japanese Confucianism, keeping the
latter very much in the mainstream, rather than taboo, going forward.
Recent calls for "Green Confucianism," or an emphasis on
environmentally-oriented dimensions of Confucian tradition that might
serve as the foundations for an expansion of environmental philosophy
within Japanese philosophical thinking, have also contributed to the
ongoing relevance of the tradition in ways that go well beyond the
confines of family morality, ancestor worship, and the basics of
everyday morality in society and the political sphere. "Green
Confucianism" is just one of many possible re-expressions of
Confucian thinking vis-a-vis the evolving contexts of Japanese
modernity that establish the perennial significance of Confucian
cosmological thinking, alongside its ethical and sociopolitical and
spiritual teachings.