Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan 9789048559282

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Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan

Japan Documents Handbooks This series focuses on the broad field of Japanese Studies, aimed at the worldwide English language scholarly market, published in Tokyo in English. Each Handbook will contain an average of 20 newly written contributions on various aspects of the topic, which together comprise an up-to-date survey of use to scholars and students. The focus is on Humanities and Social Sciences. Titles in this series: Handbook of Higher Education in Japan (edited by Paul Snowden) Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan (edited by Shaun O’Dwyer) Forthcoming titles in this series: Handbook of Japanese Media and Popular Culture in Transition (edited by Forum Mithani and Griseldis Kirsch) Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers (edited by Mark Williams, Van Gessel and Yamane Michihiro) Handbook of Environmental History in Japan (edited by Tatsushi Fujihara) Handbook of the Japanese Constitution: An Annotation (edited by Colin P.A. Jones) Handbook of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Women Writers (edited by Rebecca Copeland) Handbook of Japanese Feminisms (edited by Andrea Germer and Ulrike Wöhr) Re-examining Postwar Japanese History: A Handbook (edited by Simon Avenell) Handbook of Sport and Japan (edited by Helen Macnaughtan and Verity Postlethwaite) Handbook of Japanese Martial Arts (edited by Alexander Bennett) Handbook of Japanese Public Administration and Bureaucracy (edited by Mieko Nakabayashi and Hideaki Tanaka) Handbook of Crime and Punishment in Japan (edited by Tom Ellis and Akira Kyo) Handbook of Disaster Studies in Japan (edited by Paola Cavaliere and Junko Otani) Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Diplomacy: The 2010s (edited by Tosh Minohara) Handbook of Russo-Japan Relations (edited by Tsuneo Akaha) Handbook of Japan’s Environmental Law, Policy, and Politics (edited by Hiroshi Ohta) Handbook of Japanese Games (edited by Rachael Hutchinson) Handbook of Human Rights and Japan (edited by Tamara Swenson) Handbook of Europe-Japan Relations (edited by Lars Vargö) Teaching Japan: A Handbook (edited by Gregory Poole and Ioannis Gaitanidis) Handbook of Women in Japanese Buddhism (edited by Monika Schrimpf and Emily Simpson) Handbook of Japanese Security (edited by Leszek Buszynski) Handbook of Japanese Tourism (edited by Hideto Fujii) Handbook on Japanese Civil Society (edited by Simon Avenell and Akihiro Ogawa)

Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan Edited by Shaun O’Dwyer

Amsterdam University Press

First published 2022 by Japan Documents, an imprint of MHM Limited, Tokyo, Japan.

MHM Limited gratefully acknowledges K.K. Nihon Bunken Shuppan, and its ownerpresident, Mr. Sumio Saito, as the originator of the imprint “Japan ­Documents” and declares here that it is used under license and with the kind permission of Mr. Saito. Calligraphy of Imperial Way and Kingly Way Chinese characters by Wang Linzhi, with additional design by Chen Yuhan. Cover design, layout, and typography: TransPac C isbn 978 94 6372 528 6 e-isbn 978 90 4855 928 2 nur 718 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2022 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

Table of Contents Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Preface Shaun O’Dwyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Introduction Shaun O’Dwyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv 1 Reinterpreting Matsumiya Kanzan: On the Interval between State Shintō and the Idea of the Three Religions Song Qi (Translated by Ruth and John McCreery). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 The Confucian Classics in the Political Thought of Sakuma Shōzan Han Shuting (Translated by Ruth and John McCreery). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3 The Confucian Traits Featuring in the Meiroku Zasshi Lee Yu-Ting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 4 The Invention of “Chinese Philosophy”: How Did the Classics Take Root in Japan’s First Modern University? Mizuno Hirota (Translated by Ruth and John McCreery). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 5 Inoue Tetsujirō and Modern Yangming Learning in Japan Yamamura Shō (Translated by Ruth and John McCreery) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 6 Kokumin Dōtoku for Women: Shimoda Utako in the Taishō Era Masako N. Racel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 7 Modern Contextual Turns from “The Kingly Way” to “The Imperial Way” Chang Kun-chiang (Translated by Ruth and John McCreery) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 8 The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought: The Link between Daitō Bunka Gakuin and Chosŏn Gyunghakwon Kang Haesoo (Translated by Ruth and John McCreery). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 9 The Image of the Kingly Way during the War: Focusing on Takada Shinji’s Imperial Way Discourse Park Junhyun (Translated by Ruth and John McCreery). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 10 Watsuji Tetsurō’s Confucian Bonds: From Totalitarianism to New Confucianism Kyle Michael James Shuttleworth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

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11 Thinking about Confucianism and Modernity in the Early Postwar Period: Watsuji Tetsurō’s The History of Ethical Thought in Japan Alexandra Mustătea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 12 Yasuoka Masahiro and the Survival of Confucianism in Postwar Japan, 1945–1983 Eddy Dufourmont. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 13 Universalizing “Kingly Way” Confucianism: A Japanese Legacy and Chinese Future? Jiang Dongxian and Shaun O’Dwyer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

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Contributors Chang Kun-chiang is a professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at National Taiwan Normal University. His specialization is in Japanese and East Asian intellectual history, including Tokugawa and modern Japanese Confucianism. His books (in Chinese) include To Sever the Spring Breeze in a Lightning Flash: A New Interpretation of the Dissemination and Acceptance of Bushidō (National Taiwan University Press, 2016) and The Characteristics of Tokugawa’s Japanese Confucianism: Shinto, the Sorai School and the Yangming School (National Taiwan University Press, 2007). Eddy Dufourmont is associate professor at University Bordeaux Montaigne (France). His research focuses on Confucianism in modern Japan, Japanese nationalism and democracy and the translation of European political thought. His books (in French) include Confucianism and Conservatism in Japan: the Intellectual Trajectory of Yasuoka Masahiro, 1898–1983 (P U de Bordeaux, 2014) and Rousseau and the First Philosophy of Liberty in Asia (Le Bord de l’eau, 2021). Han Shuting is a part-time instructor in the Faculty of Social and Cultural Studies at Kyushu University. Her research focus is on Confucianism and Japanese intellectual history. Her recent publications (in Japanese) include the papers “Sakuma Shōzan’s Koto Musical Instrument Studies and Thought on Traditional Music, Considered through his Record on the Koto” in Bulletin of Kyūshū Sinology (2021) and “Sakuma Shōzan’s Understanding of Zhu Xi Learning: with a Focus on ‘Kyokei’” in Kyūshū Historical Studies (2018). Jiang Dongxian is a Civics Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science at Stanford University, specializing in the history of political thought and comparative political theory. His most recent publications are “Defending Constitutional Democracy on Confucian Terms: Progressive Confucianism and Its Debate with Traditionalist Confucianism in Contemporary China” in Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (2021) and “The Place of Confucianism in Pluralist East Asia” in Comparative Political Theory (2021). Kang Haesoo is a concurrent lecturer at Meijo University who specializes in modern Japanese and Korean intellectual history. His recent publications include (in Japanese) “NeoConfucianism of East Asia” and “Yi T’oegye in Modern Japan: Debates on Yi T’oegye by Kimon and Kumamoto Practical Learning Schools and ‘Morality’” in Bulletin of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (2021) and (in Korean) “A Genealogy of ‘Kodo Confucianism’” in The Journal of Korean Studies (2020).

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Lee Yu-Ting is an associate professor in the Graduate Institute of National Development at National Taiwan University. His research specialization is in the intellectual history of late 19th–early 20th century of China and Japan, including the development of Pan-Asianism. His most recent publications are the paper (in Chinese) “China Discourse from the Late Twentieth Century: A Dialogue between International Relations and History” published in Journal of the Social Sciences and Philosophy in 2021 and the book chapter “‘Tagore and China’ Reconsidered: Starting from a Conversation with Feng Youlan” published in Beyond Pan-Asianism: Connecting China and India, 1840s–1960s (Oxford University Press, 2021). Mizuno Hirota is a project assistant professor at the University of Tokyo Humanities Center and researches modern Japanese intellectual history. His recent publications (in Japanese) include “Inoue Tetsujirō’s Argument for a ‘Japanese Philosophy’: His Struggle and Failure” in Journal of Japanese Intellectual History (2020) and the book chapter “Inoue Tetsujirō’s Oriental Philosophy and Hattori Unokichi’s Confucian Ethics” published in Lectures in Modern Japan and China Studies Volume 4: the Arts and Sciences (Ebisukosho, 2021). Alexandra Mustățea is a lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies. She is a Japanologist whose research focus is on intellectual history and philosophy, including Confucianism. Her recent publications include the papers “Confucian Reverberations in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Ethical Philosophy: Exploring the Dynamic of the Universal-in-Particular” in The Bulletin of the Institute for Japan Studies, Kanda University of International Studies (2021) and “On the Convolutions of Modernity and Confucianism in Japan—Loyalty from Yamaga Sokō’s Shidō to Prewar Kokutai Ideology” in European Journal of Japanese Philosophy (2019). Shaun O’Dwyer is an associate professor in the Faculty of Languages and Cultures at Kyushu University. His research specialization is in moral and political philosophy, and modern Confucianism. His recent publications include the book Confucianism’s Prospects: A Reassessment (State University of New York Press, 2019) and the paper “Meritocracy and Resentment” in Philosophy and Social Criticism (2020). Park Junhyun is an assistant professor at the Republic of Korea Air Force Academy, and assistant administrator of the Society for Korean Historical Science. He is presently conducting research on Japanese Confucian concepts of the imperial way and the Mandate of Heaven. Masako Racel is an Associate Professor of History at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia, USA. Trained as a world historian, her research interest centers upon cross-cultural interactions between Japanese and foreign societies mostly in the 20th century. Her recent publications include (in Japanese) “The Formative Years of Kiyosue Inui, the Orator who Crossed the World for Peace: from His Birth to his Temporary Return to Japan in 1912” in Journal of Kwansei Gakuin History (2021) and (in English) “Shimoda Utako’s Ryosai Kenbo: A Patriotic Japanese Woman’s View of the West” in Southeast Review of Asian Studies (2017). x

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Kyle Michael James Shuttleworth is a JSPS International Research Fellow at Rikkyo University, where he is researching the interface between environmental ethics and Japanese philosophy. His recent publications include the monograph The History and Ethics of Authenticity (Bloomsbury Press, 2020), and the research article “Virtues and Ethics within Watsuji Tetsujirō’s Rinrigaku” in Asian Philosophy (2020). Song Qi is a lecturer at Jiangxi University of Science and Technology and a research associate at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. He specializes in research on Edo period intellectual history, including the thought of the 17th-century scholar Matsumiya Kanzan. His recent published papers (in Japanese) include “Draft manuscript of “The Way and Education” in the Thought of Matsumiya Kanzan—a note on the original principles of the three religions concept (Shintō, Confucianism, Buddhism)” in Sōkendai Review of Cultural and Social Studies (2018) and “The Tou and Kyou in Matsumiya Kanzan’s Theory: An Analysis of the Key Principle of His Theory of Three Teachings” in Sōkendai Review of Cultural and Social Studies (2021). Yamamura Shō is a part-time instructor at Shōwa Pharmaceutical University. His research is on intellectual history and Yang Wangming thought in modern Japan. His recent publications (in Japanese) include the book Modern Japan and the Transforming of Wang Yangming Learning (Hosei University Press, 2019) and “The Meaning of ‘Personality’ in Modern Japan: From the relationship between cultivation and Yangmingism” published in Nihon Kenkyū in 2021.

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Preface Shaun O’Dwyer As will be explained in the Introduction, Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan was conceived with the aim of expanding scholarship on modern Japanese Confucianism—a field which has until recently been neglected in Anglosphere Asian studies and comparative philosophy. A secondary aim was to facilitate contributions to that scholarship by scholars who would not normally write and publish in English, thereby enriching it with perspectives cultivated in non-English speaking research communities, but under-represented in Anglosphere academic research. This handbook, then, was planned to address a double neglect, though I hope it makes clear that blame cannot easily be assigned for such neglect. I would first of all like to thank the scholars who helped fulfill the aims of this handbook by contributing to it, patiently enduring rounds of peer review, revision and editorial correspondence during a global pandemic which has impacted deeply on the professional and personal lives of scholars worldwide. My deep gratitude is also due to academic translators Ruth and John McCreery at The Work Works, who translated seven of this handbook’s chapters from Japanese and Chinese into English. Finally, I would like to thank Mark Gresham at MHM Limited for inviting me to edit a book for their handbook series, for enthusiastically endorsing the topic I proposed for this handbook, and for his assistance during its final editing stages; and Huang Chun-chieh, Paula Harrell and Avery Morrow, for the assistance they rendered in the preparation of this handbook for publication.

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Introduction Shaun O’Dwyer

Sinocentric Confucian genealogies and the forgotten Japanese contribution to modern Confucianism In the late 1980s, the Chinese philosopher Yu Ying-shih coined his famous metaphor for Confucianism’s plight in modern China as a “wandering soul” (游魂 youhun). What the metaphor conveyed first of all was the insight that Confucianism was dominant in traditional Chinese life only for so long as its “soul” was institutionalized in various “bodies.” These bodies included the political and educational institutions of dynastic China, as credentialed Confucian Learning was the gateway to employment in the imperial public service and to regional administrative, literary and educational employments. Such bodies also included the community life of the rural masses, shaped by Confucian rites and folk moralities in family life. The metaphor’s second insight was that Confucianism “cannot remain at the level of speculation for a long time” without embodiment in such ways of life,1 since it is a practice-oriented philosophy dedicated to moral and ritual self-cultivation and to the moral perfectibility of institutions, from the family though to the state. Yu’s conclusion is that Confucianism’s decline to an ethereal, disembodied status followed the gradual collapse of its institutional bodies beginning in the mid-19th century: the corruption and final dissolution of the imperial civil service examination system, the replacement of Confucian Learning with Western sciences and humanities in newly established universities, the fall of the monarchy, and the wars, revolutionary campaigns and disasters that upended traditional rural family life during the 20th century. Yet what to make of the burgeoning academic discourse today on Confucianism in Chinese, Taiwanese, South Korean, Singaporean, European and American universities? Could this academic discourse be the new, institutional body for Confucianism’s ghost to find a modern home in? The answer for Yu is no. Such an academic discourse severed from (largely) institutionalized practices and ways of life is mere speculation—it is empty or clever talk. A debate can certainly be had about the fairness of Yu’s judgement. After a century of wandering, perhaps Confucianism is now finding renewed embodiment within the institutions of academic philosophy, and in a Chinese “Confucian revival” of educational, religious and ritual practices that has recently gained momentum. The striking thing about this debate so far, however, is how Sinocentric it is. Consider the following passage from Stephen Angle, a leading Confucian scholar in the United States. It briefly encapsulates the standard 20thcentury genealogy of academic Confucianism, and implicitly rebukes those like Yu who would dismiss its significance: The final historical period of which we should take note is the last 100 years, from the end of the civil service examination system in 1905 (and the end of the Qing

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Dynasty itself in 1911) down to the present. The label “New Confucians” refers to a number of Chinese philosophers and historians from this past history who aim to interpret and/or reconstruct Confucianism—typically drawing significantly on Neo-Confucianism—for the new realities of the 20th and 21st centuries. Some of these thinkers had significant exposure to western philosophy and engaged with themes from Kant or Hegel for example, quite explicitly. An important goal for many of them, in addition, was to show that Confucianism already was, or could be, made compatible with science and democracy.2 The genealogy sketched here begins with late Qing- and Republican-era scholars and reformers such as Kang Youwei and Liang Shuming. It proceeds through mid-20th-century “New Confucian” scholars such as Mou Zongsan, to the prolific influence abroad of Mou’s student Tu Weiming in the late 20th century, and the latter-day expansion of Confucian scholarship in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and the United States. This genealogy is correct so far as it goes. Yet it omits an early, decisively formative influence in the reconstruction of Confucianism “for the new realities” of the modern era, which first developed outside China. It also misses one national-level institutionalization of Confucianism, that may go some way to modify Yu Ying-shih’s thesis about Confucianism’s forlorn status as a “wandering soul” in the 20th century. Which is to say, it omits the pioneering influence that Japanese scholars exerted in the reconstruction of Confucianism as an East Asian or oriental “philosophy” (東洋哲学 Tōyō tetsugaku), beginning in the late 19th century. These scholars, many of whom studied philosophy, political science and sociology in Europe, generated a template for historical, philosophical and nationalist-ideological interpretations of Confucianism that would be passed on to the first generations of Chinese and Korean academic thinkers and nationalists in the early 20th century. It was they who would also create Confucian educational institutions such as the Shibunkai (斯文会) that would bring into their sphere members of Japan’s intellectual, political, business and military elites—institutions whose influence would peak in the 1930s, the era of “Imperial Way” (皇 道 Kōdō) Confucianism. The Sinocentrism in recent assessments of Confucianism’s modern genealogy is in part the result of a general neglect of modern Japanese Confucianism by political and moral philosophers and intellectual historians in both Japan and abroad during the postwar era—a neglect that I will discuss shortly. This collection of essays, Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan, joins a small group of other studies bringing modern Japanese Confucianism to international scholarly notice, largely covering the time period between the Bakumatsu era of the mid-19th century and the 21st century.3 It could also be viewed as a sequel volume to a recent edited collection of studies spanning Edo, Bakumatsu and early Meiji-era Japanese Confucianism, the Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy.4 The essays in this volume can be read for the insight they provide into the intellectual diversity and ideological proclivities of reformers, educators and philosophers explicitly reconstructing Confucian thought, or more tacitly influenced by it, during critical phases in Japan’s modernization, imperialist expansionism and post-1945 reconstitution as a liberal democratic polity. They can be read as introductions to the ideas of modern Japanese Confucian thinkers and reformers whose work is little known outside Japan—and sometimes barely remembered inside Japan. They can also be read as a needful corrective to the abovementioned Sinocentric bias in the 20th-century intellectual history of Confucianism. If part xvi

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of the fault of this bias lies with a general neglect of 19th–20th-century Japanese Confucianism in contemporary scholarship, fault also lies with a longstanding default assumption that China is the cultural epicenter of Confucianism, and Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Vietnam its derivative peripheries. In helping redress both of these biases, this volume’s chapters are a contribution to studies of what Huang Chun-chieh has described as East Asian Confucianisms. These are the Confucian traditions in East and South-east Asia which evolved through varied “contextual turns” in response to political and cultural conditions divergent from those of Dynastic China, even as they shared family resemblances with its Confucian traditions.5 The reinterpretation, reinvention and re-institutionalization of Japanese Confucian traditions in modernizing Japan—as integral ideological and intellectual components to modernization—must surely count as a refutation of the Sinocentric “default assumption.” Last, and for those Confucian scholars currently exploring how Confucianism is, or can be “made compatible with science and democracy,” at least some of the studies in this volume serve as a warning. They enjoin readers to consider how Confucianism was also rendered compatible with the authoritarian ultranationalism and militarism that captured Japan’s political system in the 1930s, and brought war to the Asia-Pacific region. This is not to disparage the “compatibility thesis” advocated in many current theorizations for Confucian democracy in East Asia.6 But that thesis needs to come to grips with a historically attested “pull” of reconstructed Confucian ideas of statecraft, paternalistic governance and political perfectionism towards modern authoritarianism. The remainder of this introduction will cover the motivations for the present handbook, provide background historical discussion for its thirteen chapters, and introduce their main themes.

Motivations for this Handbook The idea for this handbook was hatched out of the relative lack of representation of Japanese Confucianism in studies in Anglophone scholarship on modern Japanese philosophy, and in studies on modern Confucianism in East Asia. Some explanation for this lack is required here. Confucianism has for the past half century held a respectable place in both Japanese and foreign-language studies of Japanese intellectual history (思想史 shisōshi), which has usually meant the history of Japanese Edo period Confucian thought. In Japanese-language scholarship, Confucianism is usually defined as “thought” or “ideology” (思想 shisō) rather than “philosophy” (哲学 tetsugaku).7 However, in studies of modern Japanese philosophy, Confucianism is often out of the picture, and its key thinkers remain confined to an index of forgotten or half-remembered, disgraced scholars. The dominant image of modern Japanese philosophy in the Anglosphere arises from the 20th-century Kyoto School of philosophers, notably Nishida Kitarō, Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keiji and their fellow traveller Watsuji Tetsurō. Buddhism figures prominently in studies of their philosophical inspirations and their philosophical syntheses of Eastern and Western thought. Until recently, corresponding Confucian influences were less recognized. The reasons why the Buddhist influence in modern Japanese philosophy has merited such attention lies in postwar trends of intellectual transmission between Japan and the United States. One prolific scholar of religion connected to the Kyoto School, D. T. Suzuki, acquired a global audience after 1945 for his popularizations of Zen Buddhism, and for an aesthetic,

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spiritual representation of Japanese culture which contrasted sharply with a still-prevalent image of Japan as a militaristic nation. His erudition and charismatic proselytizing left a deep impression in the United States, where he held a lectureship at Columbia University during the 1950s, fueling a “Zen Boom” in American cultural life. Working on the fertile ground seeded by Suzuki and his followers, Japanese and American scholars embarked on projects to translate into English the major thinkers of the Kyoto School, focusing on those who worked with Buddhism-inspired concepts and themes. These translations, published as books or in journals in both Japan and the United States, drove the dissemination of those thinkers’ ideas into American universities. A full blossoming of interest in the Kyoto School thinkers in the 1980s coincided with the global rise of the Japanese economy and generous Japanese government funding for Japanese language education in the United States and elsewhere. Such support provided a soft power dimension to the success story of Kyoto School studies abroad.8 This cannot be the only explanation for the relative eclipse of Japanese Confucianism from contemporary Anglosphere understandings of modern Japanese intellectual history and philosophy. Japanese philosophers had begun working in comparative philosophy and promoting Confucianism abroad some time prior to the rise of the Kyoto School. Japan’s first modern philosopher, Inoue Tetsujirō, had presented some of his early comparative work on Confucianism and European moral philosophy to European scholarly forums during his studies in Germany in the 1880s.9 The sinologist and philosopher Hattori Unokichi lectured on Confucian ethics while teaching at Harvard University in 1914–1916.10 The bias in favor of the Kyoto School in American scholarship on modern Japanese philosophy has also advanced in parallel with the decades-long scholarship on pre-modern Japanese Confucian intellectual history in both Japan and abroad. Yet it is true to say that more publicly engaged intellectuals like Inoue and Hattori never wrote at the same level of profundity and philosophical sophistication as Nishida, Tanabe, Watsuji or Nishitani. Nor for that matter did their thought match the profundity of their Edo period Confucian predecessors, such as Hayashi Razan, Yamazaki Ansai, Itō Jinsai or Ogyū Sorai. Inoue, moreover, dedicated himself to writing of a more overtly ideological type on topics such as national morality (国民道徳 kokumin dōtoku), Shintō (神道 Shintō), Bushidō (武士道 Bushidō) and Confucianism (儒教 Jukyō) after the turn of the 20th century. This was a pattern that was followed by a younger 20th-century generation of Confucian scholars such as Yasuoka Masahiro. These factors must surely have weighed on the minds of postwar Japanese and American scholars selecting representative Japanese philosophy for translation and international study. This brings us to the third reason for the relative neglect of modern Japanese Confucian thought in international receptions of modern Japanese philosophy after 1945: that Japanese Confucianism itself became a “wandering soul” as its reputation collapsed in the postwar era, and it lost its major institutional support bases and official patronage. Kiri Paramore has written of a “postwar taboo” on Confucianism, in reaction against its presumed association with pre-1945 fascism, which led to an avoidance of references to it across Japan’s postwar political spectrum.11 Some chapters in this volume question the extent of that postwar taboo. I will add that one political scientist and sometime Confucianism scholar who Paramore claims went silent about Confucianism in the postwar era—Maruyama Masao—did continue to publish and edit studies on Japanese Confucian intellectual history. Yet, in a repudiation of

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the preceding generation of Confucian scholars and national morality theorists, Maruyama’s postwar thought denied Confucianism any role as a positive morality in modern life.12 In any case, the fallen status of Confucianism in postwar Japanese universities is an undeniable fact. The Kyoto School philosophers had theorized at some ideological as well as geographical distance from the centers of political power in Tokyo—or had at least appeared to. After the war, some did suffer the recriminations and American occupation-era purges which also fell on the heads of notable Confucian and Chinese Learning (漢学 Kangaku) scholars at Tokyo Imperial University. However, the latter scholars had enjoyed closer relations with political elites during the 1930s and 1940s, though of course there were those among the former who had also declared explicitly for Japan’s wartime expansionism.13 These facts may also have been taken into consideration by the postwar Japanese and American scholars selecting representative Japanese philosophy for translation and international study. To recapitulate, then, the motivation for this handbook is to join other recent studies in redeeming the neglect discussed above, showcasing studies which comprehend modern Japanese Confucianism under the categories of philosophy as well as thought or ideology. In the following sections I will introduce the chapters of this volume, within the following explanatory frames: 1) the tacit, subordinate as well as explicit dimension to Confucianism’s participation in intellectual, academic and educational life in modernizing Japan; 2) the institutional basis for the efflorescence under government patronage of nationalist, “Imperial Way” Confucianism in the 1930s and 3) the legacy and intellectual pathways of Confucianism in Japan after 1945.14

The tacit and subordinate influences of Confucianism in modernization Most of those scholars who took part in formative Meiji period intellectual innovations were not self-conscious Confucians. In the 1870s leading intellectuals like Fukuzawa Yukichi, now well-versed in European thought through their scholarly studies in Japan and abroad during the 1860s, were inclined to minimize Confucianism’s relevance to Japan’s modernization. Some, like Nishi Amane, refused to recognize Confucianism or other East Asian traditions as “philosophy,” looking instead to European intellectual traditions such as utilitarianism as their standard. Other reforming intellectuals, while rejecting Confucian self-identification, more consciously drew on its moral teachings and exemplars in recognition of the continued importance they believed Japanese traditions should play in the modernization process. For them, however, Confucianism was just one among many such traditions, and had no “dominant” status. The common denominator for all of these intellectuals lay in their shared classical Chinese and Confucian education. That education exerted an important tacit influence in the modernization process. I will consider that “tacit” influence first. The men who, in the early years of the Meiji period, began the prodigious task of translating European political, theological, scientific and philosophical thought into Japanese were all steeped in classical Chinese literacy (Kanbun) and learning (Kangaku). Such learning had been the standard late Edo-period education for the samurai and wealthier merchant and farming classes provided by regional schools and academies, or private tutors. This Chinese Learning and literacy furnished a rich linguistic pool of concepts, idioms and neologisms for Nishi Amane and other pioneering interpreters of European thought.15 They drew from this pool to translate this thought in a manner that

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they hoped would be intelligible to an emerging reading public, as modern mass schooling and university education were in the process of being introduced. This undertaking turned out to be successful. Their translations, and published commentaries and studies on European thought and institutions would also prove intelligible for the Korean and Chinese students who flocked to study in Japan’s new universities in the coming decades, and who would eventually translate much of that thought into their own languages. The first chapter in this handbook covering this tacit dimension to the Confucian influence in Japan’s Meiji-era modernization is Lee Yu-ting’s “The Confucian Traits in the Meiroku Zasshi.” Lee utilizes a statistical corpus search of Confucianism-linked terms in the mid-Meiji-era Meiroku Magazine (明六雑誌), famous for its patronage by intellectual reformers such as Nishi Amane, Nishimura Shigeki, Fukuzawa Yukichi and Tsuda Mamichi, who comprised the Meiroku society (明六社), established in the sixth year of the Meiji Emperor’s reign. Lee analyses the results of his search under three categories, of personages, texts and Confucianism-derived ideas. This analysis also proceeds at three levels: of Confucianism as a target of debate or refutation, as a pathway for argumentation appealing to textual evidence and authority in the Confucian classics, and as an instrument for rhetorical, illustrative or allusive expression. Lee concludes that these reformers introduced and debated foreign ideas at least partially in deference to Japan’s Confucian intellectual legacy, even as some of them argued for its contemporary irrelevance. It is remarkable too that liberal contributors to the Meiroku Magazine like Fukuzawa Yukichi and Katō Hiroyuki also debated the question of women’s rights and education in the mid-1870s. By the 1880s a number of Japanese women intellectuals had also joined the public discussion on the question of women’s education. Some had been entirely educated abroad. Others, like their male peers in the former samurai classes, had received a traditional classical Chinese and Confucian education during the Bakumatsu-Meiji era transition. We would expect to find a divergence in views on women’s education between the prominent women reformers of this era educated abroad, and those whose formative education was that of the old samurai class. Tsuda Umeko and Yamakawa Sutematsu, who grew up and were educated in the United States, represented the former group, while Niijima Yae and Shimoda Utako represented the latter. Yet among these women, involved in the founding of notable modern women’s educational institutions such as Tsuda College, Doshisha College and Jissen Women’s College, there were important intellectual convergences. They all agreed on the objectives of a then-innovative gender ideology that would become state policy for women’s education: “Good Wife and Wise Mother” (良妻賢母 ryōsai kenbo). Though in the past ryōsai kenbo ideology has been associated with Confucianist or traditionalist beliefs, this association has lately been challenged. Ryōsai kenbo certainly appears conservative to modern eyes, in presuming a gendered division of labour in which women were educated to become competent in the financial management of households and in the overseeing of children’s nutrition, healthcare and moral education. However, this ideology was institutionalized as a modernization objective to be achieved via the mass education of all girls in literacy and numeracy, and via the higher education of an upper-class minority of women. In this respect it was discontinuous with the classical and patriarchal moral-based education available only to a minority of wealthy Japanese girls a generation earlier. Ryōsai kenbo in fact borrowed heavily from later 19th-century European and American ideals of middle class women’s education.16 It comes as no surprise that the American benefactor of the young Yamakawa Sutematsu did not encounter any resistance from her Japanese wards xx

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when he suggested that she would, through her schooling, “acquire that knowledge of domestic duties and employments which qualifies an American lady to become the mistress of a family.”17 Some of the inspirations for ryōsai kenbo were sown in the American schooling of Sutematsu and her peers during the 1870s and 1880s. Yet in its emphasis upon personal cultivation through education and in its familialist moral focus, ryōsai kenbo could also be made compatible with Confucianism, and there was some accommodation of conservative demands that it incorporate education in traditional feminine morals (婦徳 futoku).18 In this domain of modernizing education, we can thus discern an acknowledged, but subordinate influence for Confucianism. Women educational reformers steeped in Confucian education also found it meaningful to draw on Confucianism for rhetorical devices, allusions, moral exemplars and textual authorities to reach and persuade their readers, even if they rejected any Confucian self-identification. Masako Racel’s chapter on Shimoda Utako, “Kokumin Dōtoku for Women: Shimoda Utako’s Vision in Taishō Japan” investigates these subordinate influences in a women’s education reformer who did not identify as a Confucian, and who often criticized its restrictive views on women. Shimoda was born into a samurai family and schooled in the Confucian classics, and she became one of the most energetic advocates for modernized women’s education in the 1890s. However, Racel also reveals that Shimoda began to partake of a conservative interpretation of women’s education and virtues by the Taishō era, as she shared in the dismay of nationalist ideologues at the spread of radical Western ideas such as socialism and feminism. Racel shows how Shimoda then participated in the promotion of a particularistic national morality (国民道徳 kokumin dōtoku) developed by nationalist Confucian scholars like Inoue Tetsujirō, while tailoring that morality to women’s interests. In her writings she drew amply on classical Chinese and Japanese literature to encourage the practice of distinctive Japanese women’s virtues, and to encourage respect for the exemplary virtues of the imperial Japanese family. In Lee’s and Racel’s chapters we can see how Confucianism remained a living tradition even for reformers who rejected any explicit identification with it. They drew on its conceptual-linguistic resources to interpret, translate and explain European thought, and they drew on its traditional authority to anchor a conservative management of the modernization process, making it an integral constituent in that process.

The explicit influences of Confucianism in modernization In documenting Confucianism’s more explicit ideological participation in a modernizing Japan, we are struck again by the difficulty of drawing a line between “pre-modern” and “modern.” Most obviously, many key ideas and themes of modern Japanese Confucian thought—and political ideology—are found in seminal form in 17th- to early 19th-century Edo-period scholarship. The Shintō-Confucian syncretism that preoccupied 20th-century Japanese Confucians first appears in the 17th-century thought of Hayashi Razan and Yamazaki Ansai. From the 17th-century Japanese scholars would grapple with interpreting the great principle duty to the ruler (大義名分 taigi meibun), and the fraught question over how to apply that principle where “the ruler” was embodied in the temporal sovereignty of the shogun and the spiritual sovereignty of the emperor. They would also confront the fraught question of applying—or, as was mostly the case, finding reasons not to apply—the normative standard of the Mandate of Heaven (天命 tenmei) to the shogunate’s rulers, and to emperors. Introduction

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By the early- to mid-19th-century, loyalist scholars such as Aizawa Seishisai and Yoshida Shōin drew on Shintō-Confucian orthodoxy to emphasize the uniqueness of Japan’s national polity (国体 kokutai) grounded in the sacred, unbroken imperial line ultimately descending from the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. They also affirmed a quasi-Confucian unity of loyalty and filial piety (忠孝一致 chukō icchi) among the Japanese emperor’s subjects not found in any other state, including China. These concepts and themes developed in Kimon (崎門学 Kimon gaku), Suika Shintō (垂 加神道) and Mito Learning (水戸学 Mitogaku) would be reinterpreted and reinvented anew between the Bakumatsu era and the 1940s. The 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education (教育勅 語 Kyōiku chokugo), a text which all schoolchildren were required to study, represented the first major statement of these reinterpreted ideologies by the new Japanese nation-state. It incorporated a modified version of Mencius’ conception of the five fundamental relations (五倫 gorin) but also affirming the unity of the emperor’s subjects “in filial piety and loyalty.” Yet the Rescript also outlined duties for those subjects intelligible only in a modernized, industrialized state capable of both mass education and the mass conscription of men from all classes for military service: for instance, “should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State.”19 Overlooking such discontinuities between the Edo-period feudal order and its industrializing Meiji-era successor in the late-19th to early-20th centuries, scholars such as Inoue Tetsujirō were eager to contrive genealogies of Confucian and ShintōConfucian thought extending seamlessly from the Edo period through to their own day.20 These genealogies were meant to demonstrate the continuity of a unique Japanese national spirit (国民精神 kokumin seishin) driving the Meiji “Restoration” of imperial political power and sustaining the supposed resilience of Japan’s national morality from ancient times into the 20th century. Song Qi’s chapter “Reintepreting Matsumiya Kanzan: On the Interval between State Shintō and the Idea of the Three Religions” highlights the importance of Edo-period thinkers in 20th-century retrospective constructions of Japanese Shintō-Confucian genealogies. A lesser-known Edo period scholar of the 17th–18th centuries, Matsumiya was a pragmatic loyalist who affirmed the spiritual authority and unbroken lineage of the imperial throne while remaining deferential to Tokugawa temporal authority. Song presents Matsumiya as a typically quarrelsome scholar of his era, engaging in controversy with other loyalists and with devotees of Ogyū Sorai’s thought, while also rejecting the nativist tendencies of the Shintoist National Learning (国学 Kokugaku) scholars. Qi shows what aspects of Matsumiya’s ecumenical thinking on the “Three Religions” attracted the interest of 20th-century Japanese nationalists. Acknowledging the contribution of Confucianism and Buddhism to Japanese life, Matsumiya nevertheless asserted the centrality of Shintō to upholding Japan’s imperial authority and the uniqueness of Japan itself, in distinction from and also equality with India and China, where (on his estimation) Buddhism and Confucianism respectively predominated. Matsumiya’s Shintō proto-nationalism, consciously influenced by Confucianism, would supply inspiration for State Shintō doctrine and national morality ideology in the 20th century. In “The Confucian Classics in the Political Thought of Sakuma Shōzan” Han Shuting investigates the explicit Confucian dimension to the modernization strategy proposed by the influential Bakumatsu-era inventor, scholar and reform advocate Sakuma Shōzan. Sakuma is remembered today for urging a combination of “Eastern morality with Western technology” to help Japan resist the threat of Western domination. Han finds that Sakuma invoked xxii

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Confucian ideals and exemplars to justify arguments for the study of Western technology, and followed a classic Neo-Confucian investigative approach to the study and application of such technology in fortifying Japan against Western encroachment. Han shows how Sakuma adopted this approach in two important affairs. The first was his attempt to secure statewide publication of a Dutch-Japanese language dictionary to facilitate studies of foreign knowledge. The second was his involvement in and defense of the “Yoshida Shōin Stowaway Incident,” in which Yoshida, his most famous student, had tried along with a friend to stow away on one of Commodore Perry’s ships prior to their departure back to the United States in 1854. As we have seen, Japanese people soon acquired the right Sakuma and Yoshida had dreamed of—to travel abroad and study foreign learning. Future reformers including prominent Meiroku Society members were among the first to do so in the last years of the Bakumatsu era, and more would follow in the years following the Meiji Restoration. The young Inoue Tetsujirō helped set a new trend when he traveled to Europe in 1884 to pursue further studies following his graduation from Tokyo University. Prior to his departure he commenced work on a book he titled A History of Oriental Philosophy (東洋哲学史 Tōyō tetsugakushi). He explained his motive for this work in the following way, hinting at a new, modernizing direction for Confucian studies: “Up to now, the splendid history of Western philosophy and religion has been well developed, and its research methods established. However, a history of Buddhism, Confucianism or Shintō (仏教儒教もしくは神道 Bukkyō jukyō moshi ku wa Shintō) has not yet been developed, and its research method has yet to be established.”21 The historian of education Okita Yukuji offers the following gloss on Inoue’s statement: In such a motive it is not impossible to see a reflection of nationalism. However, it was not (Inoue’s) intention to relativize western thought; rather, his primary aim was to research oriental philosophy and religion in light of research on western philosophy and religion. In proceeding with these comparative studies, Inoue would uncover issues related to the reception of foreign thought in Japan.22 Most of the chapters in this volume comment on some aspect of Inoue’s storied sixty year career as Japan’s first, modernizing Confucian philosopher, pioneering comparative philosophy scholar, conservative “scholar of the state” (御用学者 goyōgakusha), nationalist ideologue and propagandist for Japan’s World War Two regime. When he is remembered today it is usually for the final phases of his career, when he was as morally compromised by his commitment to wartime authoritarianism as Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt were by their entanglements with Nazism in Germany. Yet Inoue’s early career scholarly work remains understudied. Two chapters in this volume consider Inoue’s early career teaching, scholarship and ideological work. The first, “The Invention of ‘Chinese Philosophy’—How Did the Classics take Root in Japan’s First Modern University?” by Mizuno Hirota, investigates the intellectual innovations to which Okita Yukuji testified. Mizuno notes that the Chinese and Confucian classics initially had a marginal role in the literature curriculums of Tokyo Imperial University following its foundation in 1881. However, there was also a growing awareness that the Chinese classics needed to be taught more analytically and comparatively. On Mizuno’s reading, it was Inoue Tetsujirō, newly employed at Tokyo Imperial University in 1883, who first addressed this need. He started teaching Confucian thought in accordance with European Introduction

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methodologies for the analysis and periodicizing of intellectual history. Mizuno concludes that Inoue and his peers pioneered the investigation of Confucianism in modern intellectual historical and comparative philosophical terms, starting a modern academic tradition for Confucianism that would be passed on to Chinese scholars in the following decades. In “Inoue Tetsujirō and Modern Yangming Learning in Japan” Yamamura Shō considers a slightly later stage in Inoue’s intellectual career, in which his earlier philosophical and intellectual history interests were giving way to a more overt ideological aim: to use Confucianism to foster national unity. Concerned over what he deemed to be the chief dangers to Japan and its emperor-centered national polity—the internal spread of Christianity and the external threats of the European Great Powers—Inoue proposed to use a syncretic, Japanized Shintō-Yangming Learning to help cultivate a national morality. Yamamura argues that in doing so, Inoue inherited the reinterpretations worked on Yangming Learning (陽明学 Yōmeigaku) during the early-mid 19th century by Mito Learning and loyalist scholars. They had also promoted a synthesis of Shintō and Confucianism, urging bold reforms based on their interpretation of the Yangming Learning ideal, “unity of knowledge and action” (知行 合一 chikō gōitsu). Inoue’s efforts to retrospectively include these thinkers as participants in a Japanese Yangming tradition have some credibility inasmuch as they, like he, were theorizing the conditions for a strengthened national polity in awareness of the threat posed by foreign powers and ideologies like Christianity.

The wandering soul finds a Japanese home: the Shibunkai and Imperial Way Confucianism Four chapters of this book focus on the 1930s era of Kingly Way and Imperial Way Confucianism. One prominent philosopher of the era, Watsuji Tetsurō, is also the subject of two chapters. Though Watsuji was not formally affiliated with the Shibunkai scholars advocating for Japan’s Imperial Way, he partook of the wartime ideological Zeitgeist which this organization participated in and contributed to. In that Zeitgeist Confucianism was closely aligned with a particularistic national polity ideology that had its beginnings in the Mito School theorists in the early 19th century. Through that alignment, Confucianism was coopted for the authoritarianism and militarism of the Japanese state during the 1930s and 1940s. I will leave the detailed explanation of that alignment to the relevant chapters in this volume. However, I do want to discuss here in detail the institutional background to the rise of this variety of Japanese Confucianism, and some of the consequences of the collapse of that institutional support after 1945. To explain that background, I will cover the genesis and career of the Shibunkai as a publicly incorporated organization from 1918, drawing on the very few studies which have documented its history, and explain the role it and other institutions like Daitō Bunka Gakuin played in the promotion of Confucianism to perhaps its highest level of public prominence and elite patronage in the 1930s.23 The Shibunkai arose out of a merging of older Meiji-era societies dedicated to Chinese studies and Confucianism. The scholars, politicians and businessmen organizing the new Shibunkai, men such as the University of Tokyo sinologist Hattori Unokichi, Vice-president of the Privy Council Kiyōra Keigo and leading industrialist Shibusawa Eiichi founded it with a sense of urgency. They professed alarm that the material civilization imported from the West, though needful for Japan’s national development and modernization, was also bringing with it dangerous new ideologies which threatened to overwhelm Japan’s traditional moral

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and spiritual culture.24 They also worried about the disappearance of Chinese Learning and Confucian morals from modernized school curriculums in Japan; the promotion of classical Chinese literacy and Confucian morals in Japanese schools became one of their chief objectives. They saw in a revived Confucian way a means for reasserting Japan’s distinctive moral culture to counterbalance (though not negate) the influence of materialistic civilization.25 Two things need to be said about the Shibunkai at this early point in its development. First, it is recognizable as a politically conservative organization. Unlike any nativist or reactionary politics, it accepted the progress so far achieved in Japan by “materialistic culture” but sought to ameliorate its disruptive effects by rejuvenating traditional Confucian morality. Moreover, its leading thinkers such as Hattori Unokichi expressed cautious support for constitutional democracy, so long as it did not endorse republicanism.26 The Shibunkai did not at this early stage elevate an anti-Western perspective, though advocates for such a perspective did have a voice in the organization. Second, the organization was from its inception the beneficiary of state and business sector patronage. In a powerfully symbolic gesture the government donated the Sage Confucian Hall (湯島聖堂 Yushima Seidō) in Tokyo to become the Shibunkai’s institutional base, which it remains to this day. Members of the House of Peers were regular speakers at Shibunkai events. One leading member of the House and head of the Tokugawa Clan, Prince Tokugawa Iesato, was appointed as head of the Shibunkai in 1922, further raising its prestige and its networking potential with leading political figures. In his 1959 study Modern Japanese Confucianism Warren Smith documented the succession of Prime Ministers and cabinet members who attended the Shibunkai’s annual Confucian ceremonies from 1922, and who began officially presenting speeches to its gatherings from 1926. By the early 1930s, these political leaders were, according to Smith, explicitly arguing for “guiding the thoughts of the nation with Confucianism.”27 The Shibunkai was not the only institution founded in that era to promote the Chinese classics and combat the excesses of Western materialism. Daitō Bunka Gakuin (大東文化学 院, re-founded after the war as Daitō Bunka University) was founded through the lobbying efforts of the Eastern Culture Society (大東文化協会 Daitō bunka kyōkai) under the leadership of veteran politician, writer and House of Peers member Katō Masanosuke. The university’s mission is explained in a dedicatory classical Chinese poem written in 1963 by Takada Shinji, on the fortieth anniversary of its foundation. Takada had been a leading member of the Shibunkai in the 1930s and 1940s. On Takada’s interpretation, Daitō Bunka Gakuin’s institutional aims were very much the same as those of the Shinbunkai, conceived out of the conviction that Japan’s spiritual condition was failing: …Thus Westernization broke the pure wind of Confucianism… Here, patriots worrying about Japan’s future rose in anger To swear an oath and clarify the proper path. They submitted the Proposal for reviving Chinese Studies to the Diet And founded Daito Bunka University. Drawing on Japanese and Chinese studies, They resolved to earnestly study the Imperial Way.28 The influence of these institutions peaked in the 1930s. Relations had soured with Western nations as Japan expanded its political and military influence in Manchuria, and at the Introduction

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same time Japanese and some Chinese Confucians worked for a revived Confucian Kingly Way in the new puppet state “Empire of Manchuria” (滿洲帝国 Manshū teikoku). Japanese Confucians and their political patrons urged a strengthening of Japanese morality against influxes of Western ideas—which now came to be perceived in a far more hostile light—and a fortifying of the spiritual culture it shared with other East Asians. Warren Smith notes that Confucianism’s increasing synthesis with national polity ideology enabled nationalists to “preempt and use the force of Confucian values for their own purposes,” ultimately making it complicit in ideologies justifying authoritarianism at home and expansionism abroad.29 At the same time these institutions’ advocacy for Confucianism and Chinese Learning militated against more chauvinistic and politically destabilizing ultranationalist and radical Shintoist interpretations of concepts like the national polity or the Imperial Way. Echoing the National Learning scholars of the Edo period, the ultranationalists repudiated Confucianism. In this respect then, Japanese Confucianism was more palatable to political and military leaders who wanted to make a moral case for Japan’s empire building in East Asia, who saw Confucianism as a means for fostering obedience and loyalty among imperial subjects, but who were repelled by the violence of ultranationalist factions. The latter’s ideologies found expression in the terroristic conduct of the military officers who organized the failed coups d’état known respectively as the May 15 Incident of 1932 (五・一五事件 Go ichi go jiken) and the February 26 Incident of 1936 (二・二六事件 Ni ni roku jiken). For their part, the Japanese Confucianists upheld a Pan-Asian aspiration, which asserted a collective East Asian spiritual difference from the materialist West. Given the central Shintō-Confucian assumption about the uniqueness of Japan’s national polity that had purified and perfected Confucian ideals of virtuous statecraft as the Imperial Way, Japanese Confucianists believed Japan was positioned to lead East Asia in a spiritual conflict with the West. This Confucian Pan-Asianism was prominently displayed at two events that marked the apogee of Japanese Confucian institutional influence and patronage in modern Japan. The first was the founding ceremony on January 27, 1934 in Tokyo for a new Japanese Society for the Promotion of Confucianism (日本儒教宣揚会 Nippon jukyō senyō kai), which gathered 700 notables from Japan’s political, scholarly and military elite. These included members of the government cabinet, and representatives from the House of Peers and the Diet Legislature, with the leading speech being given by Katō Masanosuke.30 The second event, organized by the Shinbunkai, brought together Japanese, Korean, Manchurian and Chinese scholars, government ministers, members of the House of Peers and the Emperor of Manchuria, Puyi, for a conference on the Confucian Way held at Yushima Sage Hall in Tokyo in April 1935.31 Pan-Asian civilizational idealism, with its assertions of profound Asian spiritual difference from the materialist West, had already proven to be compatible with endorsement of warfare against China. As early as 1903 the Pan-Asianist writer Okakura Tenshin—whose writings attained new fame in the 1930s—testified to Japan’s recent victory over Qing China in the First Sino-Japanese War as proof of “our supremacy in Eastern waters” and as “a natural outgrowth of the new national vigor.” However, this war had also brought China and Japan closer together in “mutual friendship,” Okakura claimed, and enhanced, rather than distracted from Japan’s mission to “revivify the dormant life of the old Asiatic unity.”32 The Japanese Confucians also proved capable of endorsing war against China as a means for furthering Pan-Asianism. This is painfully obvious in the pages of the Shibunkai’s journal Shibun (斯文) in 1937–38, following the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Standard scholarly fare for the Shibun on Edo period Japanese studies of Song Dynasty Confucianism, xxvi

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or on theories of the five cardinal Confucian virtues, jostles with articles giving full-throated support to war. Leading members of the Shibunkai such as Inoue Tetsujirō, the historian of China, Iijima Tadao, and the Chinese literature scholar Shionoya On fulminated against the Chinese Republicans for having overthrown China’s monarchical system, and for abandoning the Confucian Way. The jingoistic wartime slogan “Punish Savage China” (暴支膺懲 Bōshi yōchō) was deliberately echoed in extravagant praise for the Japanese Imperial Army “punishing” the “savage” Chinese Republican forces. Iijima also contrived moralizing arguments based on Confucian literature to explain why the Chinese Republicans deserved such punishment.33 Even as the Shibunkai scholars hoped for a new Chinese leadership that would revive Confucianism, overthrow Republicanism and return China to the Pan-Asianist fold, their pro-war statements were as vehement as the utterances of the ultranationalists and militarists of the time. Now suitably tamed and stripped of its terroristic and anti-elite tendencies, by 1937 ultranationalism had become mainstream government ideology, justifying authoritarian statism and militarist expansionism abroad.34 The Shibunkai Confucians were in complete alignment with it. In 1944, amidst signs of a worsening war situation, Shionoya On dropped his earlier bellicose rhetoric and pinned his hopes for peace on the signing of a treaty between Japan and the puppet regime of Wang Jingwei in Nanjing the previous year. Shionoya anticipated that Japan’s “Sacred Imperial Army” would eventually eradicate the “violence of the English and Americans from the lands of the East” paving the way for a full restoration of China’s sovereignty. Yet in the conditions of total war that now prevailed, as Japanese political leaders recognized the limited appeal of Confucianism in negotiating with a rising nationalism among the Chinese, the views of the Shibunkai Confucians held little sway.35 The first chapter in the handbook to consider Imperial Way and wartime Confucianism in this historical context, Chang Kun-chiang’s “Modern Contextual Turns from ‘The Kingly Way’ to ‘The Imperial Way’” adapts Huang Chun-chieh’s concept of the “contextual turn” in East Asian Confucianisms to analyse the long-term evolution of the “Imperial Way” concept out of Kingly Way and Shintō ideologies between the 17th century and 1945. Chang closely analyses the different “turns” by which Confucianism and its conception of the Kingly Way were conflated with and absorbed into Shintō, then subordinated to Shintō through emerging loyalist doctrines for revering the emperor that first mentioned an “Imperial Way.” But Chang finds that the conception of a distinctive Japanese Imperial Way only emerged during the 1930s era of imperialist expansionism, coinciding with the creation of the Manchurian “empire” and the Second Sino-Japanese War. At this point there was a felt need to distinguish a uniquely Japanese Imperial Way from a subordinate Chinese/Confucian Kingly Way that would be guided by it. In this final “turn,” Chang argues that Confucianism gradually lost its value for Imperial Way ideology. Kang Haesoo’s chapter “The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought: The Link between Daitō Bunka Gakuin and Chosŏn Gyunghakwon” explores the little-studied transmission of “a Confucianism purified for incorporation into the Imperial Way and national polity” into colonial Korea during the 1930s and 1940s by two Korean graduates of Daitō Bunka Gakuin, Ahn In-sik and Joo Byung-kŏn. Ahn became head of the colonial-era Korea Gyunghakwon (조선 경학원 Chosŏn Gyunghakwon: in Japanese 朝鮮経学院 Chōsen Keigakuin), formerly Chosen Dynasty Korea’s chief Confucian academy, and he and Joo both taught at the Gyunghakwon’s institute, the Myeongnyun Hakwon (명륜학원; in Japanese 明 Introduction

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Meirin Gakuin). In this capacity, they were instrumental in interpreting to a Korean audience the Imperial Way Confucianism then being formulated by Daitō Bunka Gakuin and Shibunkai scholars. Kang concludes by raising some yet to be resolved questions about the legacy of this colonial-era Confucianism in post-1945 South Korean society. In “The Image of the Kingly Way during the War: Focusing on Takada Shinji’s Imperial Way Discourse” Park Junhyun writes about the studies into the Imperial Way conducted by Takada Shinji, a Tokyo Imperial University Chinese studies scholar and leading Shibunkai member (as noted above). Park argues that Takada went beyond the ideological statements and propaganda that typically characterized discussion of the Imperial Way, and sought to develop a deeper philosophical justification for that concept in Confucian terms. On Park’s presentation, Takada offered a more sophisticated interpretation of the Confucian concept of the Mandate of Heaven and a reinterpretation of the Rectification of Names doctrine to explain the Confucian credentials of the Japanese Imperial Way. In “Watsuji Tetsurō’s Confucian Bonds: From Totalitarianism to New Confucianism” Kyle Shuttleworth investigates the troubling philosophical and ideological affinities in 1930s and 1940s editions of Watsuji’s magnum opus Ethics (倫理学 Rinrigaku). Though Watsuji was disdainful of the output of the more ideological Confucians of the era, Shuttleworth finds that his interpretation of the five Confucian bonds or relationships (五倫 gorin) in these editions is vulnerable to accusations of complicity in totalitarianism made by modern critics. Shuttleworth agrees that such accusations are convincing, since Watsuji does interpret these bonds in a manner which is compatible with the subsumption of the individual in complete obedience and loyalty to the state. However, Shuttleworth finds that through postwar revisions to Ethics Watsuji participated in New Confucianism trends that actively identified compatibilities between Confucianism and democracy. Nevertheless, his traditionalist account of family relations remains open to feminist and gender critics’ objections.

Japanese Confucian legacies from the postwar era into the 21st century Finally, we must take stock of modern Japanese Confucianism’s legacy and fate in the post1945 era. Has it indeed become like Yu Ying-shih’s wandering soul, de-housed by postwar purges of Confucian nationalist scholars from the University of Tokyo, by the dominance of Euro-American philosophical thought in post-1945 philosophy departments, and by the reduction of the Shibunkai to a small-scale educational organization and conservator of Japan’s Confucian heritage?36 In present day circumstances it is difficult to dispute this assessment. Confucianism also faces wider social indifference or even hostility. Indeed, the contemporary marginalization of Confucianism and its “museumification” in specialist intellectual history may have inadvertently enabled its final nativist repudiation in some Japanese nationalist discourse. A number of best-seller books in Japan with titles such as The Tragedy of Chinese and Koreans Dominated by Confucianism and The Grudges of a Confucianism that Undermine Korea: its Anti-Japanese Sentiment is Endless strongly suggest such a trend. With their cultural essentialist presentations of Confucianism as a Korean and Chinese ideology, such books downplay Japan’s own Confucian heritage. Bereft of historically or philosophically informed insight, they turn Confucianism into a “floating signifier” and project into it the anxieties afflicting Japanese nationalists over relations with the Koreas and China amidst

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the unstable geopolitics of 21st century East Asia. Confucianism is thus stigmatized as a source of supposed Korean and Chinese cultural vices such as despotism, toadyism to the powerful, pathological anti-Japanese sentiment, self-righteous grudge-holding and historical revisionism.37 The popularity of such books is a sign of strong headwinds against a Japanese Confucian revival in the 21st century, especially among the political conservative constituencies where it once found its chief supporters. Nevertheless, the three chapters in the final part of this volume investigate some of the post-1945, Cold War-era survival and revivalist paths for Japanese Confucianism. They also explore its wider regional legacies and possible future directions. Following up on Kyle Shuttleworth’s investigation of the Confucian elements in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Ethics, Alexandra Mustătea develops a close reading of Watsuji’s postwar intellectual history work on Japanese ethics in her chapter “Thinking about Confucianism and Modernity in the Early Postwar Period—Watsuji Tetsurō’s The History of Ethical Thought in Japan.” She contests an influential postwar judgement on Confucianism’s supposedly negative, feudalistic influence in Japan’s modernization. On her reading, Watsuji’s book shows a way forward for Confucian normative theory drawing on a distinction between the historically, culturally particular ethical thought or rinrishisō (倫理思想) of a society and a universal ethics or rinri (倫理). The philosophy of ethics (倫理学 rinrigaku) is a critical investigation that seeks out the universal ethical principles of rinri. Confucianism came close to fulfilling a rinrigaku role in pre-modern Japan. Watsuji’s analysis shows that Confucianism is not, as Maruyama Masao asserted, a largely feudal-era holdover, and that it was a creative, innovative influence in the Edo-Meiji transition. Mustătea hopes that this latter, universalizing and normative potential in Confucianism as rinrigaku can still be realized today, in acknowledgement of its capacity to adapt creatively to changing social-historical conditions. Eddy Dufourmont’s chapter “Yasuoka Masahiro and Confucian Survival in Postwar Japan, 1945–1983” provides a social and intellectual historical perspective on the postwar propagation of conservative Confucian ethics by philosopher Yasuoka Masahiro. Dufourmont explains how Yasuoka, a charismatic and energetic networker, was able to reconstitute his prewar relations with former patrons in regional business elites and with politicians in the postwar Liberal Democratic Party to aid in the dissemination of his thought. Dufourmont also shows how this thought suited the interests of corporate leaders and politicians aiming to combat Communism and excessive “westernization” in postwar Japan. Durfourmont ultimately finds that Yasuoka’s influence did not long outlast his death and the end of the Cold War. It did, however, contribute to an international boom in books during the 1980s linking the success of Japan’s and other East Asian nations’ brands of postwar capitalism with Confucianism. In our chapter “Universalizing Kingly Way Confucianism: A Japanese Legacy and Chinese Future?” Jiang Dongxian and I explore the concept of a modular “exemplary nationalism” originating in early 19th-century Germany which combines—unstably—an affirmation of particularistic national values with a national mission to exemplify and propagate those values universally. We show that the characteristics of such a nationalism can be found in 1930s era Japanese Kingly Way and Imperial Way Confucianism promoted by the Shibunkai, which became complicit with wartime imperialism and militarism. We then survey Chinese Confucian thought today to warn that a similar “Kingly Way” Confucian nationalism may be on the rise in authoritarian China, testifying to its “modularity” between Japan and China. Introduction

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We conclude our chapter with a normative argument for a conscientious Confucianism in the 21st century, uncoupled from nationalist and “national mission” ideologies.

Notes

Yu Ying-shih, “Xiandai ruxue de kunjing” [现代儒学的困境 Modern Confucianism’s dilemma) Aisixiang, April 6, 2011, accessed June 13, 2021. https://www.aisixiang.com/data/39809.html. 2 Stephen Angle, Sagehood: the Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009), 4–5. 3 These studies, comparatively few in number in the English language, include David Nivison and Arthur Wright, eds., Confucianism in Action (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959); Warren Smith, Confucianism in Modern Japan (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1959); and Kiri Paramore, Japanese Confucianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Recent, shorter discussions include Martin Collcutt, “The Legacy of Confucianism in Japan” in The East Asian Region: Confucian Heritage and its Modern Adaptation, ed. Gilbert Rozman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 111–57; Gilbert Rozman, “Comparisons of Confucian Values in China and Japan” in Rozman, The East Asian Region: Confucian Heritage and its Modern Adaptation, 157–204; Takahiro Nakajima, “Confucianism in Modern Japan” in The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Philosophy, ed. Yusa Michiko (Bloomsbury: London, 2017), 43–64; and Shaun O’Dwyer, Confucianism’s Prospects: A Reassessment (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2019), 131–63. 4 Chun-chieh Huang and John Tucker, eds., Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014). 5 See Chun-chieh Huang, East Asian Confucianisms: Texts in Context (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015). 6 Representative, if theoretically diverse works in this genre include David Hall and Roger Ames, Democracy of the Dead (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1999); Sor-Hoon Tan, Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction (Albany: State University of New York Press 2003); Stephen Angle, Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012); Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014); and Sungmoon Kim, Confucian Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 7 A Compendium of Japanese Thought [ 日本思想大系 Nihon shisō taikei] a monumental 67-volume study of Japanese intellectual history, has perhaps one third of its volumes dedicated wholly or partly to the study of late Civil War era-Edo period Confucianism. Other volumes treat individual thinkers associated with Confucianism in the Heian period and with the Bakumatsu era through to the mid-19th century. It was compiled between 1970 and 1982. For a brief summary of other Japanese language and Anglophone scholarship since the 1960s, see Chun-chieh Huang and James Tucker, “Introduction” in Huang and Tucker, eds., The Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, 2–3. 8 James Heisig, Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), 21–23. 9 Inoue Tetsujirō, “Die Streitfrage der Chinesischen Philosophen uber die Menschliche Natur” (The Chinese philosophers’ dispute over human nature) in (Actes du huitìeme Congrès international des orientalistes: tenu en 1889 à Stockholm et à Christiania) IV, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1892), 1–17. 10 See “Prof Hattori on Confucianism,” The Harvard Crimson, April 1, 1916, accessed June 14, 2021. https:// www.thecrimson.com/article/1916/4/1/prof-hattori-on-confucianism-pprofessor-unokichi/ 11 Paramore, Japanese Confucianism, 169–170 12 See Maruyama Masao, “Ansai Learning and the Yamazaki Ansai School,” trans Barry Steben, in Huang and Tucker, eds., Dao Companion to Japanese Confucianism, 331–411. A polemical discussion of Confucianism as the morality of a static, hierarchical and social-attribute fixated feudal society, like that of the Tokugawa era, can be found in Maruyama’s landmark 1960 essay “De aru koto to suru koto” 「 [ であること」と「すること」‘Being’ and ‘doing’] in Nihon no shisō [日本の思想 Japanese thought] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1960), 176–77. 1

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13 Some critical discussions on the complicity and willing cooptation of Kyoto School philosophers and Zen Buddhism scholars and practitioners by Japan’s wartime regime include Ichikawa Hakugen, Bukkyōsha no sensō sekinin [仏教者の戦争責任 The Buddhists’ war responsibility] (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1970); Brian Victoria, Zen at War (New York: Weatherhill, 1998); and James Heisig and John C. Maraldo, eds., Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School and the Question of Nationalism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995). 14 The thematic-based introduction of these chapters undertaken here does not follow their chronological order in this handbook. 15 For a wide-ranging discussion of the conundrums—and also opportunities—that early Japanese translators of European thought faced when working from the classical Chinese and Confucian lexicons, see Douglas Howland, Translating the West: Language and Political Reason in Nineteenth-Century Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002). 16 On the modernizing credentials of ryōsai kenbo ideology, see Koyama Shizuko, Ryosai Kenbo: The Educational Ideal of ‘Good Wife and Wise Mother’ in Modern Japan, Stephen Filler, trans., (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2012), 49. 17 See Janice Nimura, Daughters of the Samurai: a Journey from East to West and Back (New York: W.W. Norton, 2015). 18 Koyama, Ryōsai Kenbo, 50–51. 19 Japanese and English versions of the Imperial Rescript on Education can be found here: https://web.archive​ .org​/web/20200322102836/http://www.meijijingu.or.jp:80/english/about/6.html, accessed August 30, 2021. 20 Maruyama Masao described this genealogy-building process linking the Ansai and Mito lineages in a continuous line with 20th-century kokutai ideology as the “emanation theory.” “Ansai Learning and the Yamazaki Ansai School,” 346–47. 21 Inoue, quoted. in Okita Yukuji, “Rikugō Zasshi ni okeru Inoue Tetsujirō” [ 『六合雑誌』における井上哲次郎 Concerning Inoue Tetsujirō and Cosmos Journal], Kirisutokyō shakai mondai kenkyū [キリスト教社会問題研究 Studies in the social problems of Christianity], 30 (1982): 202. 22 Okita, “Rikugō Zasshi ni okeru Inoue Tetsujirō,” 202. 23 See Smith, Confucianism in Modern Japan, 103–47; and Paramore, Japanese Confucianism, 154–82. 24 See Warren Smith’s translation of “Aims of the Shibunkai” in Confucianism in Modern Japan, 270. 25 Smith, Confucianism in Modern Japan, 269–70. 26 Smith, Confucianism in Modern Japan, 128; see also Hattori Unokichi, “Jukyō to demokurashii” [ 儒教とデモ クラシイ Confucianism and democracy] Shibun [斯文] 1, no. 4 (1919): 331. 27 Smith, Confucianism in Modern Japan, 138. 28 Takada Shinji, Hongaku sōritsu yonjūnen kinen no gaji [ 本学創立四十周年記念の賀詩 Congratulatory poem on the university’s 40th anniversary] (Tokyo: Daito Bunka University Digital Archives, 2019), accessed August 30, 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20210830024920/https://www.daito.ac.jp/branding/english/archives​ /details_02.html 29 Smith, Confucianism in Modern Japan, 137–38 30 Smith, Confucianism in Modern Japan, 148–52. 31 Fukushima Kashizō, ed., Yushima Seidō fukkō kinen Judō taikai shi [ 湯島聖堂復興記念 儒道大会誌 Proceedings of the Conference on the Confucian Way in commemoration of the restoration of the Yushima Sage Hall] (Tokyo: Shibunkai, 1936). Very few studies have been conducted on Shibunkai literature published during the 1930s and 1940s. In Confucianism in Modern Japan, 148, Warren Smith admits that no Shibunkai literature post-dating 1933 was available for him to study. Kiri Paramore briefly discusses the contents of its earliest issues in Japanese Confucianism, 154–56. For a rare discussion of Shibunkai scholars’ thought in the mid-1930s, see Nakajima Takahiro, “The Restoration of Confucianism in China and Japan: A New Source of Morality and Religion,” in Facing the 21st Century, eds. W. Lam and C. Cheng (Nagoya: Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, 2009), 46–48. 32 Okakura Tenshin The Ideals of the East (New York: Dutton, 1920), 223. 33 Inoue Tetsujirō, “Jukyō yori mitaru Shina jihen” [ 儒教より觀たる支那事変 The China Incident seen from the viewpoint of Confucianism], Shibun 20, no. 1 (January 1938): 1–10; Iijima Tadao, “Kokutai no meichō to Shina no kakusei” [國體の明徴と支那の覺醒 Clarifying the national polity and the awakening of China], Shibun 19, no. 12 (December 1937): 1–3; and Shionoya On, “Jukyō to sanminshugi” [孔敎と三民主義 Confucianism and the Three Principles of the People], Shibun 19, no. 10 (October 1937): 5–10.

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34 Walter Skya, Japan’s Holy War: The Ideology of Radical Shintō Ultranationalism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2009), 256–61. 35 Shionoya On, “Daitō akaigi to nikka dōmei jōyaku wo kaerimite” [ 大東亜会議と日華同盟條約を省みて Reflecting on The Greater East Asian Conference and the Japan-China Alliance Treaty], Shibun 26, no. 1 (January 1944): 10. On the declining role of Confucian values in Japanese occupation policy and diplomacy in China during the later stages of the war, see Smith, Confucianism in Modern Japan, 226–28. 36 For a fieldwork-based assessment of the present-day Shibunkai’s organizational aims and activities, see Paramore, Japanese Confucianism, 181–82. In a recent survey, James McMullen finds that there are currently nine localities in Japan—including Yushima Sage Hall—where Confucian rites continue to be practiced, usually on a modest scale. See McMullen, The Worship of Confucius in Japan (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asian Center, 2020), 478–79. 37 See Kent Gilbert, Jukyō ni shihai sareta chugokujin to kankokujin hito no higeki [ 儒教に支配された中国人と韓 国人の悲劇 The tragedy of Chinese and Koreans dominated by Confucianism] (Tokyo: Paperback Shinsho, 2017); O sonfa, Kankoku wo mushibamu jukyō no onnen: hannichi wa towa ni owaranai [韓国を蝕む儒教の怨 念: 反日は永久に終わらないThe grudges of a Confucianism that undermine Korea: its anti-Japanese sentiment is endless] (Tokyo: Paperback Shinsho, 2019); and Okada Toshikazu, “Ianfu, chōyōkō…hannichi ga towa ni owaranai riyuu ni kirikomu shinjutsu no issatsu” [慰安婦、徴用工…　反日が永久に終わらない理由に切り込む真 実の１冊 Comfort women, conscripted workers: one book that ferrets out why anti-Japanese sentiment is endless) Sankei News (August 9, 2019), accessed July 3, 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20210830042112​ /https://www.sankei.com/article/20190809​-VGFYEGCEINIRXJQAURP2KUUMWA/4/.

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Chapter 1 Reinterpreting Matsumiya Kanzan: On the Interval between State Shintō and the Idea of the Three Religions Song Qi Translated by Ruth and John McCreery

Introduction Matsumiya Kanzan was an Edo-period thinker and a successor to the Hōjō School of military strategy. His legacy includes writings about the concept of the three religions: Shintō, Confucianism, Buddhism (神道・儒教・仏教の三教 Shintō jukyō bukkyō no sankyō). Kanzan was not the equal of Hayashi Razan, Itō Jinsai, or Ogyū Sorai; but his thinking about the three religions reveals another aspect of thought in Edo-period Japan. In 1922, Itō Takeo published an article entitled “Matsumiya Kanzan in Shintō History” in issue no. 62 of Shintō, a magazine published by the Shintō Senyō Kai (神道宣揚会 Society for Enhancing Shintō). This article was the first published research on Matsumiya Kanzan. According to Itō, Inoue Tetsujirō said that Kanzan was someone who should be remembered in the history of the development of Loyalism (勤王 kinnō). He was a scholar on a par with Yamaga Sokō. Even so, when the history of Loyalism is discussed, he is not on the list with Yamaga Sokō, Kumazawa Banzan, Yamagata Daini, Takayama Hikokurō, and Gamō Kunpei. That was because many researchers, as exemplified by Inoue Tetsujirō himself, did not include Matsumiya Kanzan in their research on Loyalism. It was for that reason that Itō Takeo called him “the hidden Loyalist.”1 Later, from the 1920s to the 1940s, research on Matsumiya Kanzan flourished. While most concerned his biography and his studies of military strategy, research on his Loyalist thinking also increased. The latter concerned the involvement of his thinking in the creation of State Shintō (国家神道 Kokka Shintō). The role of his thinking in promoting the concept of the Japanese Spirit was for a time emphasized in historical research. In his 1943 Research on the Japanese Soul (日本魂の研究 Yama­todamashi no kenkyū) Watari Shōzaburō ranks Matsumiya Kanzan as an important thinker along with Yamaga Sokō, Kumazawa Banzan, and Tokugawa

Chapter 1: Reinterpreting Matsumiya Kanzan

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Mitsukuni.2 The chapter on Matsumiya Kanzan takes its title from his saying, “The concept of patriotism (報国の念 hōkoku no nen) will live on after I die.” 3 Thus, in the 1920s, Matsumiya Kanzan was not the “hidden Loyalist” Itō described. Instead, he was treated as a notable Loyalist. After the war ended, however, research on Kanzan’s Loyalist thinking totally disappeared. Now, nearly eight decades after the war, if we return to Matsumiya Kanzan’s thought and the historical research on it, we discover discrepancies between them. If we take into account the role of the three-religions thinking that flows beneath his Loyalist thinking, what wells up is another spiritual support for modern State Shintō and ultranationalism. This essay addresses that topic, focusing in particular on the debate between Matsumiya Kanzan and Yamagata Daini, who was executed for his role in the Meiwa Incident (明和事件 Meiwa jiken), and offering a new interpretation of Matsumiya Kanzan’s three-religions thought.

Matsumiya Kanzan’s background

Born in 1686, Matsumiya Kanzan was the son of Shunkei, a gondai sōzu (権大僧都) rank priest (abbot) and shugengō (修験僧) practitioner at Yōmeizan Kongōin (養命山金剛院) temple in Ashikaga-gun, Shimotsuke province (now Tochigi prefecture). His original surname was Sugawara; given name Shunjō; nicknames Kyūkan, Nawakawa; commonly referred to as Sajima (Shurei after he turned seventy); pen names Kanzan, Kanbai Dōjin. Some say that he was a descendant of the Sengoku-era swordsman Maebara Chikuzen no Kami.4 Based on Ōnuma Yoshio’s research, we known that Maebara Chikuzen started out in the service of the Obata clan who ruled Kōzuke province (now Gunma prefecture), then switched his allegiance to the Takeda clan who ruled Kai province (now Nagano prefecture). During the closing years of the Sengoku era, after Chikuzen’s death, his son Tadanaka held the sixth rank under the Ritsuryō (律令) system. When the Takeda clan fell, so did the house of Maebara. Tadanaka gave up his samurai status and moved to the mountains, where he became a Shugendō practitioner (山伏 yamabushi). He became the first generation Shugendō priest at the Yōmeizan Kongōin Temple (abandoned in 1869), in Ashikaga Itakura. The sixth-generation abbot, Shunkei, was Matsumiya Kanzan’s father.5 In 1699, when Kanzan was fourteen, his father ordered him to leave the mountains and go to Edo, where he became the adopted son of Matsumiya Masatane, a samurai without an official position. That same year he became a student of Hōjō Ujisuke (1666–1727), the son of Hōjō Ujinaga (1609–1670). Because his studies began with Hōjō military strategy, the Hōjō School teachings (北条流兵学 Hōjō ryū heigaku) became an important foundation for his thinking. Matsumiya Kanzan’s intergenerational connections with other military strategists can be summarized as follows. His studies can be traced back to Obata Kagenori (1572–1663), the founder of the Kōshū School of strategy. Hōjō Ujinaga was Obata Kagenori’s best disciple and also taught Yamaga Sokō (1662–1685). Kanzan was in the next generation after Yamaga Sokō and is seen as continuing the line of Hōjō strategists. What Kanzan studied was primarily works written by Hōjō Ujinaga. That said, he never met Ujinaga but spent a long time attached to Ujisuke. In 1691, Ujisuke was recruited to the page corps. He later served as magistrate (奉行 bugyō) for Shimoda, then Sado, then reached the rank of yoriai (寄合), a direct vassal of the Bakufu with a generous stipend of 3000 koku or more, but no official position. Before Ujisuke settled in Edo, Kanzan was always his assistant and traveled with him all over Japan as ordered by the Bakufu. Kanzan settled down in Edo at

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the age of seventy and handed over the name “Sajima” and the headship of his household to his son and adopted the name “Shurei” for himself. During the following twenty-five years, he established a private academy where he taught strategy, carefully studied social thought, and devoted himself to his writing. Kanzan’s major works include On Learning (学論 Gakuron; 1755), Notes on the Abridged Version of the Military Strategy Corpus (士鑑用法直旨抄 Shikan yōhō jiki shishō, 1756), Theses on the Three Religions (三教要論 Sankyō yōron, 1760) and Theses on the Three Religions (Sequel) (続三教要論 Zoku sankyō yōron, 1762). In 1769, because his exchange of letters with Yamagata Daini, author of Master Ryū’s New Thesis (柳子新論 Ryūshi shinron, 1759), implicated Kanzan in the Meiwa Incident, he was exiled from Edo and moved to Yotsuya. Now in his nineties, he published his Defense of Dissenting Views (異説弁解 Isetsu benkai, 1775) and The True Meaning of National Learning (国学正義 Kokugaku seigi, 1776). He died at the age of 95 in 1780. His grave is at his family temple where generations of his family are commemorated (菩提寺), the Kōgenin (高源院), in Ōtsuka.

Matsumiya Kanzan and the Meiwa Incident Seventeenth-century Japan enjoyed a peaceful and stable period without war. What the emperor and aristocracy must strictly observe had been proclaimed early in the Edo period in the Laws for the Imperial and Court Officials, jointly issued in 1615 by the retired first shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), his successor as shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada (1579–1632) and the imperial regent Nijō Akizane (1556–1619). These laws excluded imperial and court officials from any active authority in government.6 In terms of intellectual history, Fujiwara Seika (1561–1619), Hayashi Razan (1583–1657) and Yamazaki Ansai (1618–1682) were among the Edo-period thinkers who asserted a close relationship between Confucianism and Shintō, producing many interpretations in which orthodox Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism was imported into Shintō, resulting in a Shintō that incorporated many threads of Confucianism. The result was “Confucian Shintō” (儒家神道 Juka shintō). Japan, however, did not concentrate all authority in one man, the emperor, as in China. Authority was two-dimensional, divided between the emperor and the shogun. With all power to govern firmly in the hands of the shogun, what was meant by loyalty to the emperor, who possessed no real power, became an issue.7 The issue became manifest in the mid-Edo Hōreki (暦事) and Meiwa Incidents. During the Hōreki Incident, in 1758, Takenouchi Shikibu8 (1712–1768) spoke in Kyoto to young aristocrats, including Tokudaiji Kinmura, Kuga Toshimichi, Ōgimachisanjō Kintsumu, and Karasumaru Mitsutane on the Chronicles of Japan (日本書紀 Nihon shoki, 720), Asami Keisai’s (1652–1711) posthumously published Testaments of Selfless Sacrifices (靖献遺言 Seiken igen, 1748),9 which celebrated the acts of loyal ministers in China, and other texts. During his lectures, he frequently spoke about the existing political system and its incompatibility with Japan’s ancient national polity. The young aristocrats who listened to his lectures were unhappy with the Bakufu dictatorship and, records suggest, arranged for Shikibu to address Emperor Momozono.10 Worried about the government’s stability, the regent Ichijō Michika (1722–1769) reported Shikibu to the Kyoto Shoshidai (所司代), the shogun’s deputy in Kyoto. As a result, eight court nobles were placed under permanent house arrest, and Shikibu was sent into exile.11 The incident took place inside the Imperial court, while nine years later the Meiwa Incident, in which Yamagata Daini was a leading figure, erupted on the streets of Edo.

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Yamagata Daini (1725–1767), the central figure in the Meiwa Incident, opened a private academy in Edo, where he taught military strategy. He was the author of Master Ryu’s New Thesis, in which the words of the fictional character Ryūshi are borrowed to clarify the meaning of “respect the king, denounce tyranny.” Because Daini was a severe critic of the Bakufu’s corruption and promoted the idea that reverence for the Emperor was taigi meibun (大義 名分)—an instance of the great principle of duty to the ruler—he appeared to be criticizing the Bakufu’s oppression, a crime for which he was executed. Taigi (duty) and meibun (moral obligation) were concepts taken from ancient China’s feudal society, but in China they were not combined in a single phrase. There the duty owed by minister to ruler was the most important component of loyalty. Orthodox Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism did not emphasize the formalities of duty, but instead emphasized the internal motivation of a heart governed by principle. When Neo-Confucianism spread throughout Japan in the Edo period, its role was seen as reinforcing the established social order. The school of Yamazaki Ansai stressed “duty” and “moral obligation,” making obedience the core of that support. In this way taigi meibun, the combination of duty and moral obligation, became the theoretical foundation for political stability in early modern Japan. The same combination of concepts also became an idea that pervaded the Loyalist political movements that led to the Meiji Restoration.12 The Hōreki Incident and Meiwa Incident occurred a century before the Meiji Restoration, but in them we can glimpse the origins of the Loyalist movement during the Bakumatsu period.13 Japan was then still closed to most foreign contact,14 and there was little interaction between Japan and Europe or America, but there was contact with Qing Dynasty China, Korea and the Netherlands via Nagasaki, Tsushima, Yezo and the Ryukyus. The idea of the modern nation state had not yet become fully developed, but people were concerned about relations between Japan and the world outside Japan. Among those involved in the Meiwa Incident, Kanzan was not an important figure. Seen as a mere accomplice, he was not executed but was exiled from Edo. In his exchange of letters with Yamagata Daini, Kanzan had not only agreed with Yamagata’s thinking; he also offered advice and counsel. Matsumiya Kanzan had been the assistant of Hōjō Ujisuke (1666–1727) and had been involved in practical government as a Bakufu official. Forty years before the Meiwa Incident, he had spent three years (1722–1725) as the Bakufu representative in Nagasaki, Japan’s window on the world. Serving at the Nagasaki magistrate’s office, he was active on the front line of Japan’s foreign relations and had become concerned with Japan’s relationship with the world outside Japan. For Kanzan himself, the Meiwa Incident was the hugely important event of his later years. We must, then, look more closely at its influence on Kanzan. Kanzan did not stop writing after he was exiled from Edo. During this period he wrote his On Japanese Studies (和學論 Wagaku ron, 1769), as well as the aforementioned Isetsu benkai and Kokugaku seigi. Before the Meiwa Incident, Kanzan had been primarily interested in academic topics, discussing and critiquing various current schools of thought. After the Meiwa Incident, by contrast, we see his interest extended to address the relationship between scholarly topics and government. In The True Meaning of National Learning we still see scattered references to the three religions, Shintō, Confucianism and Buddhism. These can be read as extensions of his thinking in Theses on the Three Religions (1760) and Theses on the Three Religions (Sequel) (1762), but we see greater emphasis on the political character of Shintō Confucian Buddhist Three-Religions thinking.

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Matsumiya Kanzan versus Yamagata Daini In 1763, the year after the publication of Theses on the Three Religions (Sequel), Matsumiya Kanzan and Yamagata Daini engaged in a debate. In his two books on the three religions, Kanzan discussed the state of Shintō, Confucianism and Buddhism in Japan and the relationships among them. His point was to communicate a correct grasp of the three religions. While comparing Confucianism and Buddhism, he stressed the vital position of Shintō and the shogun’s authority. He did not oppose the rule of the warrior households. In Theses on the Three Religions he said the following: By making respect for the descendants of gods, the Imperial lineage [皇統 kōtō] transmitted by blood and the proper division of high and low and courtesy between ruler and minister as the highest principle [大綱領 daikōryō], humanity flourishes as if in the prime of life. With this unshakeable will to revere the divine treasures inscribed on the Imperial seal, the emperor and the shogun have held fast to the great treasures as they have ruled the country until today for thousands of years. They offered religious services to their ancestral temples and the descendants protected the temples and the imperial rule. Our Shintō is the one and only in the universe.15 In these remarks we see clearly that Kanzan was a supporter of Shintō. He not only strongly stresses the divinity inherent in the blood of the Imperial lineage; he also accepts the authority of the Emperor and Shogun, who rule the nation. His reasons are “Order is achieved by (proper) division of high and low plus courtesy between them, ruler and minister, those below would respect and obey the masters and then the country will be stable and continue for a long time.”16 In other words, the ordering principles, the division between high and low and courtesy between ruler and minister, are essential characteristics inherent the division of authority between emperor and shogun. As a result of this thinking, Confucian ideas, that is, orthodox Zhu Xi Neo-Confucian principles, are used to elevate Shintō. Also, in 1724, the then thirty-nine year old Kanzan copied the Shintō Ideas of Master Suika (垂加翁神 説 Suika Ō shinsetsu), making the influence of Suika Shintō (垂加神道) on Kanzan’s thinking impossible to overlook.17 In On (1755), Kanzan credits Yamazaki Ansai for saying that loyalty—attachment to the country of your parents—is the source of his thinking.18 In this way, the duties of ruler and minister, father and son, and the categories king and usurper, citizen and barbarian, became the foundation of Kanzan’s thinking about the three religions.19 Kanzan was seventy-five years old when he wrote Theses on the Three Religions. His thinking about the three religions, in which Shintō was primary, was not seen as a threat by the Bakufu at that time. Later, however, in 1769, two years after Yamagata Daini was executed, the now eighty-three-year-old Kanzan was interrogated by the Bakufu and exiled from Edo. One reason for the direct connection between Kanzan and the Meiwa Incident was his disciple Hōnin, already deceased, who had been investigated by the Bakufu and found guilty of dangerous thought. Previous research by Maeda Tsutomu suggested that Kanzan was deemed an accomplice because he openly criticized the reality of the Bakufu’s governance.20 Did, however, Kanzan see himself as an accomplice? In The True Meaning of Kokugaku he had this to say:

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I was implicated and exiled for the crime of talking too much with my scholar friends. I have been here eight years. During this time I have written three discussions of the study of Japanese history and literature [和学 wagaku]. I have jotted down my opinions and stored them in bamboo cases to wait for someone to read them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to this new discussion. I don’t know when that day would come…21 The True Meaning of National Learning was written in 1776, when Kanzan was already elderly, at ninety years old. For eight years he had been living outside of Edo, in Yotsuya. Because he had been treated as an accomplice in the Meiwa Incident, he did not publish what he wrote, instead storing it away in bamboo cases. He hoped to find readers in later generations instead of among his contemporaries. As described above, Kanzan’s goal in writing The True Meaning of National Learning was to promote the thinking he had written about in Theses on the Three Religions, the first of his books on the three religions. In The True Meaning of National Learning we can see a tendency to be very cautious about what he was saying. However, even before the Meiwa Incident he did not speak freely. He always paid attention to the moment and circumstances. His first letter to Yamagata Daini contained the following thoughts: 22 … As I was reading that book, it seemed deep and far-ranging. Unfortunately, when I came to the discussion of your theory of two-dimensional rule [両都向背 の論 fukutokōhai no ron], divided between the Emperor and the Shogun, I saw a problem. It missed the heart of what the sages have to say, failed to investigate common habits and the current situation, and, rather than two-dimensional, was one-sided and, while appearing to strike a balance, has a bias in favor of Chinese-style Confucianism [漢学儒風 Kangaku jufū]. To say it more politely, today’s imperial court sits far above the clouds, leaving ministers and officials responsible for the exercise of authority, and, furthermore, has no control over taxation or property. Because the imperial family, generation after generation, has virtuously maintained excellent lords and ministers, while rebellious and brave barbarians covet those sacred treasures, sage rulers restrain themselves and are not greedy. The position of the emperor will continue eternally with heaven and earth; it is as stable as Mount Tai. All virtuous warriors should feel the supreme delight together and should praise the imperial court …. So, to your views I add my humble thoughts. I conceal these thoughts in a bamboo case and await later readers’ judgments.23 The signature on this letter tells us that it was written in Hōreki 13 (1763), four years after the completion of Master Ryushi’s New Theory and four years before the Meiwa Incident. Following the Hōreki Incident and the arrest of Takeuchi Shikibu, Fujii Umon (1720–1767) fled Kyoto and traveled to Edo, where he sought refuge in the household of Yamagata Daini. Because Fujii talked all the time about plans to attack Edo Castle, he was found guilty of the crimes of plotting rebellion and lèse-majesté.24 While Yamagata Daini was not implicated in this incident, his passion for Loyalism was strong and was probably strengthened by it, since he shared many views with his subordinate. As a result, Daini could be said to be closer to being an active instead of a theoretical Loyalist. 6

Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan

In this correspondence, Kanzan first praises Daini, but instead of publishing his conclusion, he concealed what he wrote, leaving it to be discovered by a future reader. He appears to have adopted this careful approach in all of his activities. If we compare what he writes in his correspondence with the content of Theses on the Three Religions (Sequel), we find that the principles are almost identical. In both, the position of the sacred “imperial lineage” is unshakable. This is Kanzan’s core idea. In his letter, Kanzan points directly to problems with Yamagata Daini’s thinking. He says that Daini does not understand the sages, has failed to examine local custom and moment, and stubbornly sticks to a single standard. He concludes that Daini is too strongly influenced by “a bias in favor of Chinese-style Confucianism.” This argument is also reflected in the Theses on the Three Religions. The Confucians’ [儒たる者 Jutarusha] perspective is too narrow, viewing everything in the world in terms of a certain balance. For this reason they believe that the governance of every nation should be identical with the way of Yao and Shun. Even if they see that nations are not the same, they would not consider national customs [国風 kokufū] or conditions and think all are heretical [異端 itan].25 Here, when Matsumiya Kanzan writes “Confucians,” he appears to be pointing his finger at scholars of the Ancient Rhetoric Learning school (古文辞学派 Kobunjigakuha) epitomized by Ogyō Sorai. Kanzan argued that it was a weakness in Sorai’s scholarship that he advocated “the way of Yao and Shun” without taking into account Japan’s national customs and conditions. By “national customs” he specifically meant the aforementioned “divine imperial lineage and blood descent.” Daini rebutted Kanzan’s remarks as follows: You say that because of divergent customs and circumstances, we should not use a certain balance as evidence in making inferences about everything. I don’t agree with you. Customs should be changed and habits altered. What constraints do you, ruling the intellectual world, have in being obsessed with it? 26 Daini rejects Kanzan’s criticism. It is precisely because he understands what Kanzan is saying that he emphasizes that we (the rulers) should confront the current state of governance and society and also emphasizes the need to solve its problems. When Daini then goes on to say, “Customs should be changed and habits altered,” he is talking about the need to adapt oneself to the needs of the moment. He affirms that this has nothing to do with a bias in favor of Chinese Confucianism. Yamagata Daini criticized the Bakufu’s corruption and is dissatisfied with samurai rule. That is why he is seeking change in customs and habits. His goal is to proclaim reverence for the emperor based on a legitimate reason. Kanzan replied, asking Yamagata Daini for a further response. Examining their exchange we discover that both embraced Loyalist ideas. Research by Takahashi Sadao, however, indicates that their understanding of Loyalist thought took different forms. According to Takahashi, at the time of the debate between Yamagata Daini and Matsumiya Kanzan, their understandings of the then current political system differed. While both embraced Loyalist ideas and argued for a return to and reverence for ancient ways, Kanzan emphasized the divine and unbroken descent of the imperial lineage, in contrast to Daini, who stressed the “Rectification of Names.” 27 A deeper analysis suggests that the sources of their thinking, that Chapter 1: Reinterpreting Matsumiya Kanzan

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is, their views of what restoration of the origins of social thought entailed, were fundamentally different. Daini adopted a pragmatic stance that became the starting point and the goal for political reform. In contrast, Kanzan, while paying attention to social reality, emphasized ideology. Given the primordial, core element in his thought, that the divinity of the imperial line exists, the people he calls rebellious and brave barbarians would not rebel—they would be calm. In other words, he seems to have believed that if the primordial spiritual support for the nation was sound, major social problems would not arise. From their academic lineages, we can infer that both Kanzan and Daini were influenced by Suika Shintō. By mid-Edo, however, Suika Shintō was no longer what it had been in early Edo. It was mixed with other schools of thought and later was absorbed by Loyalist thinking.28 While both inclined towards Loyalism, in Daini’s thought Loyalty is more narrowly defined, while in Kanzan’s thinking, the definition is broader.29 Daini thought political power should be returned from the Bakufu to the imperial family. Kanzan presents a broader view of Loyalism, of Japan’s kokutai (national polity) and seeks to maintain it.

Kanzan as critic of Sorai As previously noted, Matsuyama Kanzan saw Yamagata Daini as influenced by Ogyū Sorai and criticized Sorai Learning (徂徠学 Soraigaku) for its Chinese Confucian bias. Kojima Yasunori has pointed out that, viewed in terms of intellectual lineage, Yamagata Daini was a hybrid product of Kimon Learning (崎門学 Kimongaku) (the Yamazaki Ansai School) and Sorai Learning (the Ogyū Sorai School).30 Kojima also made Kanzan’s rejection of Sorai’s theory of mind the focus of his argument.31 In addition, Maeda Tsutomu has undertaken a comprehensive comparative study of Kanzan’s opposition to Sorai Learning, using strategy and Confucianism as the axes of his study.32 Based on that previous research, we now turn from Kanzan’s exchanges with Yamagata Daini to the purpose and basis of his opposition to the Sorai School. Ogyū Sorai criticized the orthodox Zhu Xi Neo-Confucian approach to interpreting the Chinese classics and proposed reading the original ancient texts instead. The examples of Matsumiya Kanzan’s correspondence cited above were written in 1763. That same year, Kanzan published his Scholarly Connections Explained (額脈弁解 Gakumyaku Benkai). There we find the following comments concerning Ogyū Sorai: Both schools erected a red flag in the East. The whole world followed its commands and worshipped it like a god. The disciples said, “The way of Confucius has been transmitted to Sorai.” But [Kanzan] argued that the two masters [Jinsai and Sorai] were not the first to state that view [to criticize Neo-Confucianism]. Xunzi first said it and the Ming Confucians agreed to it…. So who is Sorai? He attributed faults or ideas not convenient for him to Confucius and Mencius. He assumed responsibility for important affairs, and gained the respect of the daimyo, to his advantage. He sits on the holy throne and holds the power of the authority of the south-facing [supreme] ruler. So he is the ruler of the Edo intellectual world. Among their disciples were those who belittled the ancients and said delusional things based on the thinking of Yin Yang and the Five Agents. Some adopted

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heretical positions, talked about strange things, and shocked the conventional thinking of their times. But the disciples who followed admire him.33 For a time the Jinsai (仁斎学 Jinsaigaku) and Sorai Schools took the world by storm. Disciples of Ogyū Sorai praised their teacher as Confucius’ successor. However, Jinsai and Sorai were not the first to criticize Song Neo-Confucianism. They continued the tradition of the Ancient Rhetoric School that began with Xunzi (c. 313–238 BCE) and was revived by such Ming Dynasty Confucians as Li Panlong (1514–1570) and Wang Shizhen (1516–1590). In addition, because Sorai’s book Reading Xunzi (読荀子 Dokujunshi) was based on his close reading of Xunzi, he is thought to have had a deep understanding of Xunzi’s thought. In Sorai’s literary aesthetics, especially his poetics, he was strongly influenced by the Ming Dynasty Ancient Rhetoric School. The Ancient Rhetoric School, which relied on China’s ancient language and texts for verification, provided the foundation for the Sorai School’s methodology.34 That is how Kanzan was able to trace the origins of Sorai’s thought to Xunzi. It is very clear, however, that Kanzan was unhappy with the Sorai School’s followers. He saw among them those who did not treat the ancient sages with sufficient seriousness, who spoke nonsense based on YinYang and the Five Agents (陰陽五行 Inyōgogyō), even indulged in wild talk that shocked those who heard it. Yamagata Daini was not a member of the Sorai School, but Kanzan likely saw him as one of those “shallow-brained followers.” Influenced by China’s Ming Dynasty Ancient Rhetoric School, Sorai looked for a way to restore the ancient models in Japan. The core concept for his Ancient Rhetoric School was “The Way of the Ancient Kings” (先王の道 Sennō no michi). Sorai’s Way of the Ancient Kings was supported by the “art/technique of the way” and “etiquette and music.” Kanzan, at the time he was writing, was not the only opponent of the Sorai School. Where Sorai proclaimed the value of etiquette and music, anti-Sorai Confucians saw his words, and his statements about the Way of the Ancient Kings, as nothing more than his personal opinion.35 Kanzan largely agreed with this line of argument, criticized the excess of imitation he saw in Sorai, and clarified the true value of Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism. Kanzan investigated the roots of Sorai’s theories. In his Scholarly Connections Explained, he explored Sorai’s treatment of Xunzi. He rejected the orthodoxy of Xunzi, who claimed that Confucius’ grandson Zisi, along with Mencius were agents of chaos. According to Kanzan, the Confucian scholarly context was, until Zisi, an oral tradition. The writings of Zisi, especially the Doctrine of the Mean, supposed to have been written down when Zisi was in his teens, incorporated the thinking of his teacher Cengzi (505–434 BCE) and was presented as Confucian orthodoxy. Xunzi, who belonged to a different school, did not receive the oral transmission received by Zisi. For this reason, Kanzan rejected the claim that Xunzi was more orthodox than Confucius’ successors. Instead, Kanzan interpreted the “heart” in Mencius’ advice to let go and follow your heart36 as a benevolent good conscience (仁義之良 心 jingi no ryōshin).37 This heart, this benevolent conscience, does not differ from one person to another. The benevolence and good manners it embodies are universal, inherent in everyone. Kanzan argued that orthodox Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism had inherited this concept and proposed it as an “inherent principle” (性理 seiri) and beneficial to the study of the sages. Also, Kanzan directly rejected on theoretical grounds the Sorai School’s use of “the way of the sages” (聖人の道 seijin no michi) as its core concept. In his Scholarly Connections Explained, he explains as follows:

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Sorai says that the sages created the Way. Nothing here explains how the sages respected Heavenly Principle [天理 Tenri] and supported it accordingly. But if there is nothing, how can we say that they supported it accordingly? To distinguish wrong from right, one should follow the human principle and vice versa. Principles, however, are without form. For this reason, the sages created rites and texts [禮文 reibun] to describe them. In them, Heavenly Principle and humanity are one and the same. There is proof in the way that their teaching follows these rules. Rites must be in accord with principle. No deviation is permitted. Zhu Xi said this clearly. How then can we be told to search for principle and rites in our own hearts, putting aside the example of the sages? 38 It can be said that “the Way of the Sages” is the core concept of the Sorai School. However, as Kanzan points out, there is no basis here for deciding what the Sages believed was consistent with Heavenly Principle. If Heavenly Principle is reflected in human principles, the principles that govern life, then human principles become the criteria by which things are judged. Heavenly Principle is invisible. What is visible are rites (禮 rei), i.e., proper behavior. Since, moreover, principle and rite are inseparable, those who are meticulous in performing rites can be thought of as following Heavenly Principle. In Kanzan’s view, what Zhu Xi wrote about rites can be summed up in the proposition that acting in accord with Heavenly Principle and the Way of the Sages are equivalent. Kanzan respected Zhu Xi and held orthodox Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism in high regard. He did not reject the Way of the Sages. Sorai acknowledged that the Way of the Sages was without form. That was the premise on which he developed his Ancient Rhetoric School. In Sorai’s thinking, rites, music, punishment, and government were methods for realizing the Way. His aim was to reveal “natural” threads in human “actions.”39 Kanzan approached the same problem from the angle of evidence. He understood that while saying that the Way of the Sages is formless, Zhu Xi’s “principle” and “rite” are visible forms of the Way of the Sages. We should also note that the scope of Kanzan’s theory was not divided by national boundaries between Japan and China. When, however, his thinking reached the stage of applying his theory, he strongly emphasized the presence of national boundaries (国境 kokkyō). Thus, his emphasizing “Chinese Confucianism bias” was not because he wanted to point out bias on the part of Chinese Confucians. His finger was pointed at Ogyū Sorai, a Japanese seeking to imitate the Chinese “Way of the Sages.”

Three-Religions thought as Kanzan’s methodology In the previous section, we noted how Matsumiya Kanzan pointed to problems with Yamagata Daini’s thinking, as well as his criticisms of Ogyū Sorai. But what did Kanzan himself advocate? The conclusion offered here is that, on theoretical grounds, Kanzan saw both Japan and China as absorbing a variety of concepts and proposed as his methodology putting into practice the concepts of three religions, Shintō, Confucianism and Buddhism. Let us consider first the introduction to his Theses on the Three Religions. The three religions have long been practiced. In Japan, both Confucianism and Buddhism have flourished. Their popularity is no less than it is in China [支 Shi] and India [竺 Jiku]. They lift our eyes upward and absorb vital energy from 10

Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan

all directions. Their systems are awe-inspiring, their writings brilliant. They are almost overwhelming. One may wonder why Kokugaku [国学 the National Learning] is so inert. But those who preach its teachings are narrow-minded. Their methods are shrouded in secrecy. They foster self-righteousness. They despise the idea that the Sun Goddess’s light penetrates every corner of the cosmos, supporting and sustaining heaven and earth. That is why the two schools [Confucianism and Buddhism] look down on National Learning. That too is deplorable. Our teacher, Kanzan, is deeply worried by these tendencies. That is why he wrote this small book, Theses on the Three Religions.40 This introduction was written by Kanzan’s follower Sakai Tadaoki, who was from the Matsuyama domain. During this period, the Tokugawa Bakufu’s samurai-dominated regime had made Confucianism the core of its cultural policy, using it along with Buddhism to govern the masses. Confucianism and Buddhism were important tools of Tokugawa cultural and political governance. In contrast, Shintō was unimportant politically. Kanzan was deeply concerned that, while both Confucianism and Buddhism were flourishing in Japan, the National Learning was not thriving. In Kanzan’s writings, the terms Kokugaku and Wagaku (和学 Japanese Learning) frequently appear, but Kogaku (古学 Ancient Learning) does not. Kanzan was a near contemporary of the Shintō scholar Yoshimi Yoshikazu (1673–1761), who in 1746 wrote his On the National Learning (國學弁疑 Kokugaku bengi, published in 1753). Another title for that work was On the Land of the Gods (神國弁疑 Shinkoku bengi), suggesting that “National Learning” and “Land of the Gods” (神国 Shinkoku) were equivalent. We can thus infer that at that time, “National Learning” was understood to be the study of Japan, then commonly regarded as the “Land of the Gods.” The expression “Land of the Gods” had a natural connection to Japanese myth, implying the Japan was the land of Shinto’s innumerable divinities. In a later generation, Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) refused to use the term “National Learning” because of its association with “Chinese meanings” and proposed the use of “Ancient Learning” instead. Norinaga’s intent was, by annotating the myths compiled in the Records of Ancient Matters (古事記 Kojiki) and Chronicles of Japan (日本書紀 Nihon Shoki) to celebrate a uniquely Japanese “ancient learning,” pioneer a uniquely Japanese “Way,” (日本の道 Nihon no michi) and resist the importation of the foreign “Ways” of Confucianism and Buddhism.41 Kanzan also emphasized the concept of the “Way.” His “Way,” however, was tightly linked to “education” (教 kyō). In the preface to Theses on the Three Religions, he wrote, “What is it to be educated? To cultivate the Way.” His source was the opening section of the Confucian classic The Doctrine of the Mean (中庸 Zhongyong): “What Heaven confers is called ‘nature.’ Accordance with this nature is called the Way. Cultivating the Way is called ‘education’.” 42 Influenced by The Doctrine of the Mean, Kanzan emphasized the last of its four essential steps, Heaven (天 ten), Nature (性 sei), Way (道 michi), and Education. Emphasizing the relation between the Way and Education, he argued that Education was determined by the Way.43 This explanation not only appears in both Theses on the Three Religions and Theses on the Three Religions (Sequel). It also appears in The True Meaning of National Learning, written by Kanzan after the Meiwa Incident. Japan has the seal of the emperor and the Three Sacred Treasures, passed down for generations. These are the starting point of National Learning. Their virtues Chapter 1: Reinterpreting Matsumiya Kanzan

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illuminate the whole universe. Imperial authority spreads in all directions, governs all affairs, rectifies all customs, encompasses all systems. To govern without acting has a long history. That history includes instances in which respect for that authority has been misused. Emperors have taken up arms, oaths have been taken. In recent years, for the first time since the nation was founded, Confucianism has been popularized in a crude and vulgar form. Official matters are left unsettled. Even those from distinguished lineages are filled with overweening pride. They lack subtlety and accept without question esoteric teachings. They neglect what they should be doing. The sea roads are already open. The emperor’s children follow the model of previous generations. Their plans do not stop at the water’s edge. Every nation shall be part of our imperium. To see others as our humble servants, to seek out other territories and make them our own. That is why I have carefully selected and interpreted these passages from the Confucian and Buddhist Classics.44 As described above, the Meiwa Incident, in which Kanzan was involved, led to the suppression of Loyalist thought. Loyalist thought per se was not dangerous; but Kanzan was careful to avoid touching directly on the Bakufu’s governance. In early modern Japan, a composite structure was already in place. Scholars who study Confucianism describe the Japan of this period as a state with two heads.45 In Kanzan, we see an effort to ensure the safety of his words. In The True Meaning of National Learning, as in his writing on the concepts of the three religions, the message is the same. Both strongly emphasize that, as the country of the gods, Japan is unique. However, in contrast to the concern about culture in Theses on the Three Religions, in this book he now strongly affirms his faith in the culture of his homeland. Starting with the imperial seal and the three sacred treasures, Kanzan’s text is now saturated with Shintō feeling. To Kanzan, Ninigi-no-Mikoto, the grandson of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami, was accompanied by numerous gods when he descended to earth bringing with him the three sacred treasures, coming down from heaven to unite the earth. That traditional model passed down from previous generations was still alive in the world in which Kanzan lived. His self-confidence was grounded in the conviction that his gods’ imperium spanned every nation. In many respects, his thinking did, in fact, resemble that of Sorai. His aim was, like Sorai’s, the “Way of the Sages” or “Way of the Ancient Kings.” Where, however, Sorai’s sages were the sages of ancient China, Kanzan’s sages were the ancient rulers of Japan. That is the reason for the differences described above and for Kanzan’s accusing Sorai of bias in favor of Chinese Confucianism. If we compare Matsumiya Kanzan’s thinking before and after the Meiwa Incident, we discover that the incident had little impact. Kanzan was a Loyalist throughout. That said, in his thinking about the three religions, Shintō, Confucianism and Buddhism, he said very little about duty. He did, however, stress the superiority of Shintō. However great foreign things like Confucianism and Buddhism might be, we can see that to Kanzan, they were only useful tools. To Kanzan, including Confucianism and Buddhism in his thinking about the three religions appears to have been of only methodological significance, a way to illustrate and confirm the value of Shintō. In other words, while recognizing the rationality and universality of Confucianism and Buddhism, his aim was to solidify the position of Shintō.

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Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan

From Three Religions to State Shintō Starting in the Meiji period, National Learning became a recognized category. Motoori Norinaga and his disciples were labeled scholars of the National Learning (国学者 Kokugakusha). These early-modern advocates of National Learning were ardent believers in Japan’s uniqueness and superiority to other nations, and for this reason rejected Confucianism, Buddhism and other forms of foreign thought. During the Edo period, trends in social thought had shifted from Ogyū Sorai to Motoori Norinaga’s National Learning, but Kanzan’s teachings were not attached to either school. When Kanzan said “National Learning” or “Japanese Studies” he was drawing a distinction between the study of Japan’s ancient past and the study of China or India. In contrast to the Sorai School, he strongly emphasized the independence of Japan. When compared to Motoori Norinaga and other scholars of National Learning, his thinking did not include their fierce rejection of Buddhism and Confucianism. The clear difference in Kanzan’s Shintō-Buddhist-Confucian Three-Religions thinking was the way it was centered on Shintō. Kanzan’s thinking cannot be said to have been common at the time he was writing. Kanzan’s contemporary, the Shintō scholar Masuho Zankō (or Nokoguchi, 1655–1742) also developed a unified theory of the Three Religions. In his writing, too, we find that Shintō is primary, with Confucianism and Buddhism relegated to supporting roles. He, however, adopted a consistently negative stance toward Confucianism and Buddhism. According to Peter Nosco, he was a transitional figure in Edo intellectual history, located between ShintōBuddhist syncretism and National Learning philology.46 Kanzan could be described as a similar transitional figure located between Sorai and National Learning. While both Zankō and Kanzan wrote explanations of the three religions, they are located at the intersection of different intellectual genealogies. During the Edo period, awareness of all three religions, Shintō, Confucianism and Buddhism, was universal.47 That said, why did Kanzan’s version of three-religion thinking come to be seen as a forerunner of Loyalism, and associated with Ultranationalism? The most significant cause of Kanzan’s raising the idea of three-religion thinking was, as mentioned above, his concern over the loss of independence of Shintoism in the ideological circles at the time. With this concern as a driving force, he put a great deal of effort into his books. Kanzan explicitly expressed his patriotic intentions in his books. For example, the conclusion of his On Learning, II is as follows: Our country Japan is one leg of a tripod that stands between heaven and earth, along with China [震旦 Shintan] and India [月氏 Gesshi] It has long been the case that these are referred to as the three countries. The same is true of the three Ways. What I humbly write may be biased, but I do not say that one Way is good and the others bad. All I want to do is to learn from the past and convey my gratitude. As a scholar I devote myself and my resources to reflecting on what we have inherited from our ancestors. I seek instruction from others and do not waste my energy in pursuit of other rewards, for to do so would be to abandon my original intention. Like other scholars, I am content to be humble, not trying to stand out. My only aims are to proclaim the glory of my country [国輝 kuniteru], praise its sacred virtues, spreading its teachings to the whole world and suppressing the barbarians. This firefly’s light does not shine far; this mosquito’s

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strength cannot move mountains. Even should this book not be widely read, this intention remains. When I die I want to be one with the spirit of my country. Xun Zi became a servant of Confucianism and did not wish to be a servant of Buddhism. I will give my all to repay my debt to the country of my birth.48 In this expression we see that Kanzan’s passion for his country rivaled that of the scholars of National Learning. But if we interpret his statement that “Xunzi became a servant of Confucianism and did not wish to be a servant of Buddhism,” as Watari Shōzaburō does in his 1943 book Research on the Japanese Soul, as “absolutely refusing to be a slave of Confucianism or Buddhism and proclaiming the spirit of Japan to the world,” 49 the nuance changes. First, Kanzan’s thinking does not include the concept of “the Japanese spirit.” When Kanzan refers to the world as “between heaven and earth,” his world includes China and India as well as Japan. Each of these three countries has its own Way: Shintō in Japan, Confucianism in China, Buddhism in India. Kanzan’s reason for not wanting to submit to either Confucianism or Buddhism is his belief that Shintō, the Way of Japan, should not be subordinated to them. In other words, from his perspective, given that the three countries form a tripod, all three Ways equally support the world as a whole. For a Japanese, Shintō is primus inter pares, first among equals. Kanzan’s thinking about his identity is, it might be said, typical of Japanese born in the Edo period. Ordinarily we think of “Japanese” as having emerged as a national identity following the impact of the West. Maeda Tsutomu has pointed out, however, its spontaneous emergence in early modern Japan and the importance of that development.50 According to Maeda, the intellectual history of early modern Japan was constructed around four axes: military strategy, orthodox Neo-Confucianism, Dutch Learning and National Learning. He has been investigating how “Japanese” as a national identity emerged in this context. Kanzan’s thinking is located at the intersection of these influences, giving rise to a spontaneous sense of Japanese identity based on organizing his thinking about Shintō, Confucianism and Buddhism. As just previously noted, Kanzan himself says that his goal is not to differentiate them as better or worse, or to rank them as superior or inferior. His aim is to return to the past and pay a debt of gratitude. He approaches all three traditions as standing on an equal footing, based on different world views with ancient roots. It is a fact that he stresses the autonomy of Japan. As a result, he gives special emphasis to Shintō and appears to lean in a Loyalist direction. But seen through Kanzan’s eyes, when returning to the past and repaying debts, it seems right to focus on Shintō and turn to Confucianism and Buddhism for additional support. He does not examine, however, the religious character of any of those three traditions. Why, then, does Watari Shōzaburō draw attention to Kanzan? He sees Kanzan’s thought as supporting State Shintō. To Watari, in Kanzan’s discussion of Japanese national character, a point especially worth noting is how it makes reverence for the Emperor an essential part of that character.51 Also, Watari observed, “While Kanzan lived a long time, he was aware that each human life is limited. Even so, his heroic soul, his loyalty to his nation, would last forever. That is the Japanese spirit.”52 Watari’s Research on the Japanese Soul was published in 1943; he published many similar works around the same time. However, during the 1920s and 1930s, Watari had poured his energy into his work on national education and national morality (国民道徳 kokumin dōtoku). He occupied important positions in the world of education as a professor at the Tokyo Higher Normal School and and as a member of Ministry of Education advisory committees. His earlier books included many works on national morality.53 14

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As Japan modernized, the religious character of State Shintō was weakening,54 while its moral or ethical aspects were being emphasized. Starting in mid-Meiji, educational systems intended to strengthen national morality by emphasizing its moral essence flourished. National morality was seen as a process of educating the nation’s citizens as prescribed in the Imperial Rescript on Education, or in other words to provide intellectual support for the Imperial System. Inoue Tetsujirō, the author of the official annotated edition of the Imperial Rescript (1891) and Outline of National Morality (国民道徳概論 Kokumin dōtoku gairon) (1912), was a key figure in this effort.55 Watari was also an active participant in this trend and as noted above, published numerous works related to it. Watari believed that the mission of transforming people into proper citizens made opening the door to traditional thought imperative. Thus, he extracted concepts from Shintō, Confucianism and Buddhism. The idea of three religions with Shintō in its center, based on those traditional concepts, offered, he believed, an ideal program for transforming people into proper citizens. The year in which Watari published his Research on the Japanese Spirit, 1943, also saw the publication of Iizuka Shigetake’s Biography of Yamagata Daini—New Commentary on 13 Chapters of Master Ryū’s New Theses (山県大弐正伝——柳子新論十三篇新釋 Yamagata daini seiden—Ryūshi shinron jūsanpen shinshaku).56 At the beginning of the 20th century, research celebrating the national polity and Loyalist thought became an increasingly prominent field of study. As scholars sifted through Edoperiod Loyalist thought and proposed new interpretations, many Loyalist thinkers, including Matsumiya Kanzan and Yamagata Daini, were once again in the spotlight.

Conclusion From the mid-Edo period on, Japan enjoyed a period of stability without war, but there were still many problems with Japanese society. The Kyōhō Reforms (享保の改革 Kyōhō no kaikaku) and the Kansei Reforms (寛政の改革 Kansei no kaikaku) were Bakufu efforts to address a series of societal issues. Meanwhile, the world outside Japan was changing in many ways. The European countries were advancing rapidly, while, comparatively speaking, the old empires of Asia were becoming weaker. Thinkers in Japan were vigorously debating a host of issues, domestic and international. Those were the times in which Matsumiya Kanzan lived. The scope of his vision did not extend as far as Europe. His view of the world stopped at three countries: Japan, China and India. He corrected the ideas advocated by Yamagata Daini, criticized the Sorai School and appeared superficially to embrace conservative trends. In fact, however, he was pioneering a new Way. The most important distinctive feature of Kanzan’s thinking was that there were no national boundaries in the content of his theories, because he took and used so many ideas from China’s Confucianism. In contrast, when it came to the actual application of his theories, he emphasized current circumstances and deployed his theories to protect the position of Shintō. From these facts we can infer that Kanzan was a pragmatic thinker who considered bringing up ideas from the three religions, Shintō, Confucianism and Buddhism, as his methodology. Starting in the Meiji period, Japan’s world view was transformed, from one bounded by the three countries, Japan, China and India, to the modern world whose center was Europe. Japan’s problem in this era was how to construct a modern nation. Early-modern Loyalism became connected to State Shintō through the core thinking that placed Shintō at its center.

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As this modern Loyalism incorporated a theory of duty and status taken from Confucianism, three-religions thinking was adopted and adapted to become an effective ally of ultranationalism. Matsumiya Kanzan, who had discussed three-religions thought during Edo, came to be interpreted in modern Japan as filling in the gap between three-religions thought and State Shintō.

Notes

Yusa Michiko, ed., Itō Takeo, “Shintō shi ni okeru Matsumiya Kanzan” [神道史上に於ける松宮観山 Matsu­ miya Kanzan in Shintō History], Shintō 62 (1922): 3–12. 2 Watari Shōzaburō, Yamatodamashi no kenkyū [ 日本魂の研究 Research on the Japanese soul ] (Tokyo: Chubunkan, 1943). Watari Shōzaburō was a professor at the Tokyo Higher Normal School, a member of the Ministry of Education Special Inspector Committee, and an authority on ethical education. 3 Matsumiya Kanzan, Gakuron [ 学論 On learning], in Matsumiya Kanzan Shū [松宮観山集 第二巻 The collected works of Matsumiya Kanzan, Vol. 2], ed. The National Spirit and Culture Research Institute (Tokyo: Kokumin Seishinbunka Kenkyūjo, 1936) 3. 4 According to Hara Tokusai’s Sentetsu zōden [ 先哲像伝 Biographies of great scholars] (Tokyo: Shōkabo, 1897) Hayashi Ryūkō (1681–1758), head of the Bakufu’s Confucian academy, presented Matsumiya Kanzan with a poem that describes Kanzan as “the seventh-generation grandson of Maebara, Chikuzen no Kami of Kai province.” 5 Ōnuma Yoshio, “Ashikaga umare no Edo no heigaku-sha shisōka Matsumiya Kanzan no enkyō shi-nen (ichi nana shi nana) kyūreki gogatsu no jigazō san ni-hen no kaidoku o tōshite akiraka ni naru koto Ashikaga Daigaku kenkyū shūroku“ [足利生まれの江戸の兵学者・思想家松宮観山の延享四年（一七四七）旧暦五月の自画像賛 二篇の解読を通して明らかになること What has become clear by closely examining two texts accompanying selfportraits of Matsumiya Kanzan, an Edo-period military strategist and thinker born in Ashikaga, drawn in the fifth month of 1747 (according to the lunar calendar)] Ashikaga Daigaku kenkyū shūroku [足利大学研究収 録Ashikaga University Research Collection], 55 (March, 2020): 31. 6 Tsuji Tatsuya, ed., Nihon no kinsei ni tennō to shogun [ 日本の近世二 天皇と将軍 Early modern Japan 2, Emperor and Shogun] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1991), 73–74; Takano Toshihiko, Kinsei no chōtei to shūkyō [近世 の朝廷と宗教 The early modern Imperial court and religion] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2014), 119–32, 161. 7 Takano, Kinsei no chōtei to shūkyō, 441. 8 Takenouchi Takamochi, known as Takenouchi Shikibu: studied Confucianism and Suika Shintō (a Confucian interpretation of Shintō) with Yamazaki Ansai. 9 Written by Asami Keisai (1652–1711), an early Edo-period Confucian scholar, it discusses eight loyal ministers in China, including Qu Yuan, Zhu Geliang, and Wen Tianxiang. 10 Mikami Sanji, Sonnō ron hattatsu shi [尊皇論発達史 History of the development of respect the Emperor] (Tokyo: Fuzanbō, 1941), 450–51. 11 Shikibu was regarded as the central figure in the Hōreki Incident and punished accordingly. When he became a suspect in the Meiwa Incident, he was exiled to Hachojima but fell sick and died while traveling there. See also Isomae Junichi and Ogura Shigeji, ed., Kinsei chōtei to suika shintō [近世朝廷と垂加神道 The early modern court and Shintō with Confucian elements] (Tokyo: Perikansha, 2005); Ōnuki Daiju, “Takenouchi Shikibu no shisō juyō to sono denpa—Hōreki jiken no zenshi toshite” [竹内式部の思想受容とその伝播——宝暦 事件の前史として Reception and transmission of the thought of Takenouchi Shikibu—the prehistory of the Hōreki Incident], Bulletin of the Meiji Japan Society 56 (2019); Watsuji Tetsurō, Sonnō shisō to sono dentō [尊 皇思想とその伝統 Loyalist thinking and its tradition], in Nihon Rinri Shisō [日本倫理思想史 History of ethical thought in Japan,] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1952 [2015]), 327–31. 12 Bitō Masahide, “Mitogaku no tokushitsu” [ 水戸学の特質 Characteristics of the Mito School] in Imai Usa­ burō, Seya Yoshihiko, and Bitō Masahide, ed., Nihon shisō taishi 53, [日本思想体系 五三 水戸学 Systems of Japanese thought 53, the Mito School] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1973), 560. 1

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Maruyama Masao, Nihon seiji shisō shi [日本政治思想史 History of political thought in Japan] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1993), 278. 14 The term sakoku ( 鎖国 closed country) was first used by Shizuki Tadao (1760–1806), an interpreter for the Dutch in Nagasaki, who included it in the title of the last appendix in his translation of History of Japan by Engelbert Kämpfer (1651–1716). “Sakoku” became a label attached to Japan, and this perspective on Japan’s history persisted. However, much research in recent years has been based on perspectives that overturn this way of seeing Japan. 15 Matsumiya Kanzan, Sankyō Yōron [ 三教要論 Theses on the three religions], in Matsumiya Kanzan Shū [松宮観山集 第一巻 The collected works of Matsumiya Kanzan, Vol. 1], ed. The National Spirit and Culture Research Institute (Tokyo: Kokumin Seishinbunka Kenkyūjo, 1935) 37. 16 Matsumiya Kanzan, Sankyō Yōron, 37. 17 Muraoka Tsunetsugu (revised), Suika Ō shinsetsu—Suika Shintō shojūden [ 垂加翁神説・垂加神道初重伝 Shintō ideas of Master Suika—first major tale of Suika Shintō] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1938). The Suika Ō shinsetsu Muraoka used was the copy made by Matsumiya Kanzan. 18 Matsumiya Kanzan, Gakuron, 9. 19 Isomae Junichi, Kindai Nihon no shūkyō gensetsu to sono keifu [ 近代日本の宗教言説とその系譜 Religious discourse in modern Japan and its genealogy] (First Edition, 2003) (Tokyo: Iwanami On Demand Books, 2006), 224–25; Takano, Kinsei no Chōtei to Shūkyō, 441. 20 Maeda Tsutomu, Nihon kinsei no Jugaku to heigaku [ 日本近世の儒学と兵学 Japan’s early modern Confucianism and military strategy] (Tokyo: Perikansha, 1996), 352. Takahashi Sadao, “Seimei to shōbu—Yamagata Daini to Matsumiya Kanzan no ronsō ni tsuite zaikentō” [正名と尚武——山県大弐と松宮観山の論争についての再 検討 Rectification of Names and warlike spirit—A reconsideration of the debate between Yamagata Daini and Matsumiya Kanzan], Nihon shisōshi kenkyū, [日本思想史研究 History of Japanese thought] 36 (2004): 66–67. 21 Matsumiya Kanzan, Kokugaku seigi [ 國學正義 The true meaning of National Learning], in Matsumiya Kanzan Shū [松宮観山集 第二巻 The collected works of Matsumiya Kanzan, Vol. 2], ed. The National Spirit and Culture Research Institute (Tokyo: Kokumin Seishinbunka Kenkyūjo, 1936) 224. 22 Matsumiya Kanzan and Yamagata Daini exchanged a total of three letters. The first was from Kanzan to Daini (late summer, 1763), the second from Daini to Kanzan (September 14, 1763) and the third from Kanzan to Daini (October 9, 1763). They were used as the afterward for Ryūshi Shinron. 23 Yamagata Daini, Ryūshi shinron (Shōroku) [ 柳子新論（抄録）Excerpts from Master Ryūshi’s New Theses] in Bushidō zenshū dai go kan [武士道全書第5巻 Bushidō complete writings vol. 5], ed. Saeki Ariyoshi, Ueki Naoichirō and Inobe Shigeo (Tokyo: Jidaisha, 1942), 168–69; Iizuka Shigetake, Yamagata Daini seiden—Ryūshi shinron 13 hen shinshaku [山県大弐正伝――柳子新論十三篇新釋 Official biography of Yamagata Daini—with new commentary on 13 Chapters of Master Ryushi’s New Theses] (Tokyo: Mitsui Shuppan Shokai, 1943), 411. 24 Kondō Heijō. ed., Shisekishukan [ 史籍集覧 Compilation of historical records, Vol. 16] (Kyoto: Kondo Publishing Divsion, 1902), 400. 25 Matsumiya Kanzan, Sankyō yōron 35. 26 Iizuka, Yamagata Daini seiden—Ryūshi shinron 13 hen shinshaku, 412. 27 Takahashi, Seimei to shōbu—Yamagata Daini to Matsumiya Kanzan no ronsō ni tsuite zaikentō, 71–72. 28 Isomae and Ogura, Kinsei chōtei to Suika Shintō; Isomae Junichi, Kindai Nihon no shūkyō gensetsu to sono keifu, 25. 29 Watsuji Tetsurō, Sonnō shisō to sono dentō; Mikami Sanji, Sonnōron hattatsu shi [ 尊皇論発達史 History of revere the emperor doctrine] (Tokyo: Fuzanbō, 1941); Bitō Masahide, Nihon no kokka shugi—“Kokutai” shisō no keiseki [日本の国家主義——「国体」思想の形成 Japanese nationalism—the formation of the national polity concept] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2014). 30 Kojima Yasunori, Ogyū sorai no zankyō—Dazai Shundai, Hori Keizan, Mizutani Hakusen, Nyūi Mitsugi, Yamagata Daini, Hoashi Banri no gaku’ gensetsu wo megutte [荻生徂徠の残響——太宰春台・堀景山・水谷博泉・乳 井貢・山県大弐・帆足万里の 「楽」言説をめぐって Echoes of Ogyū Sorai: on discourse about music by Dazai Shun­ dai, Hori Keizan, Mizutani Hakusen, Nyūi Mitsugi, Yamataga Daini, and Hoashi Banri], Kinsei nihon to gaku no shosō [近世日本と楽の諸相 Aspects of early modern Japan and music] Research Report (Kyoto: Research Institute for Traditional Music, Kyoto City University of the Arts) 12 (2019): 12. 31 Kojima Yasunori, “Soraigaku no ippamon—“shinpō” ron hitei no mondai to Matsumiya Kanzan” [ 徂徠学の 一波紋——「心法」論否定の問題と松宮観山 The first wave of Sorai Learning—the problem of rejecting the “Central Way” and Matsumiya Kanzan] Shisō 766 (1988): 132–47. 13

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32 Maeda Tsutomu, “Han Sorai gakusha Matsumiya Kanzan” [反徂徠学者松宮観山 Anti-Sorai scholar Matsu­ miya Kanzan] History of Japanese Thought 17 (1985); and Kinsei Nihon no Jugaku to heigaku. 33 Matsumiya Kanzan, Gakumyaku benkai [ 額脈弁解 Scholarly connections explained] in Matsumiya Kanzan Shū [松宮観山集 第二巻 The collected works of Matsumiya Kanzan, Vol. 2], ed. The National Spirit and Culture Research Institute (Tokyo: Kokumin Seishinbunka Kenkyūjo, 1936) 146. 34 Lan Hung Yuen, Kanbunken ni okeru Ogyū Sorai [ 漢文圏における荻生徂徠: 医学・兵学・儒学 Ogyū Sorai in the kanbun sphere: medicine, strategy, confucianism] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2017), 47–82. 35 Koyasu Nobukuni, Edo shisō shi kōgi [ 江戸思想史講義 Lectures on Edo intellectual history] (Tokyo: Iwanami Gendai Bunko, 2010), 183–86. 36 Gaozi I: Mencius said, “Benevolence is man’s mind, and righteousness is man’s path. How lamentable is it to neglect the path and not pursue it, to lose this mind and not know to seek it again! When men’s fowls and dogs are lost, they know to seek for them again, but they lose their mind, and do not know to seek for it. The great end of learning is nothing else but to seek for the lost mind.” See James Legge (trans.) The Works of Mencius in Chinese Classics, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895), 414. 37 Matsumiya Kanzan, Gakumyaku benkai 147. 38 Matsumiya Kanzan, Gakumyaku benkai 152. 39 Maruyama Masao, Nihon seijishisō shi [ 日本政治思想史 History of Japanese political thought] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1993 (First edition 1952), 71. 40 Matsumiya Kanzan, Sankyō yōron 33. 41 Isomae Jun’ichii, Kikishinwa no metahisutorii [ 記紀神話のメタヒストリー Metahistory of the myths in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1998), 8–11; Gao Wei, Riben jinshi guoxuezhe de huayi sixiang yu zita renshi [日本近世国学者的華夷思想与自他認識] Japan’s modern national learning’s eradication of Chinese influence and perceptions of self and other] (Beijing: Social Sciences Literature Press), 101–106. 42 See A. Charles Muller, trans., The Doctrine of the Mean 中庸 (Zhongyong) (2018), accessed June 7, 2021. http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/docofmean.html 43 See Song Qi, “Matsumiya Kanzan no shisō ni okeru ‘michi’ to ‘kyō’—shinjufu sankyō no seiritsu genri ni tsuite” [松宮観山の思想における「道」と「教——神儒仏三教思想の成立原理についての一考察 Draft manuscript of “The Way and Education” in the Thought of Matsumiya Kanzan—note on the original principles of the three religions concept (Shintō, Confucianism, Buddhism)] Sōkendai bunkakagaku kenkyū [総研大文化科学研究 Sōkendai Review of Cultural and Social Studies], no. 14 (2018): 47–68. 44 Matsumiya Kanzan, Kokugaku seigi, 221. 45 Mikami Hiroshi, Ishinshi no saikō [ 維新史の再考 Reconsidering the history of the Meiji Restoration] (Tokyo: NHK Shuppansha, 2007), 59. 46 Peter Nosco, Remembering Paradise: Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, 1990), 94. 47 Thus, for example, while such thinkers as Hayashi Razan and Yamazaki Ansai did not directly address the concept of the three religions, they frequently discussed matters related to Shintō, Confucianism, or Buddhism. The influence of three-religions thinking can also be seen in the everyday lives of ordinary people. Thus, for example, there were literary works whose theme is good being rewarded while evil is punished. The interpretation of “good” is taken from Shintō, Confucian, and Buddhist sources. There was also the widely influential “Sekimon Heart-Learning” (石門心学 Sekimon shingaku, Ishida Baigan’s psychology, a popularized blend of Buddhist, Shintō and Confucian ethical teachings) that supported three-religions thinking. 48 Matsumiya Kanzan, Gakuron nihen [ 学論二篇 On learning, II], in Matsumiya Kanzan Shū [松宮観山集 第二 巻 The collected works of Matsumiya Kanzan, Vol. 2], ed. The National Spirit and Culture Research Institute (Tokyo: Kokumin Seishinbunka Kenkyūjo, 1936) 135–36. 49 Watari Shōzaburō, Yamatodamashi no kenkyū, 526. 50 Maeda Tsutomu, Nihon kinsei no jugaku to heigaku, 9–48. 51 Watari Shōzaburō, Yamatodamashi no kenkyū, 536. 52 Watari Shōzaburō, Yamatodamashi no kenkyū, 545. 53 See, for instance, Nihon dōtoku yoron [ 日本道徳序論 Introduction to Japanese morals] (Sendai: Kinkōdo, 1915), and Kokumin dōtoku honron: kokuseiron [国民道徳本論:国性論 On national morality: national character] (Tokyo: Chūbunkan Shoten, 1928).

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54 Kasahara Kazuo, ed., Nihon shūkyō shi II [ 日本宗教史II History of Japanese religion, II] in Sekai shūkyō shi sōsho, 12 [世界宗教史叢書・十二 History of the world’s religions series, 12] (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1977), 322. 55 Isomae Junichi, Kindai Nihon no shūkyō gensetsu to sono keifu. 194–95. 56 Iizuka Shigetake, Yamagata daini seiden—Ryūshi shinron jūsanpen shinshaku.

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Chapter 2 The Confucian Classics in the Political Thought of Sakuma Shōzan Han Shuting Translated by Ruth and John McCreery

Introduction Nineteenth-century Japan confronted many issues. In addition to the threats posed by the frequent appearance of foreign ships, the Edo shogunate political system was tottering. A variety of thinkers appeared on the scene to face these challenges. Well-versed in Confucianism, they were faced with the onslaught of the West and had to rethink how Japan’s culture, politics and character as a nation should respond to its impact. The search for ways to preserve the nation became their top priority. Sakuma Shōzan was one of those thinkers. Sakuma Shōzan (1811–1864) was a samurai from the Matsushiro domain in Shinano province. He proposed that Japan respond to the West by combining Eastern morality with Western technology (東洋道徳西洋学芸 tōyō dōtoku, seiyō gakugei). He was one of the thinkers who argued that to preserve the nation, Japan should import Western science and technology and add it to a solid foundation of Eastern learning. Yoshida Shōin, Katsu Kaishū, Sakamoto Ryōma and other statesmen active during the Bakamatsu era belonged to his school. Some disciples of his who were active following the Meiji Restoration included Katō Hiroyuki and Nishimura Shigeki. It has been said of Sakuma Shōzan that he developed the most powerful model for modern Japan’s response to European civilization 1 and that he was one of those who devised Japan’s basic strategy for the new era.2 Previous researchers on Sakuma Shōzan’s political thought have addressed it in hindsight, drawing out elements that played a part in the production of modern Japan.3 Their research evaluates the influence of his reception of Western learning on his political thinking, focusing on the transformations in his perspective as he studied Western art and moved from “one nation” (一国 ikkoku) via “all under Heaven” (天下 tenka) to his “five worlds” (五 世界 gosekai). However, while his advocacy of the introduction of weaponry and advanced thinking from the West has been depicted as grounded in his knowledge of Western learning, its roots in the Confucian classics have been overlooked. The use of Confucian logic in

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his political statements has been overlooked in previous research that draws only on “modern” aspects of his thought or treats that logic merely as a limitation on his thinking.4 Thus there remain many unclear points concerning his allusions to the Confucian classics, even when he accepted and referenced Western learning while addressing political questions. I will argue that these points deserve close scrutiny when we query the basis of his thinking and the grounds of his statements. This essay draws attention to the use of the Confucian classics in Sakuma Shōzan’s political statements and discusses how, while receptive to Western learning, when discussing political issues raised by acceptance of Western learning, his thinking was grounded in Confucian logic. More specifically, this essay examines his responses to two cases, the publication of the Doeff-Halma Dutch-Japanese Dictionary and Yoshida Shōin’s attempt to stow away on a foreign ship, to reveal how the logic of his political proposals was grounded in the classic texts of Confucianism, asking how he himself attempted to justify his political thinking and exploring the paths taken by his thinking. The goal here is to clarify one overlooked aspect of the role of Confucianism in Bakumatsu political thought.

Confucian and Western learning: Sakuma Shōzan Before Shōzan began his study of Western learning, he had already mastered traditional, primarily Confucian, learning. He took seriously the Zhu Xi Neo-Confucian approach to the close study of nature (窮理 kyūri), and “paying due respect” to the subject being studied (居敬 kyokei). That was the basis on which he proposed to combine Eastern morality with Western art and technology. Concerning topics where Western learning might be useful, Shōzan wrote that recent Western inventions and many sciences were essentially practical in nature. “They were,” he stated, “assets to teach me about the ‘sacred learning’.” The Confucians of his day were, in his view, mediocrities who knew nothing of the thorough investigation of things—they were not true Confucians at all. That is why, he believed, the true principles discovered by Western scholarship and science could come to the aid of the wisdom of the sages.5 What Shōzan advocated was that Western learning could become the object of the Zhu Xi Neo-Confucian close study of nature’s principles. He was critical of those who saw the study of Western learning as something removed from that close study of nature. Changing his perspective to see the subject matter of Western learning as “principle” (理 ri) made it possible for Shōzan to embrace Western learning. That said, seeing Western natural science as equivalent to Confucian close study of principles (kyūri) was common among those who studied the Western natural sciences.6 That was not an idea that originated with Shōzan. What was distinctive to Shōzan’s approach was that in addition to kyūri, the close study of nature, he raised the idea of kyokei (respectfully keeping the mind and body calm with concentrated consciousness throughout daily life). He then combined these two Neo-Confucianist academic methods in Western studies. This point speaks to the scholarly approach that Shōzan adopted in his study of Western artillery. He said that closely investigating principles while paying due respect to one’s own observations, and diligently executing actions from the beginning are not the only important methods when studying texts but also the norm in learning about artillery.7 To Shōzan, showing due respect was indispensable for cultivating humaneness. By cultivating humaneness, it would be possible to avoid unfortunate consequences when artillery was

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used and ameliorate negative effects.8 To Shōzan, the combination of close study and due respect would result in a correct approach to the study of artillery. This combination of kyūri and kyokei as another Neo-Confucian approach to learning was uniquely Shōzan’s own. Shōzan’s attitude toward Western learning stands in sharp contrast to his thinking about Chinese scholarship. While the Opium Wars were a blow to China, at the same time their outcome had an impact on Japan. Concerning the reasons why the vast Qing Empire had been defeated by Britain, a smaller country, Shōzan pointed out that Qing Confucianism’s obsession with minutiae in its studies produced much vacuous talk on paper and left Confucianism impoverished when it came to practical application. His inference was that, given that lack of practical application, China’s major defeats by Britain, and its being laughed at by the entire world, were not cause for surprise.9 Qing textual scholarship produced nothing but “empty talk on paper”—that is, nothing of practical value. Because of its lack of practical utility, China, while a large country, had succumbed to the invasion of the British barbarians. Thus, Shōzan, who assigned great weight to the practical utility of scholarship, began his study of Western learning while continuing to revere Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism and use it as the foundation of his scholarly approach. In Tenpō 12 (1841), the lord of the Matsushiro domain, Sanada Yukitsura, was appointed a member of the Shogun’s council of elders and was later put in charge of coastal defense. That led to Shōzan being selected as an advisor on coastal defense and, in September 1842, his enrolling in Egawa Hidetatsu’s Western artillery school. He subsequently advocated a maritime defense doctrine that required production of Western-style cannon and warships. In 1851 he opened his own artillery school in Kobikichō in Edo, where he taught a combination of Western artillery science and Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism. Besides studying artillery, Shōzan began studying Dutch on his own, investigated mining and the manufacture of glass, growing potatoes, and experimenting with smallpox vaccination. His aim was to acquire as broad a range of Western learning as possible, and he achieved a certain degree of success with it.

The case for publishing the Halma Dictionary Advocating publication Having begun to study Western learning, while learning Dutch, Shōzan became gradually aware of the importance of dictionaries. In 1849, he proposed that his domain publish the Halma (ハルマ), his annotated edition of the Doeff-Halma Dutch-Japanese Dictionary. His proposal to the lord read as follows: If we print and publish the Halma dictionary now and distribute it throughout the country, it will be of great help to those who wish to study Western learning. It can greatly open the way to better understanding of others’ science and technology. If that time comes, people not only in your honor’s domain but also around the country will know more about others’ science and technology and that, naturally, will be beneficial in Japan’s defensive measures.10 To Shōzan, publication of the Halma dictionary would not only benefit students of Western learning. The spread of Western learning would increase understanding of the Western nations’ science and technology. The dictionary’s publication would contribute to spreading 22

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Western learning in Japan as a whole as well as in the Matsushiro domain. Furthermore, to Shōzan, the dictionary’s publication would contribute to the introduction of Western artillery and other technologies required to provide for the defense of Japan (defensive tactics). In other words, to Shōzan, there was a natural connection between publishing the dictionary and the twin goals of providing for the defense of Japan and acquiring scholarly knowledge. Broadening the scope of scholarly knowledge would contribute to national defense. The Doeff-Halma, the original manuscript of the Halma dictionary, was compiled by Hendrik Doeff, the head of the Dutch trading house in Nagasaki, and was the largest and best Dutch-Japanese dictionary of its time.11 Shōzan produced an annotated version titled Halma and submitted a document to the lord of the Matsushiro domain recommending that it be published. When that permission was not granted, he petitioned again, this time stating that he would publish it himself and asking the domain to lend him the funds. As to the connection between publishing the Halma and national defense, he added the following explanation. My humble thinking is that to come up with a measure to defend the country from foreign enemies, the only solution is to prepared an expanded and annotated edition of the Halma, arrange for the blocks to be carved, set a reasonable price, and publish it nationwide. By doing so, Western learning will be better known and more people will know about the situation in other countries.12 We can see in what Shōzan emphasizes here the necessity for spreading Western learning. Of particular importance was his claim that publishing the Halma was a way to make Western learning more accessible—more accessible to know the truth about other countries—and by knowing other countries’ situations, to devise a policy to protect against foreign enemies. Through this chain of reasoning, he linked the publication of the dictionary as a small step towards the ultimate goal of devising defenses critical for the survival of the nation. The basis of his argument: (1) The classic “choose strength to supplement weakness” Shōzan argued that if more Japanese understood the strengths and weaknesses and the pros and cons of the West, and understood its circumstances in more detail, then based on that understanding, they could adopt the West’s strengths and naturally make use of the West’s weaknesses.13 It was, he said, a critical maxim of military strategy to know the enemy and know yourself. By adopting the strengths of the West, Japan could remedy its own weaknesses, while, conversely, strengthening itself by taking advantage of the shortcomings of the West. He further pointed out that we should not overlook the fact that this “choose strength to supplement weakness” logic could be found in ancient works on military strategy by Chinese authors, which were based on the models of even more ancient sages. He wrote the following to Abe Masahiro, then a member of the council of elders: At the present juncture, we need to assemble their strong points and reinforce our weak points and eventually conquer them. I have a plan I wish for your permission to explain to you. According to a Chinese theory, weapons were first made in ancient times by Chiyou. The Yellow Emperor practiced using Chiyou’s arms, and eventually killed their inventor on the plain of Zhuolu. While wise

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and virtuous, the Yellow Emperor used his enemy’s weapons and won a battle he would have lost barehanded. By studying his enemy’s weapons, he was able to secure the victory. In other words, having reached the peak of wisdom, he was able to use and to make for himself his enemy’s weapons, mastering the secret of military strategy and surviving the battle. Had the Yellow Emperor not done this, he would not be regarded as the ancestor of all strategies and would not have been revered to this day. Now learning is flourishing in the West. The key to using what the West has learned is to publish this dictionary. Publishing it is a means to achieve that goal. I humbly submit this suggestion.14 Thus Shōzan proposed to publish the Halma dictionary so that Western learning could flourish in Japan. What I want to emphasize here is his use of Chinese arguments as grounds for his case. He noted that the Yellow Emperor, China’s most ancient sage ruler, had studied the weapons used by his enemy and used them to secure his own victory. Shōzan believed that was the highest wisdom and profound strategy. In other words, to control the countries of the West, it was necessary to learn from them. The ground for this indirect strategy was the model of China’s most ancient sage ruler in the Confucian classics. While Japan was “the country of the gods” 15 and full of martial spirit, with Japan facing an external threat, Shōzan did not turn to Japan’s own martial traditions and strategies. Instead, he found the answer he was seeking in China’s ancient past. As can be seen in Shōzan’s argument for publishing the Halma dictionary, to legitimate his proposals he turned to the Confucian classics and looked for ancient Chinese models in what was written in them when he spoke politically. The basis of his argument: (2) Interpreting morality However, Shōzan’s opinions about publication of the Halma dictionary encountered opposition in the domain, from the senior councillor Oyamada Iki and others, who argued that publishing the dictionary was a profit-seeking project that would disturb society and could obstruct performance of moral duty to the lord.16 Let us examine how Shōzan responded to that criticism. Oyamada argued that if it became widely known that publication of the Halma dictionary was a profit-seeking enterprise, it would even become an obstacle to the proper moral performance of duties to superiors. In his reply to his domain’s lord, Shōzan argued as follows: Senior councilor Oyamada, how do you interpret moral duty [御徳義 gotokugi]? … My understanding is that the lord’s moral duty is to have the will to fulfill civil and military responsibilities, be loyal to the Bakufu, save the world, and make it possible for ordinary people to live peaceful lives. You may think about ways to achieve these purposes, year after year, to no effect. If you focus on saving resources in ordinary times but dare not spend boldly when needed, and keep doing that, how will you be prepared? To publish the Halma dictionary now is a way to exercise our lord’s moral duty. It would be sure to enhance his reputation. Why do you think it would be an obstacle? 17

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In this passage, Shōzan expresses his doubts concerning Oyamada’s understanding of moral duty. To Shōzan, the lord’s moral duty involves both civil and military responsibilities, governing humanely, being completely loyal to the Bakufu, giving aid to those in need, and making it possible for ordinary people to live peaceful lives. Shōzan had raised in particular the need to focus on the economical use of the domain’s limited resources and use the money saved for a useful political purpose. Since publication of the Halma dictionary would serve a useful purpose, funding the project would fall within the lord’s moral duty. Shōzan argued strongly, moreover, that far from being an obstacle to moral duty, it would enhance the lord’s reputation. That was Shōzan’s rationale for publishing the Halma dictionary. Here I would like to draw attention, in particular, to how he handled the question of “moral duty.” The lord’s duty was the focal point in the argument between Shōzan and Oyamada. When Oyamada opposed the dictionary’s publication on the grounds that publication would be a violation of the lord’s duty, he hoped that the mention of duty would be politically decisive. Shōzan recognized that that tactic made the lord’s moral duty an inescapable question. He replied that it was precisely because he understood the logic of duty that his case for publication was solid. Both Shōzan and Oyamada sought legitimation from the concept of moral duty in the actual political situation in which they found themselves. They shared a consciousness that duty supports effective government. However, the question was whether proper understanding of the ruler’s virtue allowed a subject to make convenient use of that virtue to justify political opinions of personal benefit to himself. Shōzan replied to Oyamada’s comment as follows: As the Cheng brothers said, “If you are virtuous, you don’t have to use cheap tricks to make you look clean.” This saying deserves the greatest respect. What Oyamada and others are saying shows a lack of careful thought.18 He rejects Oyamada’s concern that publication of the Halma dictionary will elicit general suspicion that it was published to make a profit as due to Oyamada’s own lack of understanding. In other words, Oyamada’s opposition to the project is nothing more than a sign of his own lack of virtue. Shōzan discusses the role and moral character of the minister who properly serves his ruler. The political success or failure of the nation depends on the right and wrong of the ruler’s heart [君心 kimimune.] Deviating from the right is wrong. If wrong is born in the ruler’s heart, it will be sure to harm his governance. Therefore, as the means of governing a nation and providing relief to people, correcting the ruler’s wrongs is urgently needed…. Thus, a minister’s role is to be concerned with correcting the ruler’s wrongs. And if the person who wants to correct the ruler’s heart has no adult morality, then that person cannot serve…. Once the ruler is rectified, the country will be stabilized.19 This statement explains how the ruler’s virtue is connected to governance and what role the ministers have. That is, to Shōzan, the ruler’s virtue, his heart’s ability to distinguish right from wrong, is closely linked to the merits and demerits, the right and wrong, of his Chapter 2: The Confucian Classics in the Political Thought of Sakuma Shōzan

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governance. When it comes to the means of governing a nation and providing relief to its people, it is most important for the ruler to choose correctly and avoid mistakes. If the ruler’s morality moves away from “right” to “wrong” then it is sure to cause harm to governance. The role of the minister who supports the ruler’s governance is thus precisely to correct the ruler who has gone astray. For this purpose, the minister must himself be virtuous. This passage is based on Mencius: The people in power are not worth our censure; their government is not worth condemnation. The great man alone can rectify the evils in the prince’s heart. When the prince is benevolent, everyone is benevolent; when the prince is dutiful, everyone is dutiful; when the prince is correct, everyone is correct. Simply by rectifying the prince one can put the state on a firm basis.20 In other words, it takes a man of great virtue to correct his lord’s errors and lead him to humaneness and righteousness. If the lord is humane and righteous, the country will properly governed. The argument is tied to the question of whether the lord’s virtue is sufficient to govern the country. It does not detract from the role of the minister, who stands between lord and country and audits the ruler’s behavior. Publication of the Halma dictionary was not a straightforward example of correcting a ruler’s errors, but in making this specific political decision, the understanding of virtue by Oyamada, the minister, should be called into question in judging whether his lord is virtuous or not. It hardly needs saying that Oyamada’s opinion about publishing the Halma influenced his ruler’s behavior. Therefore, to Shōzan, this specific political decision directly reflects the lord’s understanding of moral duty. Therefore, it is not simply a matter of correcting a lord’s mistake. It is a broader matter of practicing governance in which the virtue of the minister is required. As explained above, the proposal to publish the Halma dictionary was an effort to strengthen Japan by facilitating the spread of Western learning. That said, the grounds on which Shōzan based his argument were based on ancient Chinese models, and the grounds for implementing the proposal were taken from Mencius’ discussion of virtue.

Yoshida Shōin, stowaway Proposal concerning the debate over secret agents Shōzan’s proposal to publish the Halma dictionary was motivated by his awareness of an impending crisis and based on the “adopt the strength, remedy the weakness” theory. Yoshida Shōin’s attempt to stow away on a foreign ship occurred after the arrival of Perry’s fleet and can be said to have been Shōzan’s practical response intended to address the crisis that had arrived. Yoshida Shōin is said to have become Shōzan’s student in 1851. He immediately became an admirer of Shōzan’s opinions. He once confessed that, “Sakuma Shōzan is the hero of our age, the greatest man in this city. His explanations of Confucianism, I can’t say just why, are filled with righteous indignation, are scholarly and full of insight.” 21 Concerning Shōzan’s artillery school, Shōin said, praising the school’s contribution to the spread of Western learning, that, “Sakuma’s training includes day after day of practice with sword, small arms, and 26

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cannon. Many students have recently enrolled in the school. Many, very many, can read both Japanese and Dutch. It may already be too late, but things from the West should be opened up within the next five or six years.” 22 He also said, Given the ferocity of the West, it is essential to address the present danger. Tokugawa Nariaki, Senior Councillor Abe Masahiro, and others who direct official policy cannot develop effective strategy without knowledge of the actual state of affairs overseas. Besides cannon and small arms, knowledge of Western apparatus and constraints must also be obtained.23 Shōin, it is clear, keenly felt the need to spread Western learning because he shared Shōzan’s belief in the need to use Western learning to strengthen Japan. Following the arrival of Perry’s ships, Japan was under pressure to open up. The Bakufu, forced to reconsider its policy toward the world outside Japan, rescinded the ban on building large ships, constructing coastal batteries and manufacturing weapons, and created the Nagasaki Naval Training Center. These and other steps were taken to strengthen the nation’s defenses. Shōzan, however, could not be satisfied with the study of Western learning in books available in Japan. He recognized the necessity of sending people overseas to gather information and acquire a broader perspective on the nations of the West. Later, looking back, he would feel keenly that sending people abroad to familiarize themselves with the new shape of the world had been the most urgent task.24 However, at that time individuals were forbidden to travel overseas. Shōzan came up with a plan as follows: “If among my students, there are those familiar with Chinese learning, wishing to study Western learning, and have studied military science, then, they could use Nakahama Manjirō (John Manjiro) as a model.” 25 That is, they would travel outside Japan as stowaways: go abroad and investigate and research the situation in detail. When they returned, their knowledge would be of use to the nation. To implement that strategy, he advised his student Yoshida Shōin to stow away on a foreign ship. On April 24, 1854, Shōin and his friend Kaneko Jūsuke approached the American warships, which were visiting Japan for the signing of the Japan-US Treaty of Peace and Amity. They delivered a message to Perry saying that they would like to see the world outside of Japan and asked to be allowed to travel on his ships. When Perry refused their request, the plan for a clandestine trip abroad failed.26 Then both Shōin and Shōzan, who was held to be complicit because of a Chinese poem he had sent to Shōin, encouraging him, were imprisoned in Edo and later put under house arrest in the Matsushiro domain. Following their arrest, Shōin and Shōzan responded in their own ways to Bakufu officials’ inquiries. Shōin confessed that he was completely aware of the prohibition on travel abroad, but displayed no fear of being put to death. He said, “As the ancients asserted, ‘Success belongs to the ruler; failure is our (the servants’) responsibility’.” 27 He said that if he had succeeded the credit would go to the Emperor and to the lord of his domain. He if he failed, it would cause him no pain to be beheaded. In contrast to the praise that Shōin’s preparation for death received, Shōzan’s argument has been criticized since the event. As Shōin later told his students, “My death would be my responsibility. But Shōzan was not content with that and argues that he was innocent. Thus people say that he loathed to die.” 28 Shōzan had clearly argued in a quibbling manner that his and his student’s behavior was justified.

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Shōzan’s defense of the stowaway incident As Shōin recalled, following his arrest Shōzan had responded to the Bakufu officials’ inquires with the following defense. Torajirō [Shōin] did not violate the nation’s prohibition. While attempting to sail again last year, he was blown off course and wound up in an unintended place. This incident is most regrettable but deserves leniency. For the past decade, I have realized the urgent need for spies to acquire more detailed information from abroad, but I have also respected the nation’s strict ban. I have never given my students the slightest indication [that they should violate it]. However, last year, there was the case of the Tosa castaway Manjiro being hired by the Bakufu. I thought that the Bakufu will eventually permit sending people abroad to gather information. The Bakufu has many matters before it and has not yet officially discussed this matter. Since, however, it stopped the long-term imprisonment of that castaway, it seemed likely that the rule would be changed. So if there is an idealist willing to sacrifice himself for the nation who wants to go abroad, and if that attempt is labelled being a castaway, then the Bakufu could generously approve it, saying the person must had been blown away. When I consider the Bakufu’s thinking, based on the old laws and examples, your decision is unavoidable. So if you can come up with a plot to go abroad, accomplish good work, and come back and be given a title [like Manjiro], you could work out a plot in line with the law. Since last year’s incident, moreover, the divine nation faces its greatest threat in three thousand years. Our officials must consider the exceptional circumstances and show leniency to Torajirō. Please note that he had no intention at all of violating the law.29 That is a long passage, but in the history it recounts, we can see that Shōzan did not believe that Shōin had violated the law. Building on the experience of the castaway Nakahama Manjirō, he adopted an optimistic approach: if Shōin were labelled a castaway, he should be forgiven by the Bakufu even if he travelled overseas without permission. The assumption behind his optimism was that Shōin would have acquired advanced learning and engineering skills and that, on his return, he would contribute the knowledge and abilities he obtained to Japan. To Shōzan, his service to Japan should excuse his violation of the law, especially in extraordinary times when attacks from the nations of the West threatened the peace of Japan. Since extraordinary times required extraordinary measures, the Bakufu should not make a fuss over an obsolete law. However, what is particularly noteworthy here is that, while much attention has been paid to the pettifoggery of Shōzan’s defense, it has not dug below the surface to examine the underlying theory on which it is based. The question that remains to be asked is: Where in the depths of Shōzan’s heart did he find the theory on which this defense was grounded? Later, when he submitted a document to the Bakufu, he clarified the logic of his advocacy of sending spies abroad as follows:

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Because this law has been in place since Edo became the seat of the Bakufu, no one has travelled abroad as a private individual and explored the circumstances there. I find that deeply disturbing. According to the laws of Zhou, there were individuals assigned the important duty of conducting inspections of each of the principalities in the king’s domain. Whether they were at peace or war there were annual investigations. Whether they were well-governed or not was investigated every three years, whether their customs were good or evil every five years. Besides these great inspectors, there were small inspectors who traveled throughout Zhou, visiting all of the principalities. The condition of the common people was recorded in one book; violations of proper custom, governance, education, or punishments in a second; rebellions, violent uprisings, cases of wickedness, or crimes in a third; deaths, famines, cases of acute poverty in a fourth; healthy entertainments, friendly relations, and peaceful relations in a fifth. The king’s commands addressed differences between the principalities. In this way, the ruler knew everything happening under Heaven. Thus, the ancient Sage Kings were able to prevent chaos and nip the buds of disaster before they bloomed.30 What Shōzan writes here is an unabashedly detailed account of the laws spelled out in the Chinese classic The Rites of Zhou (周禮 Zhou li).31 The Rites of Zhou explain in detail what ranks of officials were sent to gather what sort of information, and how, every year. To Shōzan, The Rites of Zhou was a great classic that described how the Sage Kings warded off chaos and “nipped the buds of disaster.” In the ideal laws in The Rites of Zhou he found the basis for his own proposals. Here were the grounds for his profound unease that the Bakufu had not, since its establishment, sent anyone to other countries in search of information. As Shōzan saw it, the sure and ideal basis for policy was what was already written in the classics that described the sage rulers of the past. Thus, he began his recommendation that the Bakufu send spies abroad by noting the precedent set in the ideal code of governance of the Zhou dynasty.32 We should note, too, that according to The Rites of Zhou, the information to be gathered was not confined to military matters directly related to war. It also includes “rites and customs, politics, education, prohibitions and punishments,” together with “immorality, violence, wickedness,” “funerals, famines, poverty,” and “entertainments, friendly relationships and peace and security.” Everything related to rites, music, governance and punishments was to be covered in detail, including the everyday habits of common people. It is clear, then, that when Shōzan advocated sending spies to the West, his interests were not confined to military matters alone. He himself said, When we negotiate with enemy nations and have no spies, there is no way at all to tell whether the enemy has a plot to trap us. Without obtaining the information on their situations, whether their rulers are humane or tyrannical, their generals able or not, the strengths and weaknesses of their masses, the sharpness or lack thereof of their soldiers, at times like these, we have no basis for planning. Without that knowledge, we cannot discuss whether we should make peace or war, prepare to defend ourselves or continue our discussions.33

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In this passage we can see the importance to Shōzan of gathering information before negotiating with enemy countries. The information he wanted was not confined to the ability of enemy commanders, the strength or weakness of their armies, the skill or lack thereof of their soldiers, or other items directly related to war. He also wanted to understand if their rulers were humane or tyrants or, in other words, whether they were virtuous. To understand the “virtue” of enemy rulers, it was necessary to have a comprehensive, detailed understanding of conditions in their countries, which would permit a more general conclusion. The enemy rulers’ virtue was of critical importance to Shōzan. That Shōzan included the ruler’s virtue when calculating how Japan could defeat its foreign enemies shows us that he considered the ruler’s virtue part of a nation’s strength when thinking about its military capability. On the other side of the coin, when displaying Japan’s military capability to its foreign enemies, that Japan’s own “lord” be “humane” would also be required. This insistence that virtue was a necessary element in military power was for Shōzan a consistent theme from first to last. In the writings produced in his last years, he continued to preach the need for both culture and education and military preparedness, while continuing to call for combining literary and military arts. As he persisted with his call for the introduction of Western artillery to the military, and Western scientific knowledge to literary arts, he emphasized building on the teachings of humanity, justice and morality by the Duke of Zhou and Confucius.34 Similarly, in defending Yoshida Shōin’s involvement in the stowaway incident, he turned to idealized models of political behavior found in the ancient Chinese thought recorded in The Rites of Zhou as the basis for building his argument on the case of the castaway Manjirō. There is no way to decide if Shōzan shared Shōin’s willingness to die. It is, however, certain that he consistently turned to the classic works of Confucianism to justify his own proposals.

In conclusion The modernization theory that was born in the United States after WWII uses the historical experience of European and American countries to establish indices of modernization. These indices were used to measure nations’ modernization in comparative historical analysis. Edwin Reischauer and John W. Hall, American experts on the Far East, used this framework to reexamine Japan’s modernization.35 When considering Confucianism in modern Japan, especially in the early modern and transitional periods, and evaluating Confucianism on the basis of modernization theory, that is, from the standpoint of what consequences were brought about by modernization, it is undeniably useful to look at which aspects of Confucianism played a role in the establishment of Japan as a modern state. However, that perspective would shed light on only one aspect of Confucianism. The development of the “early-modernization” theory, which has been attracting more attention in recent years, can be said to relativize that “modernization” perspective.36 This essay has used Sakuma Shōzan as a case study of the use of Confucianism in the transitional period of early modern and modern Meiji Japan. Shōzan believed that to rival the nations of the West and to raise its prestige as a nation, Japan needed to use both the Chinese sages’ teachings about virtue as the warp and Western learning and technology as the weft in the fabric of imperial policy. Only by gathering knowledge from every continent and assembling its strengths could Japan lay the foundations for eternal survival as an independent nation.37 However, as can be seen in his proposal to publish the Halma dictionary

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and his defense of Yoshida Shōin in the stowaway incident, his thinking was not based on his knowledge of Western learning. His views were fundamentally grounded in the Confucian classics. In this essay we have discovered that Shōzan based the logic of his proposals to the Bakufu on the Confucian classics. It was there that he found the legitimization of his own political thinking. This essay has attempted to trace the threads of his thought. Given recent trends in research that see early modern Confucianism’s assertiveness in a positive light, use of Shōzan as a case study in exploring early modern and modern Confucianism indicates that we should not focus on just one aspect of Confucian logic. It points to the need for a broader and more concrete perspective when considering the knowledge and methodologies possessed by Confucian scholars during this period.

Notes

Minamoto Ryōen, Sakuma Shōzan [佐久間象山 Sakuma Shōzan] (Tokyo: PHP, 1990). Matsumoto Kenichi, Hyōden: Sakuma Shōzan [評伝　佐久間象山 Biography of Sakuma Shōzan] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 2000). 3 See Maruyama Masao, “Bakumatsu ni okeru shiza no henkaku—Sakuma Shōzan no baai” [ 幕末における 視座の変革——佐久間象山の場合 Changes in viewpoints in the Bakumatsu period—Sakuma Shōzan’s case], in Chūsei to hangyaku [忠誠と反逆 Loyalty and revolt] (Tokyo: Chikuma Shoten, 1992); Hongō Takamori, “Sakuma Shōzan—seiyō juyō no ronri to pataan” [佐久間象山——西洋受容の論理とパターン Sakuma Shōzan— theory and pattern in acceptance of the West], in Hongō Takamori, Maenobō Yō and Inada Masahiro, Kindai Nihon no shisō (1) Sakuma Shōzan, Fukuzawa Yukichi, Ueki Emori [近代日本の思想〈1〉佐久間象山・福沢諭吉・ 植木枝盛 Modern Japanese thought (1): Sakuma Shōzan, Fukuzawa Yukichi, Ueki Emori] (Tokyo: Yuhikaku Shinsho, 1979); Mori Kazutsura, “Nihon ni okeru kindaiteki seiji ishiki no keisei—Sakuma Shōzan” [日本におけ る近代的政治意識の形成——佐久間象山― The formation of modern political consciousness in Japan—Sakuma Shōzan], in Kindai Nihon shisōshi josetsu—“shizen” to “shakai” no ronri [近代日本思想史序説——「自然」と「社 会」の論理― Introduction to the history of modern Japanese thought—the theory of “nature” and “society”] (Tokyo: Koyoshobo, 1984); Motoyama Yukihiko, “Tōyō dōtoku, seiyō geijutsu no risō wo motomete—Sakuma Shōzan” [東洋道徳・西洋芸術の理想を求めて——佐久間象山 Seeking the ideal of East Asian ethics and Western technology—Sakuma Shōzan] in Kinsei Jusha no shisō chōsen [近世儒者の思想挑戦 Thought challenges of early modern Confucianists] (Tokyo: Shibunkaku, 2006); Maeda Tsutomu, “Sakuma Shōzan ni okeru nashonarizumu no ronri” [佐久間象山におけるナショナリズムの論理 Nationalism in the theories of Sakuma Shōzan] in Edo Kōki no shisō kūka [江戸後期の思想空間 Thought space in the latter half of the Edo period] (Tokyo: Perikansha, 2009). 4 For example, Maruyama Masao pointed out concerning Shōzan’s political assertions that, for foreign relations with Western nations he sought a ritual of foreign exchanges as in the Rites of the Zhou, and “He asserted that it was essentially the same as the conventions for international exchanges between modern nation states” and stemmed from the same quality as the spirit of modern international law. Maruyama attempted to discover Shōzan’s modern political consciousness therein. (Maruyama, Chūsei to hangyaku, 141.) 5 Sakuma Shōzan, “Zō Kobayashi Heibun” [ 贈小林炳文 Letter to Kobayashi Heibun], in Zōchō Shōzan zenshū [増訂象山全集巻 1 Enlarged and revised complete works of Shōzan, Vol. 1] (Nagano: Shinano Mainichi Shinbun, 1934), 51. 6 For a detailed discussion of this point, see Yoshida Tadashi’s “Edo jidai no kagaku shisō—kagaku chishiki no keijū” [江戸時代の科学思想——科学知識の継受 Scientific thought in the Edo period—taking on scientific knowledge] in Nihon shisōshi kōza kinsei [日本思想史講座 近世 The Perikan history of Japanese thought: early modern] (Tokyo: Perikansha, 2012). For a systematic exploration of the lineage of kyūri in Edo, see Minamoto Ryōen, Tokugawa gōri shisō keifu [徳川合理思想の系譜 Tokugawa lineage of rational thought] (Tokyo: Chuo Sosho, 1975). 1

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7 Sakuma Shōzan, “Zō Katayama Irijima” [ 贈片山西洲 Letter to Katayama Irijima, 1851], in Zōchō Shōzan zenshū,, Vol. 1, 52. For further discussion of this point, please see my “Sakuma Shōzan ni okeru Jushigaku rikai—“Kyokei” wo chūshin ni” [佐久間象山における朱子学理解——『居敬』を中心に Sakuma Shōzan and Confucian principles, with a focus on Kyokei] Kyushu-shigaku (九州史学) 179 (June, 2018): 26–56. 8 For further discussion of this point, please see my “Sakuma Shōzan ni okeru Jushigaku rikai—“Kyokei” wo chūshin ni”. 9 Sakuma Shōzan, “Yamadera Gen Tayū ni okuru” [ 山寺源大夫に贈る Letter to Yamadera Gen Tayū] in Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 3, 221. 10 Sakuma Shōzan,“Haruma shuppan ni kansuru hanshu ate jōsho” [ ハルマ出版に関する藩主宛上書 Document submitted to the lord of our domain in regard to publishing the Doeff-Halma], May 1849, in Nihon shisō taikei 55 [日本思想大系55 Compendium of Japanese thought 55], ed. Satō Shosui, Uete Michinari, and Yamaguchi Muneyuki (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1971), 285. 11 According to research by Sugimoto Tsutomu, “While the Halma was not compiled by Shōzan, it was far better organized than the original version, with entries in alphabetical order for example, and thus we can regard it as Shōzan’s own work.” “Rannichi taiyaku jiten” [蘭日対訳辞典の研究 Research on Dutch-Japanese dictionaries] Jisho, jiten no kenkyū II (辞書・事典の研究Ⅱ Research on dictionaries, II) in Sugimoto Tsumo chōsaku senshū 7 [杉本つとむ著作選集7 Selected works of Sugimoto Tsutomu, 7] (Tokyo: Yasaka Shobo, 1999), 428. 12 Sakuma Shōzan,“Kan’ō Kō ni agarite waran goi shuppan shikin taiyo wo kō” [ 感応公に上りて和蘭語彙出版資 金貸与を乞ふ Request to our gracious lord to borrow funds for publication of the Japanese-Dutch dictionary] Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 2, 67. 13 Shōzan, Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 2, 67. 14 “Wa-ran goi shuppan ni kansuru Abe Mashiro ate jōsho” [和蘭語彙出版に関する阿部正弘宛上書 Document submitted to Abe Masahiro on publishing the Doeff-Halma), March 1848, in Nihon shisō taikei 55, 290–291. 15 Shōzan wrote that accepting the British demand that Japan be opened for trade would be a display of weakness and the decline of the country of the gods’ martial spirit. The result would be to invite more insults from the foreign barbarians. “Kaibō ni kansuru hanshu ate jōsho” [海防に関する藩主宛上書 Document to the Lord of the Domain in regard to naval defense] Nihon shisō taikei 55, 265. 16 Shōzan, “Haruma shuppan ni kansuru hanshu ate jōsho,” 286. 17 Shōzan, “Haruma shuppan ni kansuru hanshu ate jōsho,” 286. 18 Shōzan, “Haruma shuppan ni kansuru hanshu ate jōsho,” 287. 19 Shōzan, “Kakudōsetsu” [ 格堂説 On the singing hall], in Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 1, 148. 20 See Din-cheuk Lau (trans) Mencius (London: Penguin, 1970) IVA20. 21 Yoshida Shoin, “55: Ani Sugi Umetarō ate” [ 55. 兄杉梅太郎宛 嘉永6年9月15日 55: Letter to [Shōin’s] older brother Sugi Umetarō; September 17, 1853], in Nihon Shisō Taikei 54 [日本思想大系54 Compendium of Japanese thought 54], ed. Yoshida Tsunekichi, Fujita Shōzō and Nishida Taichirō (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1978), 118. 22 “Ani Sugi Umetarō ate” 119. 23 Yoshida Shōin, “50: Ani Sugi Umetarō ate Kaiei 6/8/15” [ 50: 兄杉梅太郎宛 嘉永6年8月15日 50: Letter to [Shōin’s] older brother Sugi Umetarō; August 17, 1853], in Nihon Shisō Taikei 54 [日本思想大系54 Compendium of Japanese thought 54], ed. Yoshida Tsunekichi, Fujita Shōzō and Nishida Taichirō (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1978), 106. 24 Sakuma Shōzan “Yoda Gennojō no na wo motte Shōzan ga Bakufu ni fuji wo ageru koto no kyohi wo Hanrō ni ukagau” [依田源之丞の名を以て象山が幕府に封事を上る事の許否を藩老に伺ふ書 Using the name Yoda Gennojō, Shōzan appealed to the domain’s senior councilor for a decision on the Bakufu to lift the restriction] Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 2, 131. 25 Shōzan, Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 2, 131. John Manjiro was a young fisherman who had been rescued by an American whaling ship following a storm in 1841. He was subsequently taken to the United States, where he was educated and lived for a decade before returning to Japan. He later participated in Japan’s first diplomatic mission to the United States, in 1860. 26 While Perry turned down Shōin’s request, he highly praised their actions: “The event was full of interest, as indicative of the intense desire for information on the part of two educated Japanese, who were ready to brave the rigid laws of the country, and to risk even death for the sake of adding to their knowledge. The Japanese are undoubtedly an inquiring people, and would gladly welcome an opportunity for the expansion of their moral and intellectual faculties. The conduct of the unfortunate two was, it is believed, characteristic of their

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countrymen, and nothing can better represent the intense curiosity of the people, while its exercise is only prevented by the most rigid laws and ceaseless watchfulness lest they should be disobeyed. In this disposition of the people of Japan, what a field of speculation, and, it may be added, what a prospect full of hope opens for the future of that interesting country!” Matthew Calbraith Perry, Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan (New York: AMS Press, 1967), 422. 27 Yoshida Shōin, “83: Ani Sugi Umetarō ate Ansei gannen 11/27” [83: 兄杉梅太郎宛 安政元年11月27日 83: Letter to [Shōin’s] older brother Sugi Umetarō; November 27, 1855], in Nihon Shisō Taikei 54 [日本思想大系 54 Compendium of Japanese thought 54], ed. Yoshida Tsunekichi, Fujita Shōzō and Nishida Taichirō (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1978), 163. 28 Yoshida Shōin, “219: Nomura Yasushi ate” [219: 野村和作宛 219: To Nomura Yasushi (around May 1859)], in Nihon Shisō Taikei 54 [日本思想大系 54 Compendium of Japanese thought 54], ed. Yoshida Tsunekichi, Fujita Shōzō and Nishida Taichirō (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1978), 349. 29 “Nomura Yasushi ate” 163–64. 30 Shōzan, Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 2, 129–30. 31 The Rites of Zhou, ( 周禮 Zhou li), are also entitled 周官 (Zhouguan) in Chinese. They consist of six volumes that define the organization of the government according to the seasons. The 360 officials were of six types (heaven, earth, spring, summer, fall, winter) and thus the book is also known as the Six Classics. It is regarded by some as a code relating the norms of administration laid out by those who founded the Zhou dynasty, by others as a work by a Warring States period conspirator. For details, see the article on the Rites of Zhou by Machida Saburō in Kokushi Daijiten [国史大辞典 Comprehensive dictionary of Japanese history] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1979–97). 32 Shōzan, Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 2, 130. 33 Shōzan, Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 2, 130–31. 34 Shōzan, “Bakufu he no jōsho sōkō wo Bunsōkō no nairan ni kyōsen to suru toki sonaete agaru” [ 幕府への上書 草稿を文聡公の内覧に供せんとする時添へて上る Addendum to a memorial drafted for presentation to the Bakufu and reviewed internally by the lord Sanada Yukinori, nom de plume Bunsō] Zōchō Shōzan zenshū, Vol. 2-1, 199. 35 For details, see Minamoto Ryōen, Kinsei shoki jitsugaku shikō no kenkyū [ 近世初期実学思想の研究 Research on thought on practical learning early in the early modern period] (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1980), 10–14. 36 The “Retrospective and Outlook” debate about Japan’s early modern history in the Historical Society of Japan’s Shigaku Zasshi (2015–2016) did not fail to address the early modernization theory. See also Shimizu Mitsuaki, ed., “Kinseika” ron to Nihon 「 [ 近世化」論と日本 Early modernization theory and Japan] (Tokyo: Bensey Publishing, 2015), and Nagai Kazu, “Kinsei ron kara mita guroobaru hisutorii” [近世論からみたグローバ ル・ヒストリー Global history from the perspective of early modernization], in Nihon rekishi dai nijū ni kan [日 本歴 第22巻 History of Japan] Vol. 22, ed. Ōtsu Tōru (Tokyo Iwanami Kōza, 2016). 37 Shōzan, “Haruma shuppan ni kansuru hanshu ate jōsho,” 278.

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Chapter 3 The Confucian Traits Featuring in the Meiroku Zasshi Lee Yu-Ting The Meiroku-sha (明六社 literally, the society established in the sixth year of Emperor Meiji, i.e., 1873) was the best-known intellectual association of 19th-century Japan. Its organization journal, the Meiroku Zasshi (明六雑誌; henceforth referred to as Meiroku Magazine), played an important role in opening up the Japanese mind to Western thought in a turbulent time. The purpose of this chapter is to examine how Confucianism as a traditional value system influenced the thinking and writing of the contributors to the Meiroku Magazine. Of course, many of the Meiroku-sha members craved for modernization and were consciously Western-minded. However, close reading of the journal reveals a more nuanced picture of how those authors proposed new ideas through different levels of interplay with old tenets. To be specific, while there is little direct debate over Confucianism in the Meiroku Magazine, references and allusions to Confucian ideas are frequent, and for diverse purposes. This chapter seeks to explore these hitherto underestimated Confucian traits of the Meiroku Magazine and demonstrate how intellectual struggles unfolded during this transitional period of Japanese history.

Overview of the Meiroku Magazine and relevant studies The Meiroku-sha has long been regarded as the embodiment of the Japanese Enlightenment, which, according to Kano Masanao, strived for two goals. “One was to introduce into Japan the institutions, organizations, academic research, and ways of thinking of the state and society [of the modern Western kind] that Japan was aiming at. The other was to… renew the spirit of the Japanese people.” 1 As the principal channel to achieve these goals, the Meiroku Magazine was influential not only for the novelty of its content, but also because it created a public space for free intellectual discussion.2 Since the start of its publication in 1874, the importance of the Meiroku Magazine had been strongly anticipated by the members of the Meiroku-sha, as exemplified by the endnote that founding member and educator Nishimura Shigeki attached to his contribution to the first issue:

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Ours is the first literary and scientific society to be established in the country. Moreover, the savants of the society are all celebrated figures in the land. Men all say that splendid discussions and immortal theories will surely emerge from this society. I pray that the honorable members may fulfill the expectations of discerning people by establishing a model for the nation and by opening the eyes of the ignorant with their elevated and penetrating opinions.3 Although studies based on more historical evidence have raised doubts about whether the Meiroku-sha and Meiroku Magazine were truly without predecessors in modern Japan,4 it was the prominent members of this society and the wide-ranging topics covered in the journal that cemented their influence amid all the contemporary enlightenment efforts. Consequently, in nearly all versions of modern Japanese intellectual history, the Meiroku-sha and Meiroku Magazine have definitely occupied an important position in the narrative, with varying degrees of elaboration according to the purposes of the narrators. Unsurprisingly, apart from general reviews and comments, the historical significance of the society and the journal has also earned them a considerable amount of specialized research, but certain subtle differences must be pointed out here. As learned and famous individuals, the Meiroku-sha members never failed to draw public attention during their times and they have continued to be a perennial source of academic interest up to the present day. Nevertheless, few studies have been devoted to the composition and operation of the society as a whole.5 When it comes to a thorough consideration of Meiroku Magazine, two facts are immediately evident: first, the magazine was short-lived. Only forty-three issues were published (from March 1874 to November 1875) and it was out of the general agreement of the society members that the magazine came to a halt because of harsher government regulation.6 Secondly, the Meiroku Magazine was noted for its varied content. Frequently discussed issues included Western learning and ideas, governmental power versus civil rights, setting up of the parliament, economic and trade policy, social position of the intelligentsia, husband-wife relations, women’s rights, attitudes towards religion, and so forth. As historian Nakanome Tōru puts it: The Meiroku Zasshi does not follow any particular editorial guidelines, nor does there exist an all-encompassing theme to characterize it. Therefore, it is rather difficult to make overall comments on the content of the journal. Nevertheless, it is readily observable that the intention of “advancing the civilization of Japan” shared by the society’s members is guiding all the essays published therein.7 Given this diversity, studies of the Meiroku Magazine tend to concentrate strategically around two axes, namely topic- and author-specific. However, more and more aspects of the journal and its historical connections with wider contexts are also being explored.8 It is against this backdrop that the current chapter seeks to identify the Confucian traits that feature in the Meiroku Magazine. The “Confucian legacy” is not particular to any single topic or author. Rather, it presents itself in many of the journal articles in varied gestures, with different degrees of visibility. Ostensibly, very few of the articles dealt directly with Confucianism as modern Western culture constituted an invariable concern for the Meiroku-sha scholars. Close reading of the journal, however, reveals that Confucian ideas are widespread and usage of Confucian Chapter 3: The Confucian Traits Featuring in the Meiroku Zasshi

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elements, conscious or unconscious, is quite common. Through this chapter, a new approach to and perspective on the Meiroku Magazine is attempted, and this attempt will be realized in the following sequence. First of all, I will briefly explain why Confucianism matters in Meiroku Magazine studies. Secondly, with the assistance of two meticulously edited indices, a statistical survey will be carried out to show how Confucianism influenced the thinking and writing of the Meiroku Magazine authors in quantitative terms. It is in this section that the criteria of being “Confucian” will be given. Thirdly, after the statistical survey, a qualitative analysis will be used to demonstrate the intricacy of Confucian influence. I will conduct the discussion on three levels: 1) the upper level that involves direct support or refutation of Confucian values, 2) the middle level on which the authors proposed certain (often Western-inspired) ideas by way of Confucian thought, and 3) the lower level on which Confucianism is merely used as a source of explanatory examples or rhetorical devices. Of course, the three levels are interrelated and no clear boundaries between them are distinguishable, but by sketching a picture on the basis of this structure it is hoped that general understanding of the Meiroku Magazine and even the Japanese Enlightenment can be broadened as well as deepened.

The relevance of Confucianism to the Meiroku Magazine The role Confucianism played in Japan’s modernization is a long-debated issue. While the great enlightenment thinker Fukuzawa Yukichi launched fierce attacks on Confucian thought, some contemporary historians of ideas such as Tsujimoto Masashi deemed such attacks as nothing but a strategic gesture that conversely suggested the prevalence of Confucianism in pre-modern Japan.9 Watanabe Hiroshi even remarked: “I believe that, at least in 19th-century Japan, Confucianism sometimes contributed to the acceptance of Westernization, which ultimately destroyed the Confucian belief system itself.” 10 For the Meiroku-sha members, one of their many commonalities was their sharing a two-phase educational background, involving a transition from Confucian studies to Western learning. It is undeniable that their thought was often characterized by a tension between refuting Confucianism and using it as a vehicle for translating, interpreting and absorbing modern Western culture.11 As a matter of fact, Western-minded as the Meiroku-sha members were, most of them acknowledged the overwhelming impact of Chinese culture on Japan and even on East Asia in its entirety. For instance, Nishi Amane exclaimed: How glorious were the men of Chou [周 Shū]! The culture of the majority of the yellow race to the East of the Himalayas entirely depended for its origin on the Chou people, and Confucius and Mencius were thus their swaddling clothes [襁 褓 oshime].12 From a linguistic viewpoint, Nishi Amane also compared the status of written Chinese in Japan to that of Greek and Latin in European countries.13 Interestingly, in all of the Meiroku Magazine articles Nishi made this analogy twice, including in the very first article of the journal, in which he proposed that the Japanese language should be written with the Western alphabet.14 Nishi provides us with a good example to glimpse the intricate cultural relations between Japan and China. He observed that, while China was admired for its glorious past, to conform to global trends Japanese intellectuals should not hesitate to embrace a new,

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superior civilization.15 Nonetheless, given the profundity of Chinese influence on Japanese culture, a second thought might cause us to ask how the modern transformation of Japan was shaped by, or at least moderated through, this old traditional influence. To be more specific, it would be inspiring to ask what kind of role the teachings founded by Confucius and developed by Mencius played in Japan’s intellectual modernization. Meiroku Magazine will be taken as a central stage for observation in answering that question, since it is a milestone of the Japanese Enlightenment, and the importance of Confucianism was frankly (though not always willingly) acknowledged by contributors such as Nishi Amane.

The Meiroku Magazine and Confucianism: a statistical approach Although the dominance of Confucianism in traditional East Asia was not exclusive, its comprehensiveness and deep-rootedness make any attempts to delimit a “Confucian subset” of East Asian culture rather difficult. To better address the Confucian traits of the Meiroku Magazine, this section resorts to a statistical means, that is, to find Confucianism-related terms to see how Confucian elements are featured in the journal.16 Despite being superficial, this method is not trivial, as it not only reveals some numerical facts in a comparative perspective, but also paves the way to a more in-depth argument that Confucianism is working delicately, and invisibly at times, on multiple levels in the Meiroku Magazine. For better explication, I will divide the following discussion into three categories, that is: personages, texts and Confucianism-derived ideas. Furthermore, to make the analysis more focused, the relevance of the terms to Confucianism must be shown to be direct and unmistakable. Hence certain selection criteria are necessary, as will be explained. Personages This category is relatively simple. Since Confucianism is by definition the study of Confucius’ teachings, here I will only count those who are generally considered contributive to the development of Confucianism, regardless of internal doctrinal variations. Following this guideline, we can see that Confucius is mentioned in the Meiroku Magazine thirty-one times in different ways and Mencius five times.17 “Confucius and Mencius” appears eight times, and “Confucius, Mencius, Chengs, and Zhu” two times.18 Zhu Xi, the great synthesizer of Neo-Confucianism, is mentioned individually two times.19 Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BCE), Shao Kangjie (1011–1077), and Wang Yangming (1472–1528) are each mentioned once. Some minor Confucian scholars may also have appeared in the Meiroku Magazine, but what is more important is certain pre-Confucian figures are also mentioned, such as Yao (堯), Shun (舜), Yu (禹) the legendary sage-kings; Qi (契), Gaoyao (皋陶), Qui (夔) and Houji (后稷) the legendary capable officials; Tang (湯) the founder of the Shang Dynasty; King Wen (文王) and King Wu (武王) the founders of the Zhou Dynasty; the Duke of Zhou (周公) the establisher of the Zhou civilization; and Jie (桀) and Zhou (紂) the two tyrants who brought the Xia Dynasty and Shang Dynasty to an end, respectively.20 Although these legendary characters pre-dated Confucius, let alone Confucianism, they had been either virtuous or vicious examples in Confucian teachings for millennia. These names often appear in different combinations in the Meiroku Magazine so a precise statistic is difficult to grasp, but together they appear around twenty-five times and are reminiscent of Confucianism in many cases.

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Taking this “cast” into consideration, we can have a clearer sense of how Confucianism features in the journal. An even more interesting numerical fact is that Confucius is the person most often mentioned (in different terms) throughout the Meiroku Magazine, excluding the names of some Meiroku-sha members. The second most mentioned name is Francis Bacon (1561–1626), at twenty-five times. As a pioneer in the modern way of thinking, it is not surprising that Bacon received attention from Japanese Enlightenment thinkers. Nevertheless, Bacon’s name is concentrated in the same series of introductory articles by Nakamura Masanao entitled “An Outline of Western Culture.” 21 In contrast, Confucius makes a much wider appearance. In addition, both the Buddha and Jesus Christ are mentioned more than ten times in the Meiroku Magazine, and there are articles juxtaposing Confucius, the Buddha and Jesus Christ as the embodiments of the supreme ethical achievements.22 But when it comes to a single most important person, it seems that Confucius is peerless in the journal, at least at face value. Texts It is widely known that Confucius regarded himself as a transmitter of ancient values rather than as a creator.23 While it is disputable to what degree Confucius revised and compiled texts such as the Book of Songs (詩經 Shijing) and the Book of Documents (書經 Shujing), he showed unreserved respect for certain writings passed down from antiquity. Together with Confucius’ own Analects (論語 Lunyu) and a few later works, several Confucian canons (i.e., different sets of orthodox texts) were formulated in Chinese history.24 Some of the Confucian titles are visible in the Meiroku Magazine, and I will list them below. Four Books and Five Classics (四書五經 Sishu wujing) is mentioned once, as is Four Books and Six Classics (四書六經 Sishu liujing). The Book of Changes (易經 Yijing) is mentioned three times, the Book of Songs (in smaller units) three times, the Book of Documents (with three of its chapter titles) five times, Zuo’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals (左伝 Zhuo zhuan) one time, the Analects three times, and the Great Learning (大學 Daxue) three times.25 A glimpse of these statistics might impart the impression that the Confucian canons were not really “highly cited” by the Meiroku Magazine authors. However, a thorough reading of the journal tells another story. Sentences from the Confucian texts are frequently used, revised, and adapted to the contexts without the sources being specified. This means that these Confucian resources had largely become part of the Japanese intellectual repertoire. Such cases are so numerous (though not uncountable) that it is not necessary to point out all of them, but an analysis of how they are at work in the Meiroku Magazine would make the argument of this chapter more solid, which I will leave to the next section. Confucianism-derived ideas As shown above, both persons’ names and book titles are unmistakable Confucian indicators. Although in many cases they receive only passing reference as historical examples, mentioning them is itself a manifestation of Confucian influence, whether in a positive or negative sense. But, when it comes to ideas that are more flexible by nature, the question of Confucian influence becomes much subtler. Under the circumstances, I will focus only on a few specific terms. As for general ideas such as “humanity” (translation for the Chinese character 仁), “righteousness” (義),

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“ceremony” or “ritual” (礼), “loyalty” (忠), “filial piety” (孝), “heaven” (天), and so on,26 while they acquired particular meanings during the development of Confucianism, they have been so widespread in East Asian societies that they became localized, internalized and used in highly diversified ways, most of which contain no Confucian connotations. For this reason, ideas of this overarching and pervasive kind are excluded from consideration. No doubt this strict policy filters out a major (and perhaps the most essential) portion of the Confucian vocabulary, but by deliberately keeping the pool small, I would like to show that even the terms of definite Confucian character came under Western influence in the Meiroku Magazine. No other terms are more appropriate than 儒 (Ru) to start the list, as it is the standard term denoting Confucianism and Confucian matters. In the Meiroku Magazine, “Confucian learning” (儒学) appears once, “Confucian scholars” (儒者) seven times, and “Confucians of the Song Dynasty” (宋儒) three times.27 The composite “Confucianism and Buddhism” (儒 仏) is also mentioned once. Apart from these usages, some Confucianism-related ideas do not necessarily carry the label of 儒. For instance, during the development of Confucian thought, “learning of the Way” (道学), “learning of the principle” (理学), and “learning of the material force” (気学) were all different branches of Confucianism.28 In the context of the Meiroku Magazine, however, only 道学 (appearing three times) retains a little of the original moralistic meaning, with all the cases of 理学 referring to either philosophy in the Western sense (twenty-three times) or the modern natural sciences (four times in the same article), while 気学 (appearing nine times in only one article) refers to a kind of learning that deviates from its Confucian origin.29 Besides these terms, the term “learning of nature and the principle” (性理ノ学) is mentioned three times, with two of them signifying a particular version of Confucianism, and one meaning modern psychology. “Learning of the mind” (心学) was also a popular branch of Confucianism, and in the Meiroku Magazine we can find an equivalent to it, “learning of intuitive knowledge and ability” (良知良能ノ説), mentioned one time. To go a little further, in the Great Learning a comprehensive Confucian program is laid out in eight steps: “investigation of things” (格物), “extension of knowledge” (致知), “sincerity of the will” (誠意), “rectification of the mind” (正心), “cultivation of the personal life” (修 身), “regulation of the family” (斉家), “national order” (治国), and “world peace” (平天下).30 Throughout East Asian history both 格物 and 致知 have generally remained intellectual terms, but in the Meiroku Magazine, among all of the terms related to them (格物, 格物学, 格物致知, 格致, 致知学) that appear eleven times in total, only 格物致知, appearing only once, retains its Confucian meaning, whereas all the others refer to the natural sciences or logic. The other six steps of the program have usually been applied to wider contexts. Therefore, appearing more than twenty times in varied combinations (修身, 修身学, 修身誠意ノ学, 修身治国, 修身斉 家治国平天下), only 修身誠意ノ学 and 修身斉家治国平天下 can be identified as Confucian, each of them appearing only once.31 One can always add other terms to the list and claim their Confucian relevance.32 Nevertheless, the current survey is sufficient for an observation that, in contrast to the “Confucian identity” demonstrated in the previous two categories, this category of “Confucianismderived ideas” is much more ambivalent. On the one hand, given the omnipresence of the terms related, closely or remotely, to Confucianism in East Asian societies, certain limitations on selection are inevitable. On the other hand, even a select pool witnesses a transition in the intellectual landscape of modern Japan. A caveat is necessary here. Using Confucian terms to translate Western ideas was a long process taking place in different countries, of which the Meiroku Magazine constituted a Chapter 3: The Confucian Traits Featuring in the Meiroku Zasshi

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mere stage. But this stage, as introduced above, played a crucial role in the Japanese Enlightenment, so the issue of how the Confucian legacy is treated therein is still of importance to scholars concerned with East Asian history. Of course, compared with terms expressing Western concepts such as freedom, liberty, right, parliament, civilization and enlightenment,33 the Confucian vocabulary seems at once dwarfed. Nonetheless, even the term used for translating “civilization,” namely 文明 (bunmei), the state of development most coveted in Meiji Japan, finds its origin in the Confucian texts. It is necessary for us to rethink the relationships between Confucianism and Japan’s intellectual modernization.

The Meiroku Magazine and Confucianism: an intellectual inquiry It is important to reassert that the statistical investigation of the previous section does not aim to be exhaustive, nor even strictly precise. A certain degree of representativeness of the terms selected would suffice to show some interesting facts: that Confucius’ name is frequently mentioned in the Meiroku Magazine; that the Confucian classics constitute part of the intellectual repertoire of modern Japan; and that Confucian ideas are also keywords for translating and transmitting modern Western concepts. This technical approach, however, cannot tell in what contexts the Confucian terms are invoked, and it also tends to underestimate the real scale of Confucian visibility since in many cases the sources are not identified. These contextual concerns can only be solved through a textual analysis and, for better explication again, I will use three levels to explain the roles that Confucianism plays in the Meiroku Magazine: Confucianism as a target, as a pathway and as an instrument. The stratification is expedient, undeniably, but it is by no means arbitrary. An article by legal scholar Tsuda Mamichi provides a good example showing how the three levels are interrelated but mutually different as well. The first paragraph of the article goes as follows: Men have thought that there was but one source for all things. Such reasoning may have derived from the theory of Chinese scholars who have regarded Heaven as the source of the Way; or the Shintō scholars…who said that all things were contrived by the Heavenly Deities…; or the Western scholars who have attributed everything in the universe to the Creator. While it is easy to ascribe the origin of all things to the Heavenly Deities or the Creator, is it a fact that there were Heavenly Deities or a Creator? This is beyond the realm of human knowledge, and it is foolish to seriously discuss what is beyond knowledge. As Confucius said, the unknown should be left unknown.34 In refuting the idea of ascribing all things in the universe to one origin, the first example mentioned by Tsuda Mamichi is a Chinese theory, which, though not specified by the author, derives from the Doctrine of the Mean.35 Interestingly, to justify his skepticism, Tsuda cited Confucius as an authority. Afterwards he used many kinds of evidence to prove that the origins of things must be multiple, and one of the arguments reads: “Since the Chinese were correct when they observed at an early day that the people are the foundation of a nation, the foundation of a nation is the mass of its population [and thus plural].” 36 “The people are the foundation of a nation” is a time-honored idea of China traceable to the Book of Documents.37 Tsuda’s article is exemplary in many aspects. It not only mentions Confucius’ name but also quotes two other Confucian texts without identifying the sources. The three roles

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(specified for the purpose of this section) that Confucianism plays in the Meiroku Magazine are visible; they are a target of refutation (the thesis of only one origin for all things), a pathway of argument (implicit reference to the Book of Documents) and an illustrative or rhetorical technique (quotation of Confucius’ saying). Even more revealing is that both Japanese and Western myths, together with Chinese metaphysics, are questioned in the citation above, and Tsuda used modern chemistry to negate the traditional knowledge of China, India and Greece elsewhere in the article. This modern-mindedness is the standard background against which Confucianism works in the Meiroku Magazine. The upper level: Confucianism as a target Among all the Meiroku Magazine articles, only a few take Confucianism as a main subject. This is more than natural as the journal was intended to revolutionize Japanese thought along modern Western lines. However, in certain pieces the authors did face Confucianism squarely to propose their views. A somewhat negative example is “Methods for Advancing Enlightenment” (開化ヲ進ル方法ヲ論ズ Kaika wo susumuru hōhō wo ronzu) by Tsuda Mamichi. In this article he claimed that Buddhism and the versions of Confucianism upheld by Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming were “empty studies,” in contrast to astronomy, physics, chemistry, medicine, economics and philosophy as “practical studies.” Nevertheless, in advocating that Japan should achieve enlightenment in a gradual manner through the spread of Christianity (especially the latest sects of Protestantism), Tsuda did not deny the historical impact of Confucianism and Buddhism on Japan; he simply took a utilitarian stance of “the newer the better.” 38 The Chinese classics scholar and educator Sakatani Shiroshi was even more radical in pointing out that “among the many sources of spiritual inferiority of China and Japan to the West, the most important is tools.” 39 Although Sakatani can hardly be called a materialist judging from other articles he wrote, he was troubled by the question of why Chinese technology was so advanced in ancient times but seemed to become backward later. The conclusion he reached is “the Chinese study of matter (気学 kigaku) has not developed since it was halted at its inception.” 40 While his contemporary scholars tended to blame this backwardness on Confucius, Sakatani argued that the responsibility should lie on the traditional cosmology of China (developed largely by Confucians though), about which Confucius said nothing.41 There are positive assessments of Confucianism, too. In “The Three Sages” Tsuda Mamichi enthusiastically praised the Buddha’s teaching of compassion, Confucius’ teaching of humanity and Jesus Christ’s teaching of love as the greatest principles of being human, despite the three sages’ lack of modern scientific knowledge. He also considered that compassion, humanity and love are simply different expressions of the same kindness that the Creator nurses towards all living beings.42 Tsuda’s personal feelings aside, it is noteworthy that he juxtaposed Confucius with the Buddha and Jesus Christ, which seems to mean that Confucianism could no longer stand as the sole authority, even in the realm of morality, in modern Japan. To enhance this observation, Nishimura Shigeki’s “Government and Ethics Are Not Separate Paths” provides a more illuminating example. Nishimura was a strong supporter of the last four steps of the program laid out in the Great Learning: “cultivation of the personal life,” “regulation of the family,” “national order,” and “world peace.” (This is the only time 修身斉

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家治国平天下 appears in this shape in the Meiroku Magazine.) He also quoted Mencius’ view that “the world has its root in the family, and the family has its root in the individual person.” 43 However, Nishimura regretted that some Japanese people after the Meiji Restoration were short-sighted and cared nothing about “learning of self-cultivation and sincerity” (修身 誠意ノ学), so he could not but use another strategy to advance his proposition:

Even though we endeavor now to admonish these fellows with the Way of Confucius and Mencius, our words are in vain since they scornfully reject the Confucian Way. Therefore, I would submit the following, which is based on the opinions of Western savants that the paths of ethics and governing the country are not two.44 Here we see a bewildering situation: while a Confucian truth is affirmed, it must be proved by way of modern Western ideas. To summarize this part, it is clear that in the few cases where Confucianism features prominently in the Meiroku Magazine, it does not always assume a positive image. Even when Confucianism is highly acclaimed, it is not the sole authority that is cited. The middle level: Confucianism as a pathway To draw a hard line between Confucianism “as a pathway” and “as an instrument” would be mechanical, as both make use of Confucian knowledge for reasoning. A major difference, however, is that, as a pathway, Confucianism constitutes an organic part of the argument, whereas it plays mere explanatory or rhetorical functions as an instrument. On the middle level, four examples will be examined which come from the two most active contributors to the Meiroku Magazine, namely Nishi Amane and Tsuda Mamichi. In “On Religion,” a famous series of articles in the Meiroku Magazine, Nishi Amane strongly urged that the government should not interfere with religious matters. In the fifth article of the series, he raised his argument to a new height, proposing that human beings should follow their own conscience to tell good from evil, and the principle of this judgment comes directly from heaven. At this juncture the very idea “the origin of the Way is traced to Heaven” is cited without the source being named.45 It is interesting to note that, as shown earlier, Tsuda Mamichi refuted this idea from the Doctrine of the Mean in “On the Plurality of the Origin of Things,” but here Nishi Amane recognized heaven as the ultimate origin of the Way. In spite of the difference, it is indisputable that both authors were familiar with Confucian sources. Later in the article, Nishi argued against the understanding of the “principle of heaven” (天理) held by the Confucians of the Song Dynasty (宋儒).46 Since this issue is too complicated for the scope of this chapter, suffice it to indicate that in Neo-Confucianism the “principle of heaven” is a major concept, whose opposite is “human desires” (人欲); different attitudes had been adopted towards this pair of terms in East Asian history, and discussion of them occurs several times even in the Meiroku Magazine.47 At the beginning of “The Three Human Treasures,” (人世三宝説一 Jinsei sanbō setsu ichi) another influential series of articles in the Meiroku Magazine, Nishi Amane made a brief review of the development of modern Western ethics, siding with a utilitarian philosophy that sought the greatest happiness of humankind. On the utilitarian basis, Nishi ventured to provide a theory of the means to achieve this happiness, regarding health, wisdom, and wealth

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to be the most essential elements.48 The rest of the article—indeed, the entire series—sees different sorts of evidence raised to demonstrate the importance of the three treasures. Nishi confidently claimed that even the Buddha, Confucius and Jesus Christ “could not break away from these three objectives as the fundamentals for ordering life in this world.” 49 Furthermore, using a classic Confucian tone, Nishi also argued that the self could not be cultivated, the family could not be regulated and the nation and the world could not be ruled without the three treasures, an unspecified but unmistakable reference to the program laid out in the Great Learning.50 In asserting wealth to be one of the treasures, Confucius’ saying is cited again but used in a reverse way: “The Confucian teaching that man should be satisfied with poverty only means that he should not indulge in ill-gained wealth. It does not admonish against earning money by hard work.” 51 Obviously, this interpretation is “distorted” to a certain degree, but as a pathway of argument, we see that Confucianism was indispensable to Japan’s intellectual modernization. The next two examples come from Tsuda Mamichi. “Mysteries” starts with the following eloquent passage: Probably because statesmanship gains no benefit from mysteries, [extraordinary] powers, disturbances, and spiritual beings, Confucius taught exclusively the science of governing without ever referring to such phantoms. I shall endeavor to discuss this by taking up the word “mysteries”…. First of all, since the relation of mysteries to the human mind is really not insignificant, it should be conceded that understanding them is also not [just] a minor supplement to statesmanship. Mysteries are what cannot be discerned by the human intellect. That they were numerous in antiquity and few in recent times is proof that recent generations are finally moving toward civilization. Even though it is said that the world at last has become civilized, if you look at the matter closely, there are naturally still many phenomena in the world the reasons for which are not yet clear. If there is anything that touches our senses whose principles are in the least unclear, hardly ever is it without mystery. Then why should we not discuss mysteries? 52 Although Tsuda used two paragraphs to question Confucius’ position of not talking about “mysteries, [extraordinary] powers, disturbances, and spiritual beings,” this article is not a refutation of Confucianism in essence. Rather, Tsuda simply attempted to establish his own view by way of a familiar, and perhaps old-fashioned, authority. From “The Three Sages” we know that Tsuda was a great admirer of Confucius, along with the Buddha and Jesus Christ, claiming their ethical consummation was not at all eclipsed by their lack of modern scientific knowledge. But in “Mysteries” he deliberately took issue with Confucius to advance rational thinking fit for (modern Western) civilization. It seems that a double identification—with both traditional morality and modern science—was at work in Tsuda’s mind. In “Desire,” (情欲論 Jōyoku ron) Tsuda took desire as “the Creator’s great gift as it is the means by which He brings pleasure and comfort to our lives.” 53 While overflowing of desires is absolutely harmful to human beings, in Tsuda’s view, the Buddhist and Confucian efforts to overcome desires went too far indeed. He then questioned the incompatibility between the “principle of heaven” and “human desires” proposed by Zhu Xi, asking “do human desires Chapter 3: The Confucian Traits Featuring in the Meiroku Zasshi

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not stem from the principle of heaven?” At the end of the article, Tsuda showed his support for a Western theory that divides human nature into three domains: wisdom for knowing, passion for desiring and will for acting.54 In this case, modern Western learning takes clear predominance over old Eastern teachings. More examples are available but the foregoing are sufficiently representative to show one of the ways Confucianism is treated in the Meiroku Magazine. In those cases, the authors were invariably aiming at modern Western civilization, but they used other traditions, especially Confucianism, as a pathway of argument. The lower level: Confucianism as an instrument On the previous two levels, Confucian sources, whether identified by the authors or not, play an active role in constructing argument. There are, however, many more cases in which Confucian ideas appear in the form of aphorisms or historical stories. While they mainly serve as rhetorical devices to make the narrative more convincing or colourful without direct relevance to the topics, viewed from the other side, such cases are evidence of the rich Confucian knowledge held by the Meiroku-sha members. Given the large number of these cases, I will only focus on “On Religion” (教門論 Kyōmon ron) and “The Three Human Treasures”—the two famous series of articles by Nishi Amane already touched upon—to see how Confucian influence expresses itself in a subtle way in the Meiroku Magazine. “On Religion” is a series of articles proposing religious freedom. In the second installment, Nishi argued that the “government should not be prone to inquire into the good or evil within men’s hearts since law by its nature regulates externals.” 55 Nishi used a saying from Confucius’ Analects to justify his support for free will: “The commander of three armies may be taken away, but the will of even a common man may not be taken away from him.” 56 Besides the Analects, one reference to Mencius and one to the Book of Documents can also be found in this article, but none of their titles is mentioned. In the fourth installment of “On Religion,” Nishi emphasized that the purity of faith can be increased through intellectual and moral cultivation: “If man just studies the delicacy of human nature and penetrates the causes of being, he will be content to believe in a Supreme Being.” 57 Afterwards Nishi adopted a line from the Book of Songs, “You do not escape even in the curtained alcove,” to indicate the uprightness of a person.58 In the last installment of “On Religion,” Nishi reasserted the importance of faith in the Supreme Ruler and adapted a saying from the Analects to his argument: “faith is the source of man’s virtue and the foundation of all conduct, like the proverbial axle without which a carriage cannot move.” 59 This adaptation, nevertheless, is not a faithful one as in the original text Confucius did not use the character 信 to mean “faith” but “credibility” of a person. In both cases we see that Nishi Amane used Confucian ideas freely and he never bothered to identify the sources, leaving the task largely to his contemporary readers, who were supposedly knowledgeable about Confucianism. The last example I would like to give comes from the fourth installment of “The Three Human Treasures,” in which Nishi Amane elaborated on his argument that the three treasures are not only beneficial to the individual, but to entire human society as well. The article begins with the following statement:

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In my previous discussion of the path of social intercourse, I clarified the fact that the source for the development and establishment of social intercourse is no more than the three treasures. Now as there are laws for the governance of all things, there are invariably principles for the maintenance of social intercourse once it is established.60 It is unnecessary to delve into Nishi’s argument here, but what is noteworthy is that “there are laws for the governance of all things” is a line from the Book of Songs, which became a highly respected idea in Neo-Confucianism. Nishi was apparently aware of its historical significance and took it as common sense—thus not specifying the source—to support his own proposition. Before ending this part, a special verb 裁成輔相 (cai cheng fu xiang) deserves a glance. It is from the Book of Changes, meaning that the ruler should “divide” and “complete” the course of heaven and earth, and “further” and “regulate” the gifts of heaven and earth, in order to aid the people.61 Expressions with slight variations appear throughout the Meiroku Magazine more than ten times. The very fact that they are used naturally without the source being named indicates that this Confucian idea had been internalized in Japanese intellectual circles before the early Meiji era.

Concluding remarks This chapter seeks to demonstrate the relevance of Confucianism to the Meiroku Magazine, the most prominent journal of the Japanese Enlightenment. As explained in the overview section, the extreme diversity of the journal articles defies any simplistic summaries, and historian Sugawara Hikaru gives us the following reminder: If one wants to know what kind of society the Meiroku-sha is, rather than starting from a specific political or philosophical stance, one must notice the fact that the members kept arguing and debating.62 It is against this backdrop that I have explored the Confucian traits expressed in the Meiroku Magazine, and I use a brief section to justify this effort. In the two sections of statistical approaches and intellectual inquiry, different categories and levels are made to better reveal the multiple ways in which Confucianism functions in the Meiroku Magazine. Although the categories and levels are not mutually exclusive and, more importantly, a comprehensive investigation that covers all Confucian clues is not possible, by utilizing this structure I try to demonstrate the pervasive and subtle presence of Confucianism in the Meiroku Magazine, as well as its complicated relations with modern Western learning. The discussion has tended to concentrate on a few authors such as Nishi Amane, Nishimura Shigeki, and Tsuda Mamichi, but this is because they contributed more articles to the journal than other thinkers did. Sakatani Shiroshi and Nakamura Masanao were also active contributors to the Meiroku Magazine, and their names can be seen in the previous sections as well. Another interpretation for this concentration is possible: these authors were more prone to use Confucian resources in their argument. In any case, by combing through the Meiroku Magazine, it seems obvious to me that the judgment of political theorist Matsumoto Sannosuke is a little too simplistic: “for the

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Meiroku-sha members, apart from the transmission of new knowledge, the transformation of Confucian dogmatism and conventional ways of thinking that prevailed over the intellectual world of the Edo period was also a primary subject.” 63 On the contrary, my own reading of the Meiroku Magazine is more consistent with Watanabe Hiroshi’s observation that Japan’s pursuit of “civilization” was by no means unrelated to Chinese, especially Confucian, thought.64 Even when China was suffering prolonged chaos in the early Meiji years, in “China Should Not Be Despised” Nakamura Masanao gave seven reasons to remind his fellow countrymen that China must be taken seriously, if not respectfully.65 Significantly, Nakamura was also the author of “An Outline of Western Culture,” a series of seven articles in the Meiroku Magazine that introduces modern Western learning. This fact should bring us to a rethink of how modern Japanese enlighteners proposed new ideas not only in defiance of but also in submission to the old legacy, in which Confucianism played a major role.

Notes

1 Kano Masanao, Kindai nihonshisō annai [ 近代日本思想案内 A guide to modern Japanese thought] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1999), 41–42. 2 Yonehara Ken, “Meiroku Zasshi” [ 明六雑誌 Meiroku Magazine], in Koyasu Nobukuni, ed., Nihon shisōshi jiten [日本思想史辞典 Dictionary of Japanese intellectual history) (Tokyo: Perikansha, 2001), 538. 3 Nishimura Shigeki, “Kaika no do niyorite kaimoji wo hassubeki no ron” [ 開化ノ度ニ因テ改文字ヲ発スベキノ論 Why the reform of writing should depend on the level of enlightenment], in Meiroku Magazine 1 (1874): 12(2); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1976), 19. Throughout this chapter, the content of the Meiroku Magazine is based on a scanned version of the original text, which is available on the official website of the National Institute of Japanese Language and Linguistics: https://dglb01.ninjal.ac.jp/ninjaldl/bunken.php?title=meirokuzassi; English translations are largely cited from William Reynolds Braisted’s work mentioned above. In the original text, each page number contains two sides, outer and inner, so I use (1) to refer to the outer and (2) to the inner. Besides the previous two sources, my reading and writing are heavily indebted to a three-volume version of the Meiroku Magazine annotated by Yamamuro Shinichi and Nakanome Tōru, which was published by Iwanami Shoten with the three volumes coming out in 1999, 2008 and 2009, respectively. 4 For a related discussion, see Yamamuro Shinichi, “‘Meiroku Zasshi’ no shisō sekai” [ 「明六雑誌」の思想世 界 The world of thought of the “Meiroku Magazine”], in Meiroku Magazine, Vol. 3 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2009), 452–59. 5 See Nakanome Tōru, “Meiroku-sha to Meiroku Zasshi” [ 明六社と 「明六雑誌」Meiroku-sha and Meiroku Magazine], in Meiroku Magazine, Vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1999), 437. 6 This very fact has become a source of debate, concerning the ambiguous relationships between the Meiroku-sha members and the government and even the nature of the “Japanese Enlightenment” itself. The historian of the Meiji era Tōyama Shigeki observed that while the Meiroku-sha members critiqued feudalism and thus laid the groundwork for modern thought, they also pointed out the way of political absolutism and directed the people towards that goal. In this sense, they never went beyond gradualism. Tōyama Shigeki, Meiji ishin [明治維新 The Meiji Restoration] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2000), 239. 7 Nakanome, “Meiroku-sha to Meiroku Zasshi,” 466. 8 For a good example of this “miscellany” of Meiroku Magazine studies, see The Institute for Humanities Research, Kanagawa University, ed., Meiroku Zasshi to sono shūhen: seiyōbunka no juyō, shisō to gengo 「 [ 明六雑 誌」 とその周辺――西洋文化の受容・思想と言語 The Meiroku Zasshi and its peripheries: the reception of Western culture, thought, and language] (Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobo, 2004). 9 Tsujimoto Masashi, “Jugaku no Bakumatsu: seiyōkindai heno shisōteki taiji” [ 儒学の幕末――西洋近代への思 想的対峙 Confucianism at the end of the Tokugawa period: intellectual confrontation with the modern West], in Rai Kiichi, ed., Nihon no kinsei, dai jūsan kan: jugaku, kokugaku, yōgaku [日本の近世 第13巻 儒学・国学・洋 学 The early modern times of Japan, volume 13: Confucian learning, national learning, Western learning] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1993), 375.

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10 Watanabe Hiroshi, “‘They are Almost the Same as the Ancient Three Dynasties’: The West as Seen through Confucian Eyes in Nineteenth-Century Japan,” in Tu Wei-ming, ed., Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 131. 11 Uete Michiari, “Meiji keimōshisō no keisei to sono zeijakusei” [ 明治啓蒙思想の形成とその脆弱性 The formation of Meiji enlightenment thought and its vulnerability], in Nishi Amane, Katō Hiroyuki (西周　加藤弘之), ed. Uete Michiari (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1984), 17–18. 12 Nishi Amane, “Chi setsu san” [ 知説三 Knowledge, part three], in Meiroku Magazine, 20 (1874): 6(2); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 258. “Chou” 周, currently spelled “Zhou” according to the Chinese pinyin system, designates a feudal dynasty of ancient China starting from the 11th century BCE, to the latter part of which Confucius (551–479 BCE) and Mencius (371?–289? BCE) were born. In addition, I have chosen to translate 襁褓 (oshime) as “swaddling clothes” rather than the term Braisted uses in his translation—“diapers.” 13 Nishi Amane, “Chi setsu go” [ 知説五 Knowledge, part five], in Meiroku Magazine 25 (1874): 2(2); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 309–10. 14 Nishi Amane, “Yōji wo motte kokugo wo shosuru no ron” [ 洋字ヲ以テ國語ヲ書スルノ論 Writing Japanese with the Western alphabet], in Meiroku Magazine 1 (1874): 1(1)–10(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 3–16. 15 Actually, Nishi even used Confucius’ teachings to justify this determined adaptation to better trends. Meiroku Magazine 1 (1874): 3(2); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 6. 16 For the statistical data, I rely on two authoritative sources: 1. Takano Shigeo and Hinata Toshihiko, eds., Meiroku Zasshi goi sōsakuin [明六雑誌語彙総索引 Comprehensive index of the Meiroku Zasshi] (Tokyo: Ozorasha, 1998), 2. The concise index appended to the three-volume annotated version of the Meiroku Zasshi. The two indexes do not always agree with each other, but what matters for this chapter is general statistical information rather than precise numbers. For brevity’s sake, I will not give the Japanese pronunciations of the terms examined, but the traditional Chinese characters will be changed to current Japanese kanji. 17 That traditional Chinese use of various appellations for the same person is notorious. As far as I can recognize, the terms mentioning Confucius, both directly and indirectly, in the Meiroku Magazine include 孔 子, 孔夫子, 孔聖, 仲尼, 孔貌 (Confucius’ appearance), and 尼訓 (Confucius’ teachings). 18 Confucius and Mencius combined are generally called 孔孟, but in one case we see 鄒魯, that is, Mencius’ birthplace plus Confucius’. “Chengs” refers to Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032–1085) and Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107). “Zhu” refers to Zhu Xi (朱熹) (1130–1200). 19 In appearing twice, Zhi Xi does not show up as 朱熹, but 朱文公 and 朱学者流 (followers of Zhu Xi’s theories). Neo-Confucianism “thrived from the twelfth to the sixteenth century,” and “is itself an outgrowth of ancient Confucianism, modified by Taoism and Buddhism.” See Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), IX. The first peak of the development of NeoConfucianism was the Song Dynasty, in which the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi were born, and they are generally regarded as representatives of the “Confucians of the Song Dynasty,” a term that will appear several times later. 20 Birth and death years of these figures are not presented because they cannot be determined. The Duke of Zhou was the latest of them, but he predated Confucius by around five centuries. 21 The series “Seigaku ippan” ( 西学一斑 An outline of Western culture) contains seven articles. Nakamura translated Bacon as 倍根. 22 The Buddha is referred to as 釋迦, 釋氏, or 瞿曇. Jesus Christ is translated as 耶蘇 or 基督. The juxtaposition of Confucius, the Buddha, and Jesus Christ will be discussed later. 23 “Confucius said, ‘I transmit but do not create. I believe in and love the ancients…’.” Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 31. 24 This is no place for detailed discussion of what constitutes the respective Confucian canons, but a succinct and informative summary can be found in “28.4 Formation of the Confucian canon,” in Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), 368–71. English translations of the Confucian titles are borrowed from this book. 25 The three mentions of the Book of Songs are 関雎 (title of the first song), 国風 (first part of the book), and 雅 頌 (last two parts of the book). Interestingly, the term 国風 (literally the airs of the states) appears four times

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in the Meiroku Magazine, but only one of them is used in the Confucian sense, with the other three meaning the general social ambience of the state (i.e., Japan). The three chapter titles from the Book of Documents are 堯典, 舜典, and 洪範. In addition, although the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸 Zhongyong) is one of the Four Books, the term 中庸 shows up in the Meiroku Magazine once, not referring to the Confucian text, but to the attitude of keeping the middle path. Arguably, both 国風 and 中庸were too naturalized in pre-20th-century Japanese society to be meaningful in an exclusively Confucian way. This phenomenon will be touched upon here. 26 English translations of these terms come from Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. 27 A term 老儒 appears once, but it does not assume the literal meaning of “old Confucians” but “senior intellectuals.” 28 English translations of 道 (the Way), 理 (the principle), and 氣 (the material force) come from Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. 学 means “learning” as already shown in the example of the Great Learning (大学). This character will appear many times afterwards. 29 It is in the process of tracing the term 理学 that I find both of the indexes in use miss certain entries. 理学家 and 理学者, both referring to the philosopher, are included in my count. More discussion on “learning of the material force” can be found in the next section. 30 Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 84. 31 Discussion on 修身誠意ノ学 and 修身斉家治国平天下 will also come later. 32 For the purpose of argument, 天理 (the principle of heaven) and 裁成輔相 (to divide, complete, further, and regulate) will be discussed later in proper places. 33 These terms can be respectively expressed as 自由, 自主, 権利／理, 議／国会, 文明, 開化, and so forth. 34 Tsuda Mamichi, “Moto wa hitotsu ni arazaru ron” [ 本は一つにあらざる論 On the plurality of the origin of things], in Meiroku Magazine 8 (1874): 8(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 111. Throughout the journal, this is the only article printed in mixed Chinese characters and Japanese hiragana, with all the others are in mixed Chinese characters and Japanese katakana. 35 See Note 25 for a discussion of the Doctrine of the Mean and 中庸. In Zhu Xi’s commentary on the book we find the sentence “the origin of the Way is traced to Heaven.” See Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 98. 36 Tsuda, “Moto wa hitotsu ni arazaru ron,” 9(1)–9(2); 113. 37 The authenticity of the chapter of the Book of Documents where this idea comes from had long been disputed by traditional Chinese scholars. Despite being a later fabrication, it was made to meet Confucian principles. 38 Tsuda Mamichi, “Kaika wo susumuru hōhō wo ronzu” [ 開化ヲ進ル方法ヲ論ズ Methods for advancing enlightenment], in Meiroku Magazine 3 (1874): 7(1)–8(2); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 38–41. “Physics” is expressed by the Confucian term 格物 (investigation of things). See the previous section for discussion. 39 Sakatani Shiroshi, “Yōseishin issetsu” [ 養精神一説 On nurturing the human spirit, part one], in Meiroku Magazine 40 (1875): 5(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 491. 40 Sakatani, “Yōseishin issetsu,” 6(2); 493. This “study of matter (kigaku)” is exactly the term 気学, but it is different from “learning of the material force” in the original Confucian sense. 41 On this view of Sakatani, Braisted provides an endnote offering explanations. See Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 497. 42 Tsuda Mamichi, “Sansei ron” [ 三聖論 The Three Sages], in Meiroku Magazine 21 (1874): 4(1)–5(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 266–67. 43 Nishimura Shigeki, “Shūshin chikoku hi nito ron” [ 修身治国非二途論 Government and ethics are not separate paths], in Meiroku Zasshi 31 (1875): 3(2); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Magazine: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 379. I translate the sentence myself rather than use Braisted’s expression. Actually Nishimura abbreviated Mencius’ original saying: “the world has its root in the state, the state has its root in the family, and the family has its root in the individual person.” 44 Nishimura, “Shūshin chikoku hi nito ron,” 4(1); 380. 45 Nishi Amane, “Kyōmon ron roku” [ 教門論六 On religion, part six], in Meiroku Magazine 9 (1874): 6(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 120. This article is actually the fifth in the series, but the number is mistaken in the original text. 46 Nishi Amane, “Kyōmon ron roku,” 6(2); 121.

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47 Supplementary to the statistical investigation conducted above, while the “principle of heaven” and “human desires” have largely become general terms in East Asia, their appearance at least six times in the Meiroku Magazine are clearly Confucianism-related (in one of the articles desires for things 物欲 is substituted for 人欲). 48 Nishi Amane, “Jinsei sanbō setsu ichi” [ 人世三宝説一 The three human treasures, part one], in Meiroku Magazine 38 (1875): 1(1)–2(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 462–463. This series is generally considered Nishi’s most important contribution to the Meiroku Magazine, but it was not finished yet before the journal ceased publication. 49 Nishi Amane, “Jinsei sanbō setsu ichi” 2(2); 463. 50 Nishi Amane, “Jinsei sanbō setsu ichi,” 3(1); 464. 51 Nishi Amane, “Jinsei sanbō setsu ichi,” 4(2); 466. 52 Tsuda Mamichi, “Kai setsu” [ 怪説 Mysteries], in Meiroku Magazine 25 (1874): 6(2)–7(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 315–16. 53 Tsuda Mamichi, “Jōyoku ron” [ 情欲論 Desire], in Meiroku Magazine 34 (1875): 8(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 422. 54 Tsuda, “Jōyoku ron,” in Meiroku Magazine, 9(2); 423. 55 Nishi Amane, “Kyōmon ron ni” [ 教門論二 On religion, part two], in Meiroku Magazine 5 (1874): 4(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 60. 56 Amane, “Kyōmon ron ni,” 8(1); 36. 57 Nishi Amane, “Kyōmon ron go” [ 教門論五 On religion, part five], in Meiroku Magazine 8 (1874): 7(2); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 111. This article is actually the fourth in the series, but the number is mistaken in the original text. 58 Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry (New York: Grove Press, 1996), 264. A few more lines are cited below for better clarity: “You are seen in your house; / You do not escape even in the curtained alcove. / Do not say: ‘Of the glorious ones / None is looking at me.’ / A visit from the Spirits / Can never be foreseen; /The better reason for not disgusting them.” 59 Nishi Amane, “Kyōmon ron nana” [ 教門論七 On religion, part seven], in Meiroku Magazine 12 (1874): 1(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 152. This article is actually the sixth in the series, but the number is mistaken in the original text. 60 Nishi Amane, “Jinsei sanbō setsu yon” [ 人世三宝説四 The three human treasures, part four], in Meiroku Magazine 42 (1875): 4(2); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 513. 61 The description is based on the Richard Wilhelm (German) translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, The I Ching or Book of Changes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 442. The whole passage from which this idea comes reads: “Heaven and earth unite: the image of PEACE. / Thus the ruler / Divides and completes the course of heaven and earth; / He furthers and regulates the gifts of heaven and earth, / And so aids the people.” 62 Sugawara Hikaru, “Meiroku-sha no shisōkatachi” [ 明六社の思想家たち Thinkers of the Meiroku-sha], in Karube Tadashi and Kataoka Ryū, eds., Nihon shisōshi handobukku [日本思想史ハンドブック Japanese intellectual history: a handbook] (Tokyo: Shinshokan, 2008), 116. 63 Matsumoto Sannosuke, Kindai Nihon no chitekijōkyō [ 近代日本の知的状況 The situation of knowledge of modern Japan] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1974), 50. 64 Watanabe Hiroshi, Higashi Ajia no ōken to shisō [ 東アジアの王権と思想 Kingly power and the thought of East Asia] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2011), 248–57. Watanabe takes Sakatani Shiroshi as a prime example of Confucian influence; see 252–53. 65 Nakamura Masanao, “Shina anadorubekarazaru no ron” [ 支那不可侮論 China should not be despised], in Meiroku Magazine 35 (1875): 1(1)–3(1); William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, 425–28. The seven reasons are: 1. great men have been produced throughout Chinese history; 2. China has an abundance of written works; 3. the Chinese people will become vigorous again once the Manchu government is overthrown; 4. China yields many raw materials because of its size; 5. even the Russians dare not despise China; 6. China has changed its traditional arrogance and treats Japan politely in a recent bilateral conflict about Taiwan; 7. Japan only borrows enlightenment from the West and thus is not qualified to scorn China.

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Chapter 4 The Invention of “Chinese Philosophy”: How Did the Classics Take Root in Japan’s First Modern University? Mizuno Hirota Translated by Ruth and John McCreery

Introduction: research history and perspective Post WWII research on Confucianism in modern Japan Regardless of our nationality, when we think about the development of Confucianism in modern Japan, we are likely to think first of Japan’s first modern university, Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo).1 Turning to its role, our attention is drawn to the scholars of Chinese philosophy for whom Confucianism was a space for discourse friendly to the government or, in other words, useful to ideologues who supported the nationalism and militarism that peaked in Japan in the 1930s and 1940s. The first scholar to grapple with this question and produce serious research was not Japanese. He was Warren W. Smith, Jr., whose work Confucianism in Japan: A Study of Conservatism in Japanese Intellectual History was first published in 1959, when Japanese memories of the war were still fresh.2 Even now his book remains unrivaled for its comprehensive and expert coverage of Confucianism in modern Japan. In that book, Smith critically analyzed the political and ideological roles played in the 1930s by Tokyo Imperial University and the Shibunkai (斯文会), a powerful organization dedicated to the promotion of Confucianism and Chinese Learning, to which the university’s faculty members belonged. Togawa Yoshio was the first Japanese scholar to address this topic in the postwar era. In a magazine article published in 1966, he, too, sharply criticized the prewar Tokyo Imperial University’s scholars of Chinese philosophy.3 He, too, labelled them ideologues. Unlike Smith, however, Togawa did not publish his research in book form. Until relatively recently, this attitude toward Confucianism in modern Japan—in other words, the critical stance which saw scholarship and politics as too closely aligned in prewar

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Japan—remained deeply rooted. Until recent years, studies of Confucianism in modern Japan from other perspectives were almost nonexistent. In the context described by Kiri Paramore’s phrase, “Confucianism as taboo,” 4 most Japanese researchers avoided making reconsideration of Confucianism in modern Japan the topic of scholarly research. It was, then, only in recent years (albeit nearly twenty years ago) that some serious research on this topic began to appear in Japanese or Chinese. But again the author was not Japanese. Chen Wei-fen is from Taiwan.5 That said, her stance, which continues to emphasize the role of Confucianism as ideology in modern Japan, does not escape the fundamental assumption of the earlier research mentioned above. In Mainland China, Li Qing and Liu Yuebing are among those who have published on this topic; but their interests also remain confined within this same framework.6 As described above, Confucianism in modern Japan is a topic that has attracted more attention from non-Japanese than Japanese scholars.7 Moreover, most of this interest has been focused on how Confucianism was, via academic and educational channels, linked to politics and played a supporting role in promotion of nationalism and militarism, whose fever pitch ended in 1945. Academic trends in modern Japan: Reconsidering the role of research on the Chinese Classics We have only begun to see signs of movement in Japanese academia toward reconsideration of the historical development of Confucianism in modern Japan, and more broadly of the study of the Chinese Classics (漢学 kangaku).8 This is not the same as the movement by some in Mainland China to reassess the utility of Confucian values in contemporary society. It has no relation to the revisionist history movements popular in some non-academic circles in recent years in Japan. It is certainly not a denial of the role of Confucianism as ideology in modern Japan. Rather, today’s reconsideration of Confucianism and the Chinese classics has been undertaken in full recognition of the ideological character of much Confucian thought in 20th-century Japan. Turning now to specifics, it goes without saying that each researcher has their own specific concerns, making it impossible to assert without qualification a shared tendency. I can, however, say more about my own concerns on which this essay was based. To summarize, on the topic of the roles played by the study of Confucianism, or the Chinese classics more broadly, during the early modern and modern period, these new studies in Japanese academia 1) have stopped thinking that all historical events to be studied are elements of a single story that inevitably led to a catastrophic ending in 1945, and, at the same time, 2) have stopped unconsciously excluding historical phenomena that do not, at first glance, contribute directly to that catastrophic ending (as not contributing to constructing that single story). We must put ourselves in the position of those who, from the latter half of the 19th century through the start of the 20th century, directly confronted all sorts of changes in Japan. In our thorough reading of the texts they have given us we should try to imagine (re-experience) the international and domestic intellectual environment, together with the varied political and social circumstances in which they were placed. We should do so without predicting that all of them were linked in their entirety to imperialist ideology and so forth. Finally, we should try to better understand how their ideas were developed, through what kind of thinking process, and how they confronted change. That is the stance adopted here.

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To do this kind of study, we must assemble, read and analyze a wide range of material not fully taken into account by previous researchers. Only when we have built a solid foundation of research results through collection, interpretation and analysis will we be able to understand the modern history of Japan that led up to 1945 and the roles played by Confucianism and academia in that process, making possible a more effective critique. Going further, while it may seem a bit provocative and challenging to put it this way, this kind of research suggests other possibilities left unconsidered by the usual approach, which links everything that occurred in the conservative-led modernization of Japan in the late 19th century to the destruction that occurred in 1945. While it may seem that 1945 was a major rupture, the study of the Chinese Classics in today’s Japan may also enable consideration of its strong connections with trends in prewar Japanese research. Reconsideration of previous research on the Chinese Classics can deepen our understanding of the situation in which researchers who study the Chinese Classics find themselves in today’s Japan. For this very reason, this is not the sort of “reevaluation” that unthinkingly overturns critique of previous research to heap praise on the past, i.e., on prewar scholarship. It must be a “reconsideration” that casts light on parts of the past insufficiently dealt with by previous criticism. It is not, moreover, an effort totally dedicated to critique. It is rather an attempt to explore the potential for richer, fuller understanding of the present in which we find ourselves. How the Chinese Classics were interpreted at the university and the creation of “Chinese philosophy” Narrowing our focus, the question discussed here is the position of Confucianism and the Chinese Classics in modern Japan’s new universities. Before the Meiji Restoration, during the Edo period when Japan was ruled by the Tokugawa clan, the Chinese Classics, primarily the Confucian Classics, were the only authoritative form of learning. Then, during Meiji, the focus of scholarship shifted from China to the West, and the Chinese Classics lost their authority. As exemplified by Fukuzawa Yukichi in the early Meiji era, many Japanese scholars argued that Japanese should abandon the impractical study of the complexities of Chinese poetry and the philosophical speculation epitomized by the Chinese Classics and replace these subjects with more practical Western learning and the study of Western civilization. Readers may have heard something like the following common explanation: “The singleminded drive toward wholesale Westernization produced a reaction. As exemplified in the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education (教育勅語 Kyōiku chokugo), we see a revival of Confucian ethics. Confucianism once again played an important role in education.” This explanation is not mistaken. Some components of Confucian ethics are, indeed, mentioned in the Imperial Rescript on Education. We must be cautious however, in linking the fact that some components of Confucian ethics are mentioned in the Imperial Rescript on Education to how Confucianism and the Chinese Classics were positioned in modern Japan’s new universities. Why? Based on the evidence provided by existing materials, it cannot be said that around 1890, when the Imperial Rescript on Education was promulgated by the Emperor, there was any major change in the position of the Chinese Classics in the universities. The Imperial Rescript was directed at elementary schools, at compulsory education, not universities. What changes did occur in universities were, it should be noted, extensions of changes already under way for more than a decade. 52

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The education offered by government-founded universities is not completely free of political influence from the national government. That was certainly the case for prewar Japan. It makes no sense, however, to assume that “politics” was the only factor or that other factors were inconsequential and can thus be ignored. It is possible to imagine that the tight linkage of Confucianism, academia and government that emerged in the 1930s existed in embryonic form in Japan’s modern universities from the early Meiji era on (in other words, that from the early Meiji era to the middle of the 20th century, there was no fundamental change, with universities consistently supporting government exploitation of Confucianism). That assumption must, however, be bracketed and the matter reconsidered. Instead, when considering the relationship of Confucianism and the Chinese Classics to the early Meiji-era universities, we should ask ourselves how the Chinese Classics succeeded in securing their position amidst Japanese scholarship’s dramatic change in direction. The first point to note is that in modern Japan, universities were not created to study and preserve Japan’s scholarly traditions. They were institutions established to assimilate and teach Western knowledge. For that reason, as discussed further below, when Tokyo University, modern Japan’s first university, was founded, almost all of its classes were taught in English by American or British faculty. Instead of Japanese, students listened to lectures delivered in English, wrote notes in English, and took their final exams in English. With higher education embedded in this environment, how could the Chinese classics survive, let alone put down roots? The broader question, how traditional scholarship changed during a period of massive social change, is a deeply interesting topic, to which we can now add, given that research on Confucianism in modern Japan has reached this point, the question of what we can say about Confucianism and the Chinese Classics in modern Japan while keeping our focus on academia. We must now begin to explore how the Chinese Classics survived during this dramatic turning point in Japanese history. At Tokyo University, lectures on Classical Chinese date back to the university’s founding. A few years later, lectures with the title Shina tetsugaku (支那哲学 Chinese philosophy) were introduced.9 The Chinese Classics had solidified their position as part of the university curriculum. Even so, the “revival of Confucian ethics” exemplified in the Imperial Rescript on Education is not a sufficient explanation for how this came about. This essay probes more deeply, then, into the question how the Chinese Classics became solidly established in modern Japan’s universities. The philosopher Inoue Tetsujirō played a major role.

Tokyo University and the Chinese Classics Western education and the Chinese Classics Tokyo University was created in 1877 through the merger of its two predecessors, Tokyo Kaisei School 10 and Tokyo Medical School. In contrast to today’s University of Tokyo, which has ten faculties, it had only four faculties: Law, Science, Literature and Medicine. From the time that Tokyo University was founded, its most important task was to assimilate and teach Western knowledge and technology to support Japan’s modernization. The Tokyo Kaisei School’s instructors were almost all American or British and all classes and examinations were in English; at Tokyo Medical School, Germans taught medicine in German. Higher education’s dependence on foreign instructors continued after the two schools merged to form Tokyo University. At this point there were no Japanese teachers able to teach Chapter 4: The Invention of “Chinese Philosophy”

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higher-level courses. Since Japan then had neither a constitution nor civil law of its own, in the Tokyo University Faculty of Law, American and British instructors taught common law in English. We might think that there was no room for the Chinese Classics in this educational environment. At Tokyo Kaisei School, however, a situation developed in which students who put all of their energy into studying English became unable to write essays in Japanese. They were acquiring Western knowledge, but their inability to translate what they had learned into Japanese made it impossible for that knowledge to spread and take root throughout Japan. To address this issue, the school established extracurricular classes in which students had to read essays written in Japanese or Classical Chinese.11 It may seem strange that students read essays written in Classical Chinese but wrote their own essays in Japanese. That was, however, before genbun itchi (言文一致), the unification of the spoken and written language. Written Japanese was strongly influenced by kanbun kundoku tai (漢文訓読体), a special style for parsing Classical Chinese in Japanese. Reading texts written in Classical Chinese was not only considered useful for acquiring vocabulary for Japanese writing but also provided the basic training for writing official documents in Japanese. Here is where the Chinese Classics found a way to survive. Here, however, we find no trace of political influence or educational desire to introduce Confucian ethics into higher education. Cases in which the Four Books and Five Classics, the most important Confucian texts, were used as teaching materials were rare. In most cases teaching materials were textbooks for learning to write Classical Chinese. Confucian ethics were discarded. Instead, the chosen path was specialization in teaching language, a way to survive in a time of radical change in society’s values. The Chinese Classics at Tokyo University Tokyo University was established as an institution whose mission was assimilation and dissemination of Western knowledge and technology. Even so, when the university was founded in 1877, a Department of Japanese and Chinese Literature was included in the Faculty of Literature, nominally for the sake of preserving Japanese traditional scholarship. Until the university’s name was changed to Imperial University in 1886, that department had only two graduates, one in 1881, one in 1884. The department was later divided into the Department of Japanese Literature and the Department of Chinese Classics; but the latter had no graduates at all until 1894. In addition to these departments, for a few years after 1882 Tokyo University temporarily offered courses specialized in Classical Chinese, as well as courses in Japanese National Studies (国学 kokugaku), which trained a few dozen students. This essay does not cover those unofficial courses.12 When Tokyo University was founded, its Department of Japanese and Chinese literature was virtually non-functional. It did, however, offer courses in the Chinese Classics targeting students of law, philosophy and politics. During this period, the department’s instructors included Nakamura Masanao, Mishima Tsuyoshi, Shinobu Akira, Shimada Chōrei and Nanma Tsunanori. The emphasis in their courses was on the vocabulary and grammar of the texts instead of the thinking they embodied. That was not surprising, given the purpose of Chinese language education mentioned earlier. For example, in 1880 and 1881, Nakamura taught a course on Classical Chinese Literature. His text was The Records of the Grand Historian, but, rather than emphasizing the content of the work, his goal was to familiarize students with Classical Chinese vocabulary.

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These instructors understood their role at Tokyo University. Nakamura had traveled to Britain during the last days of the Tokugawa period and translated John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help into Japanese. He possessed some understanding of Western thought, but none of the other instructors were familiar with Western scholarship. They accepted the reality that only acquisition of Western knowledge was significant (even though there were numerous hidebound classicists outside the university who did not share their attitude). They saw room for the Chinese Classics in their contribution to language education for students focused on the study of Western scholarship. Machi Senjurō points out that Mishima told his students to study Western scholarship as well as the Chinese Classics and that the goal of his lectures on the Chinese Classics, both at Nishō Gakusha, his private school, and at Tokyo University, was to cultivate the analytical skills required to write sophisticated Japanese using Chinese loanwords.13 From kangaku to Chinese philosophy At Tokyo University, however, the Chinese Classics did not remain confined to language study. In February 1885, Tokyo University president Katō Hiroyuki assembled the Faculty of Literature for a talk.14 His lecture, directed at teachers of National Studies and the Chinese Classics, was sharply critical and included a sudden demand for changes in teaching methods. At least as far as the Chinese Classics were concerned, Katō’s criticism was directed at kangakusha (漢学者), old-fashioned Chinese classicists, who taught only philology and nothing about the content of the Classics or how it compared with the thought of Western thinkers. Katō pointed out in his talk how Chinese classicists idealized ancient Chinese thought. He despised how they took the history of scholarship too lightly, were unable to offer comparisons with Western ideas and theories, and, thus, were stuck in a place far from “true scholarship.” True scholarship, he said, requires three methodologies, “experimental,” “historical” and “comparative.” Historical and comparative methods were particularly important in the case of intellectual history. Turning to teaching, Katō noted that the Chinese Classics were traditionally taught using a single textbook, reading every page from first to last, with no time for anything but philological analysis. Given the limited time available in university classes, this approach failed to teach properly the essentials of what the Chinese Classics had to teach. Katō ended his talk with the hope that instead of teaching from the usual textbooks, the courses should address such basics as jin (Chinese 仁 ren, benevolence) or gi (Chinese 義 yi, righteousness), exploring historically how they had been debated in China and including the Hundred Schools as well as Confucius and Mencius. His intent was not to dismiss the importance of the study of the Chinese Classics in language education. By the time Katō gave this speech, educators had started to think that this kind of training should be relegated to high schools or middle schools instead of universities. That is why he did not conceal his frustration with the Chinese classicists who, in that transitional period of the education system, were still clinging to philology as the core of their identities. For the faculty members who were present at the talk, the university president’s words were a bitter pill to swallow. They had studied only the Chinese Classics at the Shōheikō (昌平 黌), the pre-Meiji Tokugawa Shogunate’s official school, and similar institutions. In addition, they possessed little if any knowledge of Western scholarship. They—even Nakamura, who

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had translated Mill and Smiles—had no clear answer for how a course on Shina tetsugaku, Chinese philosophy, should be offered. The term tetsugaku (哲学) was coined during the Meiji period, prior to which it did not exist in either Japanese or Classical Chinese. It was a new invention by Nishi Amane to translate “philosophy,” an intellectual activity which Nishi believed had no precedents in China or Japan. The phrase “Chinese philosophy,” which had been widely used in the West already, was back-translated as Shina tetsugaku (支那哲学). To Nakamura, who was familiar with both Eastern and Western scholarship, the term Shina tetsugaku must have seemed a strange combination. To him, it was like pouring old wine (kangaku) into a new bottle (tetsugaku). The others, who could not read English and were unfamiliar with the term tetsugaku, were completely at sea. The first to find a way out of this trap, the first in Japan and thus the first in East Asia to experiment with systematizing Chinese philosophy, was the young Inoue Tetsujirō.

Inoue Tetsujirō and Chinese Philosophy Reassessing Inoue Tetsujirō Among readers of this essay who have previously heard the name Inoue Tetsujirō, few will have heard anything positive about him. In Japanese academia and in the previous research mentioned above, he is always the butt of criticism, universally despised. The main reasons, as far as later generations of researchers are concerned, are that he was the author of the official annotations of the now infamous Imperial Rescript on Education, that he was a fierce critic of Christianity and liberalism, and that he authored works on national morality and The Way of the Warrior in which he consistently displayed an affinity for nationalism, imperialism and militarism. In other words, he is seen as an obstacle to academic freedom and social development. He might have been talented but lacked creativity. He has no importance except as a presence to be criticized when discussing modern Japan, seen as nothing more than an ideologue. As also mentioned in the introduction, this one-sided view of Inoue is changing today. His affinity for nationalism cannot, of course, be denied. Neither is there any intention here to erase his negative influence on history. There has been, however, in recent years a movement to reassess Inoue’s influence on the academia of his time and the role he played at the dawn of modern scholarship in Japan.15 This essay is part of that movement. It is easy to imagine that the conclusion of this research will be that “Inoue’s activities had both pros and cons.” To consider both the pros and cons of an individual who has previously been the target of universal criticism and censure may be rebuked as retrograde and backward. I continue to believe, however, that in the case of Inoue Tetsujirō, an accurate grasp of both merits and demerits, pros as well as cons, will lead to a more powerful critique of Japan’s modernization. Inoue Tetsujirō and the invention of Chinese philosophy When Inoue became the first graduate from the Tokyo University Faculty of Literature in 1880, he followed the advice of university president Katō Hiroyuki. While employed first by the Ministry of Education and then by Tokyo University, he began writing his History of Oriental Philosophy (東洋哲學史 Tōyō tetsugaku shi).16 Around 1883, now an assistant professor in the Faculty of Literature, he began giving lectures based on his manuscript.17 56

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A distinctive feature of his lectures was the way in which he structured the history of Chinese philosophy in periods like those into which the history of Western philosophy was divided. Inoue’s periodization was as follows: Period 1: Fu Xi to Eastern Zhou, development of philosophy Elements of philosophy appear in embryonic form, but philosophy has not yet established itself as an independent mode of thought. Period 2: Eastern Zhou to Qin Thought becomes central, philosophy flourishes, reaching its peak, numerous new ideas appear. Period 3: Han to Tang and the Five Dynasties The age of successors. Only orthodox Confucianism continues to develop. All other schools and thus philosophy as a whole decline. Period 4: Song to Ming The era of reconciliation. Zhu Xi and others offer new interpretations influenced by Buddhism, but these are nothing more than attempts to reconcile old and new ideas. Period 5: Qing and after The study of ancient texts. Interpretation of old documents. No new philosophy is developed. It seems rather obvious that this periodization is problematic in many ways and is no longer used today. For example, from today’s perspective, Inoue clearly gives too little credit to the Qing study of ancient texts. We should note that Neo-Confucianism already used a periodization with daotong (道 統, the transmission of the Way or the teachings) as the criterion. Some argued that after Confucius and some of his disciples transmitted the true teachings, Confucianism endured a long dark age before the true teachings were revived in the early Song. That said, what Inoue wanted to emphasize was not daotong but the development of Chinese philosophy in parallel with the history of Western philosophy, and take a different approach to Chinese philosophy, to free it from traditional Neo-Confucianism. While Inoue shared the view with Neo-Confucianism that the ancient period was the golden age of Chinese philosophy, he dared to combine Song and Ming in his era of reconciliation. In other words, his was an attempt to relativize the influence of Zhu Xi. In Inoue’s time in Japan as well as of course in China, Zhu Xi’s influence on the framework that defined the study of the Chinese Classics was immense.18 His lectures involved one of the first attempts in modern Japan to relativize the influence of Neo-Confucianism and Zhu Xi by reinterpreting the Chinese Classics using the idea of periodization of philosophy, a new framework borrowed from the West. Another distinctive feature of Inoue’s lectures was his frequent use of terminology borrowed from Western philosophy when comparing ancient Chinese and Western thinkers. For example, when discussing Mencius and the question of whether human nature is inherently good or evil, Inoue used the Western philosophers’ term “conscience” to interpret ryōshin (良心, the ability to distinguish good and evil), pointing to Thomas Reid and John Locke as advocating positions close to human nature is good and human nature is bad, respectively.

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He also observed that Leibniz’s monadology and the teachings of Mencius both say that good and evil are predestined. Another example is his comparing the Daoist thinkers Laozi and Zhuangzi to the ancient Greek philosophers Zeno and Socrates or, alternatively, to such modern Western thinkers as the British Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin or the German Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.19 Seen through today’s eyes, Inoue’s use of “comparison” and other features of his presentation may seem childish. His ideas might be taken as those of a bright young scholar showing off recently acquired knowledge. However, considering his efforts from the perspective of his times, we can see that he was, in a way implied in Katō’s speech, creating a breach in the self-absorption in philology up to that time. His attempt to define Chinese philosophy through comparison with Western philosophy was, without doubt, only a first step toward establishing Chinese philosophy as a topic for research in Japan.20 We should note, too, that Katō’s speech was delivered the year after Inoue finished his lectures and left Japan to study in Europe. It would not be surprising if Katō’s speech, so fiercely critical of the Chinese Classics faculty, was inspired by seeds planted by Inoue’s efforts. The reality is that after Katō’s speech, Shimada Chōrei, who was responsible for Tokyo University’s Shina tetsugaku course, totally revised his lectures. From 1885 to 1887, Shimada parted from the traditional approach of working from start to finish through a single textbook. For his lectures, he prepared notes on the history of Chinese philosophy. Since he knew nothing about Western philosophy, he could not imitate Inoue and freely compare thinkers from the East and the West. However, his lectures, which ranged from the ancient Hundred Schools to the Qing Dynasty, were, in the earliest days of modern Japan, the first course to cover the full history of Chinese philosophy.21 There is nothing disturbing about them when read with today’s eyes. During the late 19th century, even in China there had been no previous attempt to provide a clear and concise history of Chinese philosophy from ancient to modern times. That is why Inoue and Shimada, unable to use an existing text, lectured from their own notes. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that Chinese scholars commenced studying Confucianism in modern intellectual history terms. Xie Wuliang’s 1916 History of Chinese Philosophy (Mandarin: 中國哲學史 Zhongguo zhexue shi) was the first publication in Chinese to introduce the term “Chinese philosophy” in its title. Hu Shi’s lectures at Beijing University on which his An Outline History of Chinese Philosophy was based were not given until three decades after Inoue and Shimada began their efforts to systematize Chinese philosophy in Japan.22

Conclusion This essay investigates how the Chinese Classics were treated in the early days after Tokyo University’s founding. It examines the role played by the Chinese Classics in an institution of higher education founded with the aim of assimilating knowledge from the West. In that environment, the Chinese classics found a way to survive by discarding their previous identity conceived in terms of Confucian ethics, and limiting their domain to language education. In the end, however, it proved impossible for the Chinese Classics to survive in higher education while being confined to language education alone. It thus became necessary for the teaching of the Chinese Classics to shift from straight philology to philosophy. Inoue Tetsujirō played a major role in this transformation. His lectures had a huge impact on the development of Chinese philosophy as an academic field in Japan.

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Why was the research reported here needed? The research question has already been discussed in detail. To briefly review, however, it emerged as follows. Previous research on Confucianism and the Chinese Classics in Japan has focused on their ties to prewar politics starting in the 1930s. There was little research based on actual evidence on how Chinese philosophy developed as an academic field. Only with careful examination of the relevant materials could a valid critique of Japan’s modernization be developed. During the course of this research, new light may be shed on individuals who had previously been spoken of primarily in negative terms. (Inoue Tetsujirō is one such example.) Illuminating their disregarded influence and clarifying their achievements is neither blind praise of the past nor revisionist history. To fill gaps in previous opinions and provide a fuller account of these topics, further research is required.

Notes 1

The University of Tokyo’s name has changed as follows: 1877–1886: Tōkyō Daigaku (東京大学 Tokyo University) 1886–1898: Teikoku Daigaku (帝国大学 Imperial University) 1898–1947: Tōkyō Teikoku Daigaku (東京帝国大学 Tokyo Imperial University) 1947–present: Tōkyō Daigaku (東京大学 The University of Tokyo) 2 Warren Smith, Confucianism in Japan: A Study of Conservatism in Japanese Intellectual History (Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, 1959). 3 Togawa Yoshio, "Kangaku shinagaku no enkaku to sono mondai ten: kindai akademizumu no seiritsu to chūgoku kennkyu no ‘keifu’ (2)" [漢学シナ学の沿革とその問題点——近代アカデミズムの成立と中国研究の‘系譜’ （二）The history of Chinese Classics Learning and its problems: the ‘genealogy’ of modern academicism and China research (2)], Risō [理想 Thought] 397, (1966). 4 Kiri Paramore, Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 5 Chen Wei-fen, Kindai nihon to jukyō: shibunkai to kōshikyō wo jiku to shite [ 近代日本と儒教——「斯文会」 と 「孔子教」 を軸として Confucianism and modern Japan: the Shibunkai and Confucian Learning as focal point] (Fukuoka: Kyushu University, Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, 1999); and Jindai riben hanxue de ‘guanjianci’ yanjiu: ruxue ji xiangguan gainian de shanbian [近代日本漢学的「関鍵詞」研究：儒学及相関概念的嬗変 Research on key words in Sinology in modern Japan: transformations in Confucianism and related concepts] (Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 2005). 6 See Liu, Yue-bing, Riben jindai ruxue shi [ 日本近代儒学史 History of Confucianism in modern Japan] (Bejing: Commercial Press, 2003) and Li Qing, Riben hanxue shi [日本漢学史 History of Japanese Sinology (5 volumes)] (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press, 2016). 7 That is not to say that Japanese scholars have not discussed Confucianism in prewar Japan at all. Through theses or papers rather than monographs and through monographs that address more specific themes than the broad topic of “Confucianism in modern Japan,” Japanese scholars have addressed these themes in various ways. But a scholarly monograph or specialized text addressing the early Meiji to early Showa periods that is comparable to Smith’s Confucianism in Modern Japan has yet to be written by a Japanese writer since the war. Moreover, Smith’s book gives an account of how Japanese used Confucianism politically not only in Japan before the war but also in the Korean Peninsula and parts of China under Japanese control then. Nothing similar has been written by a Japanese researcher. 8 Similarly, in postwar research, the questioning of what had been fixed perspectives and evaluations has been making progress in the field of the history of Japanese philosophy. One example is research on Katō Hiroyuki. Katō had been regarded has having at one time praised the theory of natural rights, then later abandoned that to become a social Darwinist and a rigid, egoistic nationalist, imperialist and conservative. In recent years, however, research has been appearing that makes it clear that that conventional view of Katō cannot fully explain his thinking. For example, see Kōno Yūri, Gishi no seijigaku [偽史の政治学 The political theory of pseudohistory] (Tokyo: Hakusuisha, 2017); or Tanaka Yukari, Yūshō reppai to Meiji kokka: Katō

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Hiroyuki no shakai shinkaron 「 [ 優勝劣敗」明治国家——加藤弘之の社会進化 “The survival of the fittest” and the Meiji state: Katō Hiroyuki’s social evolutionary theory] (Tokyo: Perikansha, 2019). 9 Shina ( 支那) is a word first found in Chinese Buddhist texts and later used as a transliteration of Western names for “China.” In prewar Japan, it was commonly used to refer to China. Then, especially after the First Sino-Japanese War, it took on a pejorative nuance. In postwar Japan it has been replaced by Chūgoku (中国). 10 Kaisei ( 開成) is a term derived from the Chinese classic the Book of Changes (易経), from a passage that means “To develop knowledge and succeed in practical affairs.” 11 Tōkyō Daigaku-shi shiryō kenkyūkai, [ 東京大学史史料研究会 Research group studying materials concerning the University of Tokyo’s history], Tōkyō Daigaku nenpō dai ikkan [東京大学年報 第一巻 University of Tokyo annual report volume 1] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1993), 62. 12 These courses were not part of Tokyo University’s regular curriculum. They did not count for credit for the Bachelor’s degree. To learn more about them, see Shinada Yoshikazu and Saitō Mareshi, ‘Kokusho’ no kigen: kindai nihon no koten hensei 「 [ 国書」の起源——近代日本の古典編成 The origin of ‘national literature’: the compiling of the classics in modern Japan] (Tokyo: Shinyōsha, 2019). 13 See Machi Senjurō, “Bakumatsu meiji ki ni okeru gakujutsu, kyōgaku no keisei to kangaku” [ 幕末明治期 における学術・教学の形成と漢学 Chinese Classics Learning and the formation of academics and education in the Bakumatsu and Meiji eras] Nihon kanbungaku kenkyū [日本漢文学研究 The journal of kanbun studies in Japan] 11 (2016): 147; and for an English discussion of the roles of the Chinese classics in the Meiji period and particularly the role of private academies (塾 juku) in providing instruction in them, see Margaret Mehl, Private Academies of Chinese Learning in Meiji Japan: The Decline and Transformation of the Kangaku Juku (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2003). For readers seeking a more detailed discussion than the one developed in this chapter, see Mizuno Hirota, “Tōkyō kaisei gakkō oyobi sōsōki no Tōkyō Daigaku ni okeru kangaku no ichi to tenkai” [東京開成学校及び草創期の東京大学における漢学の位置と展開 The situation and development of Chinese Classics Learning in Tokyo Kaisei School and the early years of Tokyo University] Tōkyō Daigaku bunshokan kiyō [東京大学文書館紀要 Journal of the University of Tokyo Archives] 36: 1–19. 14 Katō Hiroyuki, “Nani wo ka gakumon to iu” [ 何をか学問と云ふ What can be called scholarship?] Gakugei shirin [学芸志林] 16, no. 94 (Tokyo: Hōchisha, 1885). 15 In Engaging Japanese Philosophy: A Short History (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2018), Thomas Kasulis provides a rare example in English language research that does not stop here in describing Inoue but also includes a close examination of the concept of “the immediate reality of phenomena” (現象即実在 genshō soku jitsuzai) that defined Inoue’s philosophical position. Kasulis then points out that, while Nishida Kitarō has long been considered the founding father of Japanese philosophy, the influence on him of Inoue Tetsujirō (and Inoue Enryō) cannot be ignored (Kasulis, 445). Before Kasulis, Morishita Naoki had also analyzed this influence. See his “Inoue Tetsujirō no ‘dō=jō’ no keijijōgaku: kindai ‘Nihon tetsugaku’ no paradaimu” [井 上哲次郎の 「同＝情」の形而上学——近代「日本哲学」のパラダイム Tetsujirō Inoue’s metaphysics of ‘uni-pathy’: the paradigm of modern ‘Japanese philosophy’] Hamamatsu Ika Daigaku kiyō ippan kyōiku [浜松医科大学紀要　 一般教育 Reports of liberal arts, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine] 29 (2015): 1–43. 16 Inoue never completed his History of Oriental Philosophy, but while working on it he produced the following trilogy: Nihon yōmei gakuha no tetsugaku [日本陽明学派之哲学 The philosophy of the Japanese School of Wang Yangming] (Tokyo: Fuzanbō, 1900); Nihon kogakuha no tetsugaku [日本古学派之哲学 The philosophy of the Japanese School of Ancient Learning] (Tokyo: Fuzanbō, 1902); Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku [日本 朱子学派之哲学 The philosophy of the Japanese School of Master Zhu Xi] (Tokyo: Fuzanbō, 1906). In prewar Japan, that trilogy had enormous influence as reference materials on the history of Edo period philosophy. In Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū [日本政治思想史研究 Studies in the intellectual history of Tokugawa Japan] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1952), Maruyama Masao criticized the interpretations presented in the trilogy but nonetheless frequently referred to the trilogy as source material. In the “Author’s Introduction” to the English-language translation of his book, published in 1974, Maruyama expresses a negative view of Inoue’s writings on “national morality” but, with some reservations, he also offers an overall positive evaluation, recognizing Inoue’s pioneering role: His numerous books and articles on the National Morality, strident as they were in their exhortatory tone, had little scholarly value, though his three-volume study of Tokugawa Confucianism, in which he employed the categories of the Western philosophy that he had studied in Europe, remains a milestone in the modern study of Tokugawa Confucianism. It was the first

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work to break from the long tradition of scholarship confined to exegetical commentary on the Chinese classics and to treat the history of Japanese Confucianism as the history of “thought.” Even if one discounts his insistence on forcing every single Confucian scholar or Confucianinfluenced thinker into one or another of his three “schools,” and for the mechanical way in which he forced his interpretation into the categories of European philosophy, his work has still not outlived its usefulness. See Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (Princeton and Tokyo: co-published by Princeton University Press and University of Tokyo Press, 1974), xix–xx 17 For details, see Mizuno Hirota, “‘Takamine Sankichi ikō’ chu no Inoue Tetsujirō ‘tōyō tetsugaku shi’ kōgi,” [ 高嶺三吉遺稿」中の井上哲次郎「東洋哲学史」講義」Inoue Tetsujirō’s lectures on ‘The History of Oriental Philos「 ophy’ in ‘Takamine Sankichi’s posthumous manuscripts’] Tōkyō Daigaku bunshokan kiyō [東京大学文書館紀要 Journal of the University of Tokyo Archives] 36 (2018): 20–49; and Miura Setsuo “Inoue Tetsujirō kōjutsu tōyō tetsugaku shi no honkoku: Inoue Enryō no Tōkyō Daigaku bungakubu ninensei no chōkō nōto”「井上哲次郎口 述 東洋哲学史」の翻刻 : 井上円了の東京大学文学部二年生の聴講ノート Reprint of Inoue Tetsujiro’s oral history of oriental philosophy: Inoue Enryō’s second year faculty of literature lecture notes] Inoue enryō senta nenpō [井 上円了センター年報 Annual report of the Inoue Enryō Center] 27 (2019): 127–68. 18 Zhu Xi Learning is said to have been used systematically as ideology from the emergence of the Tokugawa regime in the early 17th century; this explanation, which originated with Maruyama Masao, is no longer persuasive (Maruyama himself has criticized this explanation in his later work). It is also asserted that the Shōheizaka Gakumonjo, the Tokugawa regime’s official training institution, prohibited the teaching of other forms of Confucianism. The so-called Kansei Prohibition on Heterodox Studies certainly increased the authority of Zhu Xi Learning in Japan. It did not, however, prohibit or suppress the teaching and study of other Confucian schools. That said, from Edo through early Meiji, when students of the Chinese Classics read, for example, the Analects or Mencius, the standard editions normally included Zhu Xi’s annotations. 19 In addition, we should note that Inoue’s lectures did not stop with a simple comparison of thinkers East and West. That was only a small part of the whole. While introducing thinkers from ancient times until the Ming and Qing Dynasties, he cited appropriate passages from ancient Chinese sources and systematically analyzed changes in Chinese philosophical concepts. When quoting from original texts, he drew on a wide range of Daoist and other as well as Confucian thinkers. 20 Comparing Zhu Xi and Kant might cause some eyebrows to be raised in Japan today, but efforts at such comparisons date back to Mou Zongsan and are widely carried out in Mainland China. It was probably Inoue Tetsujirō who first presented that comparative thinking to a wider world. He took part in the eighth International Congress of Orientalists held at Stockholm in 1889 and, in a presentation he made in German, he referred to Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason in comparing Zhu Xi and Kant’s views on the essential nature of the human being. See Inoue, “The Chinese Philosophers’ Dispute over Human Nature” (Die Streitfrage der chinesischen Philosophen über die menschliche Natur) in Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Orientalists: held in 1889 in Stockholm and Christiania (Actes du huitìeme Congrès international des orientalistes: tenu en 1889 à Stockholm et à Christiania) IV, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1892), 1–17. 21 For a summary of Shimada’s lectures, see Machi Senjurō, “Bakumatsu meiji ki ni okeru gakujutsu, kyōgaku no keisei to kangaku.” 22 Joachim Gentz has pointed out that Xie Wuliang’s Zhongguo zhexue shi [ 中國哲學史 History of Chinese philosophy], published in China in 1916, drew heavily on Takase Takejirō’s Shina tetsugaku shi [支那哲学史 History of Chinese Philosophy], published in Japan in 1910. Then, Alfred Forke’s Geschichte der alten chinesischen Philosophie [History of ancient Chinese philosophy], published in Germany in 1927, drew heavily on Xie Wuliang. When Takase Takejirō was a university student, his academic advisor was Inoue Tetsujirō. The idea that Hu Shi’s work marked the true start of Chinese philosophy in East Asia cannot be dismissed; but we cannot ignore the international intellectual environment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries before (and after) Hu Shi’s work was published. See Joachim Gentz “Es bleibt alles in der Familie: Eine Geschichte von Reisen in philosophen Kreisen” [It all stays in the family: a history of travels in philosophical circles], in Franziska Ehmcke and Martin Muller, eds. Reizen im Zwischenraum—Zur Interkulturalitat Von Kulturwissenschaft [Stimuli in space: on the interculturality of cultural studies] (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2012), 55–88.

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Chapter 5 Inoue Tetsujirō and Modern Yangming Learning in Japan Yamamura Shō Translated by Ruth and John McCreery

Introduction

This essay explores the relationship between Yangming Learning (陽明学 Yōmeigaku) and national morality (国民道徳 kokumin dōtoku) in Meiji-era modern Japan. The focus of the investigation is Inoue Tetsujirō, who is typically depicted as an individual who interpreted Yangming Learning through the lens of national morality. This essay demonstrates, however, that his thinking was similar to that of late-Edo Mito Learning (水戸学 Mitogaku) and then goes on to discuss what Yangming Learning meant to Inoue—how Inoue Tetsujirō understood Yangming Learning Research on Yangming Learning in late-Edo and Meiji-era Japan Let us begin by examining how Inoue invoked Yangming Learning to defend and preserve social order. For this purpose, let us turn to Yamashita Ryūji, the postwar pioneer of research on Yangming Learning in modern Japan. Yamashita Ryūji, while conducting research on Ming Dynasty intellectual history, drew attention to the influence of Yangming Learning in modern Japan. To Yamashita, the fundamental character of Yangming Learning was “opposed to official orthodoxy, democratic and politically in opposition,” but during the Meiji period, it split into two separate streams. According to Yamashita, one became the Yangming Learning that, following Inoue Tetsujirō, discarded its anti-authoritarian, unorthodox tendencies and embraced a nationalistic perspective. The other, epitomized by Uchimura Kanzō, one of the Meiji era’s most prominent Christians, saw Yangming Learning as embodying individualism. While the former was “ethical, nationalistic, and Japanocentric,” the latter was “religious, individualistic, and cosmopolitan.” 1 Ogyū Shigehiro, who made these distinctions his premise, noticed the significance of the former given the situation in which modern Japan found itself. Ogyū argues that Uchimura, like Inoue, spoke about the “two Js,” indicating that he respected both Jesus

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and Japan2—though, as we shall see, Inoue also strongly objected to the spread of Christianity in Japan. Okada Takehiko also pointed out that Yangming Learning was used during the modern period in Japan to defend and sustain the national polity (国体 kokutai).3 I think it is undeniable—from the way that Inoue discussed the relation between the Confucian virtues and national morality—that there was this aspect to his thought. The following are Inoue’s words. If one wants to get to the moral heart of the people of our nation, they must understand the spirit of the teachings that shaped our national character [国民の 心性 kokumin no shinsei], which is to say the philosophy of the Japanese Wang Yangming School must be useful for this purpose.4 Here Inoue says that ideas from Yangming Learning are helpful in understanding Japan’s national morality. Inoue’s goal in the study of Yangming Learning was to use it in creating a moral environment for the Japanese people. He believed that Yangming Learning could be used to mold the nation’s spirit. Neither Yamashita nor Ogyū, however, explain in concrete terms what they mean by “nationalistic” (国家主義的 kokkashugiteki). In this instance, how should we think of “nationalism”? Inoue Tetsujirō and nationalism To clarify what “nationalism” meant to Inoue, it is necessary to consider his understanding of the ideas embodied in the Imperial Rescript on Education (教育勅語 Kyōiku chokugo). When we speak of the Rescript, we are speaking of a text totally rooted in Ja­ pan’s inherent morality [日本固有の道徳 Nippon koyū no dōtoku]. Its path to virtue begins in the home with the duties of filial piety and brotherly love, then spreads out from village and township and eventually to loyalty and love of country. When virtue reaches its final and fullest form, it becomes, in a word, nationalism.5 It is clear from this statement that “Japan’s inherent morality” starts with Confucian virtues and culminates in loyalty and love of country (忠君愛国 chūkun aikoku), in other words, in nationalism. To Inoue, “nationalism” (kokkashugi) implied Japanese people’s support for the traditional emperor system. Inoue displayed the same attitude when he rejected Christianity and emphasized how Confucian virtues supported the emperor system. Here, I define Inoue’s “nationalism” as a way to distinguish between inside and outside a country (i.e., Japan) and to defend and maintain the social order with the Emperor at its center.6 To Inoue, Confucian morality could be used to support a national order with the Emperor at its center and he expected Yangming Learning to play that role. Thus, while emphasizing the role of Ōshio Heihachirō as a supporter of Yangming Learning, Inoue also criticized him for his role in plotting rebellion.7 In the essay mentioned above, he also clearly articulates his opposition to Christianity, citing its “disrespect.”

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Inoue Tetsujirō and Christianity In 1891, Inoue was a leading critic of Uchimura Kanzō’s refusal to bow formally during the ceremonial reading of the Imperial Rescript on Education. The ceremony to celebrate the proclamation of the Rescript, which included the Meiji Emperor’s signature, was held on January 9 at the First Higher School. Uchimura, a teacher, and other officials attended as a matter of course. But while other officials bowed deeply, Uchimura, who was third in line after the head of the school, offered only an informal bow. When his action was later revealed, it became a problem. Responding to this incident, Inoue stated in “Concerning the Relation of Religion to Education: A Conversation with Inoue Tetsujirō” (1892) that Christianity was contrary to the spirit of the Imperial Rescript on Education and labeled it “un-nationalistic” (無国家的 mukok­ kateki) He pointed to Christian believers’ breaking with the principle of “uniting the hearts and minds of the people” (民心の統合一致 minshin no tōgō icchi) as evidence of Christianity’s potential for destroying the nation.8 As indicated by the phrase “uniting the hearts and minds of the people,” the central point in Inoue’s criticism of Christianity was concern that it would bring confusion to the spiritual aspect of the nation’s new order. His criticism was less concerned with Christianity per se and more with the chaos it might cause if it became popular in Japan. His personal view of Christianity remained unchanged from what it was before the Uchimura incident. If the religion that has been used to unify our country and popular sentiment is led to defeat and extinction by adulteration with alien elements and alien religions, it may harm our unity. That is the most terrifying prospect.9 Inoue feared that Christianity had the potential to destroy the social order of Japan. Therefore, he resisted Christianity, which was spreading in Japan at the time he was writing. Inoue’s advocacy of Yangming Learning for the sake of Japanese morality was informed by that view of Christianity. His reason for strongly opposing the spread of Christianity in Japan was that it would lead to social disorder. The order that would be lost was that of the “original Japan” in which the Emperor was the center. He believed that the raison d’etre of morality is to maintain that “original Japan” and sought to determine whether Yangming Learning could function as part of this effort. Inoue Tetsujirō and national morality That Inoue saw Yangming Learning as having a role to play in understanding national morality does not, however, imply that his theory should be seen as created for the sake of making Yangming Learning suitable for post-Meiji Restoration society. His chief aim was to preserve and defend the Emperor system. Underlying that aim was his awareness of external threats and the intention to use Confucian ideas as a morality that would support internal stability. It was that intention that informed the construction of Inoue’s perspective on Yangming Learning. Inoue did not have a clear intention to promote Yangming Learning in Meiji society; his intention was only to protect the emperor system. To Inoue, national morality was a way to unify the Japanese people to resist the threat posed by other nations. After the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, while warning of the need to be careful in dealing with Russia, America and China, Inoue said, “Without

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national morality, Japan will end up as a colony.” 10 It was Inoue’s belief in the importance of national morality as a means to unify the Japanese people to resist external threats that informed his understanding of the use of Yangming Learning. Among Inoue’s writings about Yangming Learning, the following passage is particularly interesting. When we talk about the fundamentals of Yangming Learning, we must begin by noting that, while Yangming Learning was started by Yang Yangming in Ming Dynasty China, as soon as it was introduced to Japan it was immediately Japanified [日本化 Nipponka] and took on a Japanese character [日本的の性質 Nipponteki no seishitsu]. The fact that most clearly illustrates this process was its tendency to fuse with Shintō. To put it another way, the tendency was to make the national spirit [国家的精神 kokkateki seishin] its root. Signs of this tendency can be detected in Nakae Tōju, who, like Kumasawa Banzan, argued that to provide strong rational roots for Shintō, Japanese should open their hearts and study not only Confucianism but also Buddhism as well. Ōshio Heihachirō (pen name Chūsai) was another who deeply revered the Grand Shrine at Ise. When he rebelled, his flag bore the slogan “Amaterasu Imperial Grand Shrine.” Like Okunomiya Zōsai, who hoped to merge Shintō and the study of Wang Yang­ ming, we must pay attention to these cases. What cannot be doubted is the fact that Yangming Learning was Japanized.11 The distinctive feature of Yangming Learning’s Japanization was its unification with Shintō. Inoue described this process as “the tendency to make the national spirit the root.” The same can be said of his pointing to Ōshio’s relationship with the Ise Shrine in the early 19th century, in which we see Inoue’s consciousness of an incipient State Shintō. In other words, when envisioning the relationship between Yangming Learning and the nation, he saw Shintō as the medium through which the line connecting them ran.12 The essential point of Yangming Learning as interpreted by Inoue in the Meiji period was its connection with Shintō, a point whose connotations included a nationalistic perspective. That being the case, both Shintō and Yangming Learning are closely tied to the idea of protecting and preserving the national polity. Inoue’s thinking developed therefore from his awareness of how Yangming Learning could be used for this purpose. He did not analyze it from a religious perspective. Inoue deliberately employed Yangming Learning to provide the moral foundation of the Japanese people. His reason for opposing the spread of Christianity in Japan was his desire to protect and preserve a social order of which the Emperor was the center. In the next section we will clarify how Inoue’s understanding of Yangming Learning resembled that found in Mito Learning, a school of Japanese historical and Shintō studies that arose in the Mito Domain during the Edo period.

Inoue Tetsujirō’s Yangming Learning and Mito Learning Yangming Learning and the Meiji Restoration This section demonstrates that Inoue, who interpreted Yangming Learning in his own way, advocated a theory similar to that of Mito Learning. During Meiji, the view emerged that Chapter 5: Inoue Tetsujirō and Modern Yangming Learning in Japan

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it was precisely Yangming Learning revered by the Bakumatsu “men of spirit,” i.e., loyalist samurai, that guided the Meiji Restoration.13 Inoue himself wrote about the relationship between the Meiji Restoration and Yangming Learning.14 In Inoue’s case, his understanding of the influence of Yangming Learning on the imperial loyalist samurai was of course related to the national polity. Writing about Yangming Learning during the closing years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, he said, All manner of individuals were attracted by Yangming Learning. Individuals like Sakuma Shōzan, Hashimoto Sanai, Yokoi Shōnan, and Saigō Takamori were all members of the Yangming Learning lineage. There were, in addition, many others who, while not members, were influenced by Yangming Learning. Even putting them aside, we can still say that while the members of the lineage were few, many of them were highly influential. Ever since Nakae Tōju, this thing called Yangming Learning had been linked to the Japanese spirit [日本の精神 Nihon no seishin]. When examining the Yangming Learning lineage, we find all those men were in accordance with the Japanese spirit and connected it with the Yangming Learning. At the time of the Meiji Restoration, the “men of spirit,” the loyalist samurai, were all fixated on this matter called Japan. That is why they risked their lives for their cause.15 The phrase “Japanese spirit” expresses Inoue’s intent. To people who thought that Yangming Learning informed the context of the Meiji Restoration, it also seemed that Yangming Learning concepts would support the post-Restoration social system. Via the Restoration, links were created between Yangming Learning and Meiji-era society. That said, Inoue did not believe that Yangming Learning alone was responsible for the Restoration. Inoue said that the foundation of Japan’s national morality was laid by the feudal system during the Edo period. Thus, for example, “When we think about the loyalists who stood up before and after the Meiji Restoration, while many stood up, the most talented and influential of them were those imbued with the spirit of national morality.” 16 The individuals he was talking about were members of the Mito Learning and Yangming Learning Schools. The majority of loyalists were from the Mito, Ansai (闇斎), or Yangming Learning Schools. People from these schools could not simply do nothing in the face of a national crisis; they were committed. The Mito Learning School taught Zhu Xi Learning (朱子学 Shushigaku), i.e., orthodox Neo-Confucianism. It was a version of Zhu Xi Learning tied to the national polity. What is more, its primary focus was on the national polity and employing Shushigaku to help undergird national morality.17 To Inoue, both Mito Learning and Yangming Learning fostered the spirit of the loyalist samurai who rose up when the nation faced a life-or-death crisis. Inoue saw the ideas of both schools as sources of the national morality that respected the emperor system. He did not believe that the systematic thinking of orthodox Neo-Confucianism should be discarded. Rather, by being connected to the national polity via Mito Learning, Shushigaku was a way of thinking that would contribute to the present regime. Originally, the Confucianism that served the Tokugawa regime was orthodox Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism, whose function was to stabilize the social order. In Research on Practical Thinking at the Start of Early Modern Japan (近世初期実学思想の研究 Kinsei shoki jitsugaku­shi­ sō no kenkyū), Minamoto Ryōen writes that the concept of utility lay at the basis of practical 66

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thinking. Confucianism’s utility lay in its role in administration as described in the ancient Confucian classic The Great Learning (大学 Daigaku), “to govern the state and bring justice and virtue to the World.” 18 From the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate, orthodox NeoConfucianism was used to support the existing political order. However, during the late 19th-century regime change, when the shogunate was replaced by the new Meiji political order, attention shifted to Yangming Learning. Yangming Learning was regarded as having guided the Meiji Restoration. That is one of the reasons why it was understood as giving greater weight to practice (実践 jissen), to action, instead of thought per se. This emphasis on practice meant that it was no longer the premise for the continued existence of the shogunate. “Practice” no longer meant what it had meant in the Confucianism that supported that regime. This different form of Confucianism found its utility as a resource for transforming the existing political order. Inoue’s perspective on Yangming Learning belongs to this intellectual current. Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto (弘道館記 Kōdōkanki) Particularly noteworthy is Fujita Tōko’s Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto (弘道館記述 義 Kōdōkanki jutsugi), one of the most important documents associated with Mito Learning. The commentary was published in 1849, during the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Kōdōkan was an academy located in the Mito Domain. The Kōdōkan Manifesto described the spirit in which the academy was founded as a model for its students. It was, however, a very short document. Like the Imperial Rescript on Education, it required a commentary. In that commentary we find such slogans as “Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians,” “Shintō and Confucianism are identical,” and “Loyalty and filial piety are inseparable” that would soon permeate Bakumatsu-era society. Near the end of the manifesto we find the following words: “Learning and practice. Their effects cannot be differentiated.” 19 The commentary interprets this statement as follows: I humbly think that learning is the study of the Path. Questioning is questioning the Path. Practice is practicing the Path. Take a carpenter, for example. You first learn how to use rulers and compasses and lastly get on to building a building. Hashikawa Bunzō interprets this part as follows: “Learning” is “learning the Path,” “questioning” is “questioning the Path,” and “practice” is “putting that Path into practice.” 20 Tōko goes on to explain as follows: Learning and practice entail many difficulties. There are many reasons why it is difficult to unite learning and practice. But basically, there are four major incor­ rect behaviors: to be careless in one’s personal conduct, to fail to put the learning into practice, to cling to conventional wisdom, to go along with authority.21 He goes on to explain that “to be careless in one’s personal conduct” 22 is a scholar’s failing to behave properly or, in the worst case, without virtue, and engage in unclean conduct. He explains “to fail to put into practice” as being too picky about small details, indulgence in refined and fashionable things, failing to show pity to the people.23 According to Tōko’s

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analysis, it was failure to unify learning and practice that accounted for not taking seriously the role of learning in governance. How they reasoned: Inoue Tetsujirō versus Mito Learning On Inoue’s thinking, Yangming Learning gave greater weight to action. That interpretation is advanced through discussion of one of Yangming Learning’s core concepts: unity of knowledge and action (知行合一 chikō gōitsu): Zhu Xi told us to know first and act later. Wang Yangming saw no first-thenlater difference between knowledge and action. Instead, he asserted that knowing and acting are one. Thus, Zhu Xi emphasized theory while Yangming respected practice. That is how they differ. From this we see that it is difficult to say with confidence of Zhu Xi Learning and Yangming Learning that one is better than the other. That said, while Zhu Xi Learning has produced many able and broadly knowledgeable gentlemen, their flaw has been being too obstinate, too rigid, when it comes to action. In contrast, while Yangming Learning cannot escape the criticism that it is shallow, as scholarship it goes straight to the point. When it comes to hitting the bull’s eye, it is certainly superior to Zhu Xi Learning.24 To Inoue, “Harmony of knowledge and action” implied that Yangming Learning favored action. To Inoue, knowledge and action were principle and practice, and Yangming Learning put greater weight on practice. His understanding was that Yangming Learning puts emphasis on applying acquired knowledge to practice, or “action.” In his argument for the importance of Yangming Learning’s emphasis on practice to the Meiji Restoration we also see similarities with Bakumatsu-era Mito Learning. Shortly after the passage cited above, Inoue goes on to write, We should note that those who took action, such as Kumazawa Banzan, Ōshio Chūsai, Sakuma Shōzan, Yoshida Shōin, or Saigō Takamori, as well as many others, were connected, if sometimes only loosely, with the school of Wang Yang­ ming. There were many prominent people among those who had contact with the Wang Yangming school. That is a remarkable fact. We cannot ignore these obvious facts. There can be no doubt that these figures were molded by Yangming Learning.25 In Inoue’s thinking, the “action” emphasized by Yangming Learning was embodied in the “men of spirit,” the loyalist samurai who contributed to the Meiji Restoration. Yangming Learning’s concept of the harmony of knowledge and action contributed to the success of the Meiji Restoration through its emphasis on practice. As explained above, the “action” in the concept of harmony of knowledge and action stressed the importance of putting knowledge into practice. That is how Yangming Learning became one of the spiritual pillars of the Restoration.

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Some contemporary scholars now claim that there is a difference between “unity of knowing and acting” and “emphasizing practice” (実践強調 jissen kyōchō).26 The argument that in Yangming Learning unity of knowing and acting means that knowledge must be put into practice—a doctrine that emphasizes practice—is based on a misunderstanding current during the Meiji era. The original meaning of “unity of knowing and acting” in Yangming Learning draws attention to the heart (心 in Chinese, Xin) required to unite knowledge and action, not to action per se.27 Inoue Tetsujirō distinguishes Yangming Learning from Mito Learning Following the death of Wang Yangming, Yangming Learning split into three schools. Two, the “Correct and Admonish School” (修証 Shūshō) and the “Return to Stillness School” (帰 寂派 Kijakuha) emphasized techniques for self-cultivation. One stressed sincere imitation as essential for achieving an intuitive grasp of right and wrong. The other emphasized the “stillness” found in Zen. During the Bakumatsu period, these two schools were esteemed by Yangming Learning scholars.28 Scholars of both schools taught Yangming Learning’s focus on the inward self. Among those who revered Yangming Learning during the Bakumatsu period, some intended to change society. Takehiko Okada writes of these scholars who espoused Yangming Learning at that time: “Because this was a time when Japan faced numerous challenges and difficulties, both domestically and externally, some took part in violent social and political movements.” Also, “Embracing Yangming Learning (then called 心学 Shingaku) with one’s deep awareness at its root is fundamental to preserving and protecting the disciplinary framework of nation and society.” 29 A truly safe and secure society and nation can only be achieved by embracing it. In other words, Yangming Learning explained the importance of inward-turning reflection as, during Bakumatsu, the perceived need for active participation in society grew stronger. Inoue’s understanding of Yangming Learning closely resembles Bakumatsu period Mito Learning theory. Instead of saying that Inoue was influenced by Mito Learning, however we could see him as inheriting the changes that transformed Yangming Learning during the Bakumatsu period. However, Inoue himself clearly distinguished between Yangming Learning and Mito Learning. The following text is from his Philosophy of the Japanese School of Yangming Learn­ ing (日本陽明学派の哲学 Nihon Yōmeigakuha no Tetsugaku): Fujita Yūkoku and his son Tōko both cherished the memory of Banzan and fol­ lowed his example in numerous ways. In his The Story of Kumazawa Hakkei [Kumazawa Hakkeiden], Yūkoku praised him. Tōko, commenting on Yokoi Shōnan, said, “He was clever in debate, close in his reasoning. In erudition he resembled Kumazawa Banzan and Yuasa Jōzan and despised the poor logic of orthodox Neo-Confucianism. He was only concerned with the facts.” The schol­ arship of the Fujitas, father and son, should be understandable from that quota­ tion but it would be rash to point to them as examples of Yangming Learning. It would be more appropriate to see them as exemplars of Mito Learning.30

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Here we see Inoue suggesting that Fujita Yūkoku and his son Fujita Tōko admired Kumazawa Banzan and, thus, kept their distance from orthodox Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism. Still, Inoue insists that they (the father and son) espoused Mito Learning and denies that they espoused Yangming Learning. In contrast, Inoue’s belief that Yangming Learning could be useful in interpreting national morality was not the result of his equating Mito Learning with Yangming Learning. He only saw Yangming Learning as similar to Mito Learning in that both contributed to ideas guiding the Meiji Restoration. Because the thinking of both concerned the national polity, both influenced Meiji reforms. I have already mentioned that Inoue, using Kumazawa Banzan and Ōshio as examples, argued that a Japanified Yangming Learning was consistent with Shintō. Inoue explained that Japanified Yangming Learning was rooted in “National Spirit.” In the passages quoted above, Inoue says that Saigō and other Restoration samurai who studied Yangming Learning were all filled with the “Japanese Spirit.” Inoue also had the following to say: The Yangming Learning School has at least two contrary tendencies. One is the introspective direction, the other the achievement-oriented direction. Those who emphasize introspection adopt the attitude of the Neo-Confucianists who stress self-reflection and leading an impeccable private life or, alternatively sink into elegant simplicity like Zen priests. In contrast, those who emphasize achievement become active as politicians, businessmen, or social reformers. Even if they do not assert utilitarianism, they practice it. The Yangming Learning School has these different orientations. The Zhu Xi Neo-Confucians display less variation. Neither is very different from other Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianists such as Takeuchi Shikibu, Yamagata Daini, and Fujita Tōko, who did not act within the confines of the Zhu Xi Neo-Confucian spirit. Instead, they were motivated by Shintō or the concept of the national polity.31 Inoue compares the diversity in the Yangming Learning school with the orthodox Zhuxi Neo-Confucians, among whom he saw little variation. He then returns to the “Shintō or national polity perspective” (神道若くは国体の観念 Shintō moshiku ha kokutai no kannen) that motivated the actions of Fujita Tōko and others. Inoue does not clearly state the similarities between Mito Learning and Yangming Learning. But the closer we examine Inoue’s theory, the more we find that both are, via their connections with Shintō, elements in the spiritual context of leading actors in the Meiji Restoration. The Bushidō School Mito Learning emphasis on practice resembles the stress on practice found in Meiji Yangming Learning. Inoue did not directly connect the two but saw a similarity in the guidance they provided for the Meiji Restoration. Inoue thought that the theories by such later Mitogaku-thinkers as Aizawa Seishisai and Fujita Tōko had close ties with the Restoration reforms. In a similar way, he interprets Yangming Learning as motivating the loyalist samurai and, thus, as being a factor in the background to the Meiji Restoration. Their similarity lay in their thinking related to the concepts of national polity and Shintō, which later became important in Meiji society.

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Inoue identified two influences in the thinking of those who were active during the Bakumatsu era and the Meiji Restoration. One was Mito Learning. The other was what Inoue labeled the Bushidō School. He traced its lineage from Yamaga Sokō to Yoshida Shōin.32 He noted a striking resemblance between the teachings of the Bushidō School and Yangming Learning. This school very much resembles the Yangming Learning School. Yoshida Shōin himself was amazed by this resemblance and says so in his Yūshitsu Bunkō [幽 室文稿]. While he was not a member of the Yangming School, when he read Yangming, he found what he read consistent with his own thoughts. There is little wonder why. Yangming Learning taught, after all, the unity of knowledge and action. It made boldly taking action its core principle. That is why, he said, it resembles his own thinking.33 This statement is from a talk delivered by Inoue in 1908 at the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Shōin’s death. Inoue quoted Shōin’s own words and explained the similarities between Yangming Learning and the thinking of scholars like Shōin, who contributed to the Restoration. He drew a distinction between Yangming Learning and Mito Learning which drew on conventional Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism. At the same time, he recognized that both were elements in the spiritual context of the Restoration’s loyalist samurai and stressed that both influenced the thinking that guided restoration and reform. He positioned Mito Learning and Yangming Learning side by side in their significance for post-Restoration social order. In other words, to Inoue, the thinking that motivated the Meiji Restoration and constructed Meiji social order had two components: Mito Learning and Yangming Learning. He had the following to say about Yamaga Sokō and Yoshida Shōin’s scholarship. From beginning to end they display the Yamato spirit. In their scholarship they did not adhere rigidly to a single school. They studied both Yangming Learning and Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism, but their main point was always national mo­ rality. Of that we can be certain.34 As Inoue conceived of the thinking that guided the Restoration, whether Yangming Learning or Mito Learning, it was in relation to national morality that they made contributions to the national polity. He believed that the ideas that contributed to reforming the old system could later be used to preserve and protect the new social order. The things Inoue Tetsujirō thought important The Meiji Restoration experience transformed Yangming Learning. To the Meiji scholar Okakura Tenshin, who stressed this school’s connection with the Meiji Restoration, Yangming Learning had returned Confucianism to its proper domains, practice and morality. Writing at the turn of the 20th century, he said that Yangming Learning “teaches us how to behave.” 35 During the Meiji period, interpretations of Yangming Learning drew attention to its theory of practice, and its role in the success of the Meiji Restoration.36

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Inoue was influenced by this discussion. He recognized that the contribution of Yangming Learning to the success of the Meiji Restoration lay in “unity of knowledge and action,” a conceptual framework for acting boldly. Inoue’s primary aim was, however, the spiritual unity of the Japanese people. He saw Yangming Learning as useful for this purpose. Seeing it as a means for achieving unity, Inoue emphasized national morality. He stressed the utility of Confucian virtues for unifying the nation. In this respect, what Inoue emphasizes resembles what the Mito Learning scholars had said. Thus, while perhaps not intending to, Inoue made Mito Learning once again a topic for scholarly concern. Inoue’s discussion in the 1905 Japanese Confucian School Philosophies included Mito Learning sources.37 His The Philosophy of the Japanese Wang Yangming School from 1900 also mentions Mito Learning. Other texts that suggest connections with Mito Learning include Aizawa Seishisai’s 1850 book Kyūmon’s Models (及門遺範 Kyūmon ihan). This book, which summarized the teachings of Fujita Yūkoku, Fujita Tōko’s father, was included in Inoue’s Bushidō Collection (武士道叢書 Bushidō sōsho) (Hakubunkan, 1909). Compiled by Inoue and Arima Sukemasa, the Bushidō Collection was a three-volume set of famous texts related to the Way of the Warrior accompanied by brief biographies of the authors. The first volume contained works by Nakae Tōju and Kumazawa Banzan. The last volume contained Kyūmon’s Models, along with Fujita Tōko’s Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto and the Kaiten Shi­ shi, an anthology of Chinese poems. In this work, we find the following description of what Fujita Yūkoku taught his students: Advantages and disadvantages of ancient and modern wise sayings, outstand­ ing virtues, systems of etiquette and music, politics and religion, punishments, tactics for winning and losing, the proper relations of lord and vassal, father and son, the state and transformations of the world, relations between China and barbarians—all were discussed, and each item noted. After discussing all these, I became indignant; I say this to inform and enlighten. Giving lectures on that teaching, I try to clarify its cause, combining “virtuous action” and “practice” to express the great significance of practice, and examples of virtuous action.38 The topics being discussed combine “virtuous action” with practice. Inoue comments concerning Yangming Learning that virtuous action was the one and only subject.39 As previously mentioned, the term “practice” appears in the Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto in the statement that the true scholarship and service cannot be separated from their effects. We should note the correspondence between the phrase “scholarship and service” (学問事業 gakumon jigyō) used here and the phrase “virtuous action and service” (徳 行事業 tokkō jigyō) which appears in Aizawa Seishisai’s Kyūmon’s Models. In both cases the meaning is that the content of study is realized in practice. The Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto states that neglecting personal conduct is one of the reasons why “scholarship” and “practice” do not unite. One reason may be that both concern personal practice, i.e., acting on one’s own. The Bushidō Collection edited by Inoue includes both the Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto and Kyūmon’s Models. If we consider the fact that Inoue regarded “unity of knowledge and action” as emphasizing practice, we can see a common thread in the Mito Learning emphasis on practice and Inoue’s understanding of Yangming Learning.

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Conclusion In the first part of this essay we discussed how Inoue promoted Yangming Learning for the sake of national morality. In the second part, we provided evidence that in his reasoning there were similarities between Yangming Learning and Mito Learning. Inoue chose to use Yangming Learning politically to counter the spread of Christianity, intending to maintain the established order inside Japan. Like Aizawa Seishisai, he spoke of Christianity in a way that conveyed a sense of crisis. As Aizawa put it: Loyalty and filial piety are one. If the precepts and customs are correct, trans­ formation occurs without speaking, ritual becomes government and government becomes religion. Religion and government are not separable. For this reason, the people know only how to revere the ancestral Sun Goddess and make offer­ ings to her descendants. They stay fixed in one place and ignore alien things. This is what is meant by unifying the people’s will [民志一にして minshi ichi ni shite] and harmonizing Heaven and Humanity.40 Adoption of demonic religions misleads the people. If the people’s hearts are united [民心皆一なれば minshin minaichi nareba] they can do battle with this threat.41 In these passages we see the phrases, “if the people’s will is undivided,” “if the people’s hearts are one.” In their demands for a fixed order in which the nation’s people are one in spirit, the Mitogaku scholars’ and Inoue’s reasoning are very similar.42 This awareness of the need to unify the people’s hearts and minds arose from a shared perception of external threat. It took shape in plans to unify Japan internally. In this respect, Inoue was heir to the issue raised by Aizawa Seishisai. Aizawa saw danger in the possibility that Christianity would disrupt Japan’s social order. Inoue’s criticism of Christianity reflected the fear that Christianity would confuse the people’s hearts. He had not freed himself from the Bakumatsu perception of the problem. Inoue’s views of both Confucianism and Christianity reflected the importance of unifying the people’s hearts in support of the Imperial system. They remained connected to unease at a shaky social order that had continued since Bakumatsu. Inoue’s goal was to preserve Japan’s social order. From resistance to Christianity, his purpose turned to unifying the Japanese people’s spirit. His interest in Yangming Learning was based on its usefulness for that purpose. Aizawa had argued the need to unite the Japanese spiritually to resist foreign powers. Inoue used the same argument. During the Bakumatsu period, no one argued that Yangming Learning would be a useful unifying force. But in the Meiji period Inoue used it to construct national morality. In this sense, Yangming Learning became a device for the spiritual unification of the Japanese people. What drove this transformation was the profound thought that having contributed to the Restoration, Yangming Learning would be involved in the construction of the Meiji-period social system. Inoue’s awareness of the world outside Japan, which has been seen as driving his advocacy for a nationalism characteristic of modernity, was similar to that found in Mito Learning philosophy. Inoue emphasized the relationship of Yangming Learning to national morality. In this respect, his perspective on Yangming Learning carried on the awareness of external

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threat found in Mito Learning before and during the Bakumatsu period, but used it as the foundation on which to build a modern national morality. To Inoue, because both Mito Learning and Yangming Learning were linked to the Shintō and national polity ideals that guided the Restoration, they were necessarily also linked to national morality. Yangming Learning was a bridge connecting Mito Learning with national morality. Inoue’s primary purpose was, however, to construct a national morality. For this purpose he saw both Yangming Learning and Mito Learning as useful. Note: An earlier version of this article entitled, “Inoue Tetsujirō and Takase Takejirō’s Yangming Learning—Mito Learning and Ōshio Heihachirō in Yangming Learning in Modern Japan” [井上哲次郎と高瀬武次郎の陽明学——近代日本の陽明学における水戸学と大塩平八郎 Inoue Tetsujirō to Takase Takejirō no Yōmeigaku—Kindai Nihon no Yōmeigaku ni okeru Mitogaku to Ōshio Heihachirō] was published in Nihon kenkyū, no. 56 (International Research Center for Japanese Studies, October 2017). This version has been substantially revised.

Notes

Yamashita Ryūji, “Meiji shisōshi kenkyū wa dono yō ni susumerete kita” [明代思想史研究はどのように進め How has research on Meiji intellectual history been advanced?], Nagoya Daigaku bungakubu kenkyūronshū 36 tetsugaku [名古屋大学文学部研究論集 哲学 The journal of the faculty of literature, Nagoya University: philosophy] 36, no. 12 (1994): 59–92. 2 Ogyū Shigehiro, Kindai Ajia Yōmeigaku [ 近代・アジア・陽明学 Modern Asia and Yangming Learning] (Tokyo: Perikansha, 2008), 435. 3 Okada Takehiko, “Nihonjin to Yōmeigaku” [ 日本人と陽明学 Japanese and Yangming Learning], in Okada Takehiko, ed., Yōmeigaku no sekai [陽明学の世界 The world of Yangming Learning] (Tokyo: Meitoku Shuppan, 1986), 430–56. 4 Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku [ 日本陽明学派之哲学 The philosophy of the Japanese Wang Yangming School] (Tokyo: Fuzanbō, 1900), 2–3. 5 Inoue Tetsujirō “Shūkyō to kyōiku no kankei ni tsuite Inoue Tetsujirō shi no danwa” [ 宗教と教育との関係に 就て井上哲次郎氏の談話 Inoue Tetsujirō talks about the relation between religion and education], in Seki Kōsaku, ed., Inoue hakushi to Kirisutokyōto [井上博士と基督教徒 Dr. Inoue and Christianity] (Tokyo: Tetsugaku Shoin, 1893), 1–8. 6 In Mitani’s description of the Meiji Restoration, he defines “nationalism” as follows: “I define nationalism as stasism which permeates the common people and not just the elite. By “stasism” I mean the habit of mind that draws a distinction between inside and outside, imposes uniformity on those inside, and excludes or subjugates the others who are not us, treating the nation as a unit, including what is and what is hoped for.” (Mitani Hiroshi, Meiji Ishin wo kangaeru [明治維新を考える Think about the Meiji Restoration] (Tokyo: Iwa­na­ mi Shoten (Iwanami Gendai Bunko, 2012), 35.) In a separate publication he writes that “nationalism” written in katakana (ナショナリズム) has a positive connotation in contemporary Japan, contrary to “nationalism” written in kanji (国家主義). He goes on to say, “nationalism” written in kanji conveys a clearer meaning. Whether used in a positive or negative sense, it conveys a naked pursuit of profit in dealing with other nations, asserts superiority to individuals and groups both inside and outside the country, or in other words, aims to benefit the nation and assert its proper position—of that there can be no mistake. (Mitani Hiroshi, Meiji Isshin to nashonarizumu—Bakumatsu no aikō to seiji hendō [明治維新とナショナリズム――幕末の外交と政治変動 The Meiji Restoration and nationalism—Bakumatsu foreign relations and political change] (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1997), 6–7.) To Mitani, nationalism asserts the superiority of one’s own nation to others and sees exploiting them in a positive light. Mitani does not, however, establish a fundamental difference between nationalism as expressed in katakana and in kanji. Both differentiate “outside” from “inside” and the concept of eliminating the other “permeates the common people.” 1

られてきたか

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7 “As a result of Yangming-ism, there was a tendency to an egalitarianism that treats everyone impartially. Like Tōju, they clearly held the concept of egalitarianism. Consequently, Chūsai’s rebellion was not in itself consistent with socialism.” Inoue, Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku, 408. 8 Inoue Tetsujirō, “Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu ni kansuru yoron” [ 教育と宗教の衝突に関する余論 Remarks concerning the conflict between education and religion], Oriental Arts and Sciences Magazine, 139 (1893): 199–207. 9 Inoue Tetsujirō, “Inoue Tetsujirō-shi no shūkyō ron” [ 井上哲次郎氏の宗教論 Inoue Tetsujirō on religion], Kokkyō (国教 State religion) 2 (1890): 41–42. 10 Inoue Tetsujirō, Kyōiku to shūyō [ 教育と修養 Education and Self-Cultivation] (Tokyo: Kōdōkan, 1910), 53. 11 Inoue, Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku, 625–26. 12 See also Yamamura Shō, “‘Shūkyō’ toshite no kindai Nihon no Yōmeigaku” [ 「宗教」としての近代日本の陽明学 Yangming Learning as “religion” in modern Japan] in ‘Shinshin/shinshin’ to kankyō no tetsugaku—Higashiajia no dentōshisō wo baikai ni kangaeru ‘[心身／身心」と環境の哲学―東アジアの伝統思想を媒介に考える Heart-body/ body-heart’ and the philosophy of the environment—considering East Asian traditional thought as media] ed. Itō Takayuki (Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 2016), 651–66. 13 See Uchimura Kanzō (Suzuki Norihisa, trans.), Daihyōteki Nihonjin [ 代表的日本人 Representative men of Japan] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995), 19; and Okakura Tenshin (Irokawa Daikichi, ed.), Nihon no meicho 39 Okakura Tenshin [日本の名著39　岡倉天心 Great books of Japan 39: Okakura Tenshin] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1970), 218–25. 14 See Inoue, Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku, Chapter 9, “Saigō Nanshū,” and Chapter 10, “Yoshida Shōin and Takasugi Tōgyō.” 15 Inoue, Kyōiku to shūyō, 52–53. 16 Inoue, Kyōiku to shūyō, 50. 17 Inoue, Kyōiku to shūyō, 51. 18 Minamoto Ryōen, Kinsei shoki jitsugaku shisō no kenkyū [ 近世初期実学思想の研究 Research on practical thinking at the start of early modern Japan] (Kyoto: Sōbunsha, 2004), 63. 19 Fujita Tōko, (translated and annotated by Tsukamoto Katsuyoshi), Kōdōkanki jutsugi [ 弘道館記述義 Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1940), 6. 20 Fujita, Kōdōkanki jutsugi, 181. 21 Fujita Tōko, (Hashikawa Bunzō, ed.), Nihon no meicho 29 Fujita Tōko [ 日本の名著29 藤田東湖 Great Books of Japan 29: Fujita Tōko] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1974), 282–83. 22 Fujita, Kōdōkanki jutsugi, 183. 23 Fujita, Kōdōkanki jutsugi, 183. 24 Inoue, Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku, 4. 25 Inoue, Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku, 5. 26 Yoshida Kōhei, Nihon ni okeru Yōmeigaku [ 日本における陽明学 Yangming Learning in Japan] (Tokyo: Perikansha, 1999), 15. 27 According to Araki Kengo, while “harmony of knowledge and action” is often said to plainly express the practical character of Yangming Learning, Zhu Xi Learning (orthodox Neo-Confucianism) also possessed a fully practical nature. This kind of ambiguous statement cannot be used to assert priority to one or the other. See Araki Kengo, Sekai no meicho zoku 4 Shushi, Ō Yōmei [世界の名著 続４ 朱子 王陽明 World Masterpieces, cont., 4 Shushi, Ō Yōmei] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1974), 43. The fundamental meaning of “harmony of knowledge and action” is to develop the original mind from start to finish, so as to fully realize oneself. While this was the original understanding, later thought focused only on the characters for knowledge and action (知行), leaving the original mind (本心 honshin) obscured. Taking the original mind (the fundamental form of the heart-mind) too lightly, commentators failed to fully understand Wang Yangming’s meaning. Shimada Kenji has this to say about “harmony of knowledge and action”:

To sum up, according to Yangming, the natural law found in the heart-mind is realized on every occasion, in every phenomenon. In other words, to achieve perfect knowledge is not to polish learning; it is to act properly, in good conscience. That is what Yangming Learning calls “harmony of knowledge and practice.” The Great Learning teaches that the true unity of knowledge and action is like enjoying sensual pleasures and disliking bad smells. It may seem to be saying that if we see something beautiful it belongs in the category “knowledge.” When

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we like something beautiful, it belongs in the category “like it.” In reality, however, when we see that beautiful something, we already like it. Shimada Kenji, Shushigaku to Yōmeigaku [朱子学と陽明学 Zhu Xi Learning and Yangming Learning] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1967), 130. 28 Okada Takehiko, Okada Takehiko zenshū 21, Edoki no Jugaku [ 岡田武彦全集21 江戸期の儒学 Okada Takehiko collected works, Vol. 21, Edo period Confucianism] (Tokyo: Meitoku Shuppansha, 2010), 46. 29 Okada, Yōmeigaku no sekai, 435. 30 Inoue, Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku, 624–25. 31 Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon Shushigakuha no tetsugaku [ 日本朱子学派之哲学 The philosophies of Zhu Xi Schools in Japan] (Tokyo: Fuzanbō, 1905), 598–99. 32 Inoue, Kyōiku to shūyō, 435. 33 Inoue, Kyōiku to shūyō, 440. 34 Inoue, Kyōiku to shūyō, 65. 35 Irokawa, Nihon no meicho 39 Okakura Tenshin, 220–22. 36 Irokawa, Nihon no meicho 39 Okakura Tenshin, 218. 37 Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon Shushigakuha no tetsugaku, 590–92, refers to Fujita Yūkoku and Tōko, and to Tōko’s Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto and explains the difference between Early Mito Learning centered on the compilation of the Great History of Japan (Dai Nihonshi) and Later Mito Learning related to national morality. 38 Inoue Tetsujirō and Arima Sukemasa, Bushidō sōsho [ 武士道叢書 Bushidō collection] (Tokyo: Hakubun­ kan, 1909), 275. In transcribing the text into Japanese, the author referred to Aizawa Seishisai’s kyūmon ihan (及門遺範 Kyūmon’s models), edited and annotated by Takagi Narisuke and included in Nihongaku sōsho (日 本学叢書 Library of Japan studies, Vol. 8), edited and published by Yūzankaku, 1940. 39 Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku, 3. 40 Aizawa Seishisai, (Tsukamoto Katsuyoshi, ed.), Shinron—tekiihen [ 新論・迪彝篇 New debates and norms] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1931), 21–23. 41 Aizawa, Shinron—tekiihen, 71. 42 Nakamura Shunsaku contrasts Later Mito Learning with the Early Mito Learning project, the Dai Nihon­ shi (大日本史 Great history of Japan). He points out their frequent use of the phrases “unify the people’s heart” and “unify the people’s intentions,” with their connections to the ways in which the nation-state and nation were conceived (Nakamura Shunsaku, Edo Jukyō to kindai no chi [江戸儒教と近代の知 Edo Confucianism and modern knowledge] (Tokyo: Perikansha Publishing, 2002), 176.

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Chapter 6 Kokumin Dōtoku for Women: Shimoda Utako in the Taishō Era Masako N. Racel

Introduction On 1 September 1923, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake shook the Kanto region of Japan. The city of Tokyo and surrounding areas were engulfed in flames, as it happened a few minutes before noon when many people were cooking. The fires inflicted an unprecedented level of destruction. Emperor Taishō was too sick to handle affairs of the state, but his regent, Crown Prince Hirohito, immediately visited disaster-struck areas and offered material and monetary assistance to the survivors. By the end of the month, Empress Teimei, coming out of the secure Imperial villa of Nikkō, also started to visit the victims.1 Offers of support and assistance came both domestically and internationally. One of the organizations involved in a relief effort was the Patriotic Women’s Association (愛国婦人会 Aikoku fujinkai), headed by Shimoda Utako. Long known as a prominent leader of female education, Shimoda, then in her late 60s, wrote to the members of the Association a few months after the quake: What the thousands of the people came across were our Imperial family’s benevolent blessings; [the Imperial family] that had been the source of humanitarianism for three thousand years. Today, I hear that the Empress will be visiting Yokohama, the area that had been most severely devastated. I am deeply moved with awe that Her Majesty, with her great motherly love, extends her care to the people, her babies. I hope that we, as fellow women, though insignificant like little stars by the full moon, would quietly learn from her.2 The sentiments expressed here were in line with “national morality” (国民道徳 kokumin dōtoku), an ideology expounded in the late Meiji era which continued to be influential throughout the Taishō era. Chiefly developed by Inoue Tetsujirō, a philosopher at Tokyo Imperial University, national morality called for a return to the virtues deeply rooted in Japanese history and tradition as in Shintō and Confucianism. In the face of what they perceived to be the “dangerous” Western ideas, namely individualism, communism and feminism,

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influencing the younger generations, the older nationalists such as Shimoda and Inoue (both in their 50s in the late Meiji era), saw the need to reinvigorate the sense of national identity and loyalty to the state. Central to “national morality” was the unity of loyalty and filial piety (忠孝一本 chūko ippon), two virtues that could potentially create conflicting allegiances. Combining the “unbroken line” of divine Emperors from Shintō mythology and the Confucian relational schema, it was said that two virtues were in perfect harmony because in Japan, a “family nation,” the Imperial family functioned as the “parents” of the people, “the children.” 3 What Shimoda Utako did in the Taishō era was to expand the discourse of national morality and make it suitable for Japanese women. In Shimoda’s presentations, the Imperial family historically embodied the Confucian ideal of benevolent rulers/parents. In acknowledgment of that benevolence, Shimoda expected the Japanese people to be faithful to the Imperial family, and also to emulate examples set by them. For Shimoda Utako, Japanese women, as members of this “family nation” were to play crucial roles. A firm believer of what may be identified as the “unity of knowledge and action” (知行合一 chikō gōitsu) of Yangming Learning, Shimoda advocated women not only to embrace the virtue of loyalty but also to act in accordance with it.4

Shimoda in her younger years: Confucianism, loyalty and ryōsai kenbo Despite kokumin dōtoku’s strongly conservative and Confucian undertones, Shimoda Utako would not have regarded herself as a “conservative” or “Confucianist.” Instead, she identified herself as an advocate of combining different elements from various traditions (折衷派 setchūha) As she explained in her book, Cultivation of Women’s Common Sense (婦人常識の養 成 Fujin jōshiki no yōsei, 1910): … the combination theory holds that the Japanese nation has historically developed its own pure character, but at the same time, as citizens of a changing world who breathe the new air, recognizes the need for change. It seeks to elevate Japanese woman’s character and knowledge by taking the most beautiful and most important [aspects] from both East and West of old and new times, and not rushing into new [ways] or blindly adhering to old [customs]. There is no question that this is a much more reasonable and solid theory than the ones advocated by radicals who ignore Japan’s national polity [国体 kokutai] or those theories advocated by conservatives who ignore the changing tide of the world.5 As she lived from 1854 to 1936, during which time Japan went through remarkable transitions from the era of the “traditional” samurai warriors (up to 1868) to that of the “modern” regime centered around the Emperors (Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa), Shimoda was flexible enough to recognize the need to adjust to the changing reality of the world. She remained a setchūha thinker throughout her life, though as she grew older she adopted a nostalgic traditionalism which contrasted with the progressivism of her younger years. Still, she adopted elements from many different traditions she found useful or inspirational as long as they fit her overall vision of strengthening Japan. Her patriotism as well as her flexible approach may be traced back to her childhood years in the late years of the Tokugawa era.

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Shimoda Utako was born as Hirao Seki in 1854 to a family of Confucian scholars in Iwamura-han (岩村藩 today’s Gifu prefecture). The area was under the control of the Matsudaira family, a relation to the Tokugawa Shogun, but Shimoda spent her youth surrounded by loyalists to the Emperor rather than to the Shogun. The first-born child of a scholarly family, she had access to her family library and grew up reading both in Japanese and Chinese, which included standard Confucian texts such as the Four Books and Five Classics. Although her family belonged to the orthodox Zhu Xi Learning School (approved by the Tokugawa), they appeared to have incorporated some elements from the unorthodox Wang Yangming Learning as indicated by the following episode. When she was eight years old, she read the Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars (二十四孝 Nijūshikō) and she decided to emulate Wumeng (呉 猛), a boy who slept naked by his parents so that mosquitos would bite him rather than his parents. Years later, Shimoda recalled her young self thinking: I am the same age as Wumeng, but I have not been able to put [good conduct] into actual practice even though I have read and heard exemplary stories. My grandmother and parents always said that those who see and hear stories about good conduct but cannot put in practice are worse than those who do not know anything about good conduct…. What Wumeng had done is doable for me.6 Her parents were surprised to find her sleeping without clothes nearby them and gently admonished her for not considering the difference between her circumstance and that of Wumeng, but this episode illustrates not only her early exposure to Confucianism but also her family’s unorthodox leaning. Her family’s words are indicative of the concept of “the unity of knowledge and action” of Wang Yangming Learning, which was to influence Shimoda Utako throughout her life.7 Shimoda’s family background and her childhood experiences also affected her devotion to the Imperial family rather than to the Matsudaira lord or the Shogun. Her grandmother’s side (Hirao) was said to have descended from a loyal defendant of the “legitimate” Southern Court in the 14th century, taking a stance against the “illegitimate” Northern Court established and supported by the Ashikaga Shogunate.8 Her famous Confucian-scholar grandfather, Tōjō Kindai, was expelled from Iwamura after he published Map of Seven Islands of Izu (伊豆七島全図 Izu shichitō zenzu, 1842) because he expressed a view that did not match the Shogunate’s policy.9 When confidence in the Shogunate was declining in the late years of the Tokugawa era, her family naturally sided with those who called for “Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians” (尊王攘夷 Sonnō jōi), as they saw the Emperor, not the Shogun to be the legitimate ruler of Japan. With this stance, her father was placed under house arrest, but those who believed in the same cause continued to visit him. Watching the heroic deeds of those who devoted their lives to the Emperor left a lasting impression on young Shimoda Utako, as well as instilling a strong sense of loyalty toward the Imperial family.10 In 1870, a few years after the Meiji Restoration, her father took a job in Tokyo, and Shimoda, then sixteen years old, decided to join him. There, Shimoda Utako met her Confucianscholar grandfather, Tōjō Kindai, for the first time, and came to spend some time with him. Interestingly, in the same year, Tōjō Kindai published A Chronicle of the Imperial Family (聖 世紹胤録 Seisei shōinroku), and Three-Letter Classic for Women: A Must-Read for Elementary Level (小学必読 女三字経 Shōgaku hitsudoku onna sanjikyō). The latter, published as educational material, taught traditional Confucian virtues and it is said that her grandfather’s Chapter 6: Kokumin Dōtoku for Women

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conviction that “a woman should act like a woman” came to influence Shimoda Utako for the rest of her life.11 Between 1872 and 1879, before getting married, Shimoda Utako served as one of the ladies-in-waiting of Empress Shōken (wife of Emperor Meiji), during which she received her epithet, “Utako” or the “Poetess” from the Empress because of her ability to compose Japanese-style poems. Her years in the court also provided her connections to some of the most powerful individuals in the Meiji political world. Upon her marriage, she resigned as a lady-in-waiting but in 1882, she established Tōyōjuku (桃夭塾), originally known as 下田学 校 (Shimoda gakkō), a girl’s school, because she was urged to do so by her powerful acquaintances for their daughters and wives. After her sickly husband passed away in 1884 without leaving any offspring, she devoted her life to women’s education, accepting an invitation to participate in the founding of the Peeress’ School (華族女学校 Kazoku jogakkō) and officially assuming the position of the Dean from 1886.12 Originally, when Shimoda Utako started to teach at her Tōyōjuku, the education was aimed at providing refinement to upper-class women and focused on such subjects as Japanese and Chinese classics, sewing, and playing the koto (箏 a stringed instrument) playing. During her years at Kazoku Jogakkō, however, Shimoda started to express the nationalistic aim of creating “good wives and wise mothers” (良妻賢母 ryōsai kenbo), since the school was expected to produce future wives and mothers of high-ranking military officers and politicians.13 From 1893 to 1895, Shimoda Utako spent her time traveling in Europe and North America gathering information on Western women’s education. This trip proved to be invaluable to her since she was able to observe the gender dynamics of Western societies in the midst of the Victorian era. When she returned to Japan, she resumed her work at Kazoku Jogakkō (until 1907), but she also decided to open schools for middle- and lower-class women in 1899: Practical School for Women (實踐女学校 Jissen jogakkō, later Jissen Women’s University) and Women’s Vocational Craft School (女子工藝学校 Joshi kōgei gakkō). During the Meiji era, Shimoda Utako established herself as one of the leading figures of women’s education in Japan. She was also a prolific writer who authored numerous articles and books, including textbooks for women. Among the most influential textbooks she authored was Home Economics (家政学 Kaseigaku, 1902) which provided a practical guide for Japanese women to become ryōsai kenbo.14 Shimoda advocated that Japanese women become “good wives and wise mothers” so that they could contribute to making Japan stronger and wealthier. Such a stance may appear “conservative,” but Shimoda was, in her own ways, very much a part of the Meiji progressivism, and ryōsai kenbo was her way of raising women’s status in society. Indeed, historically, she believed women in ancient Japan had enjoyed high status, but their position declined after the introduction of Buddhism and Confucianism. This was because Buddhism taught that women could not be saved and Confucianism taught women to observe “three forms of obedience”: obey your father as a daughter, obey your husband as a wife, and obey your son as an aging mother. According to Shimoda, however, what was most detrimental was the time of warrior rule during which women came to be considered useless: Our countrywomen’s social status has sunk so deep in the last 700 years during the period of warrior rule to the present that we no longer seem to belong to the same race as men. Whether it was appropriate or not, reasonable or not, women

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had to uphold the teachings of three obediences, which did not allow women to gain any independence…. 15 So, in Shimoda’s view women’s status had sunk since 1200. However, she specifically blamed the Zhu Xi Learning School of Confucianism, approved under the Tokugawa Shogunate, of being especially harmful to Japanese women: Under the Tokugawa Bakufu, Confucianism, more specifically, the Zhu Xi School that was narrow and rigid became the version that the Shogun revered and encouraged. For women, extremely narrowly defined and austere Confucian teachings [based on books such as] The Great Learning for Women [女大学 Onna daigaku] and Moral Teachings for Women [女庭訓 Onna teikin] became deeply rooted and widely observed….16 Japanese women, as a result, became like “men’s slaves or material possessions” during the warrior rule, but in the Meiji era, Shimoda saw a great opportunity for Japanese women to reclaim their status.17 She took “ryōsai kenbo,” the Japanese government’s officially stated goal of female education, a word that sounded sufficiently conservative, and made it into a word that would make women more valuable in society. Interestingly, Shimoda was inspired by what she witnessed in the West: the Victorian notion of separate spheres for men and women. She found a lot of exemplary “good wives and wise mothers” in the West as well as in the East. Indeed, her book, Good Wives and Wise Mothers (良妻と賢母 Ryōsai to kenbo, 1912), contains chapters on “Eastern Good Wives” and “Eastern Wise Mothers” as well as “Western Good Wives” and “Western Wise Mothers.” 18 Among those she considered to be good wives and/or wise mothers included such figures Queen Victoria, Mencius’ mother, and George Washington’s mother.19 To be sure, Shimoda by no means encouraged Japanese women to be like Western women; instead, she wanted the Japanese women to keep their good traditional qualities while selectively adding admirable qualities of the Western women. She likened Western women to “flowers,” who were the showy and flashy queens of social occasions, but urged Japanese women to become the queen of the household: “fruits rather than flowers.” 20 Overall, Shimoda Utako in her younger years in the Meiji era was a progressive who tirelessly worked to elevate women’s status in Japanese society. In the Taisho era (and the post-Victorian era in the West), however, the older Shimoda Utako became more of a conservative in support of kokumin dōtoku, “national morality” in order to combat new alarming social trends.

Shimoda Utako in the Taishō era and national morality As stated earlier, the need for national morality was championed by Inoue Tetsujirō, a prominent professor of philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University. From around 1910, he started to give lectures on this topic and the transcript of these lectures was published as a book, Outline of a National Morality (国民道徳概論 Kokumin dōtoku gairon) in 1912.21 In the book, Inoue promoted the study of Japanese history, paying special attention to the “unbroken line of the Imperial rule” since it defined the core of the “uniquely Japanese” national polity (kokutai). He also called for studies of Japanese virtues and traits developed throughout history.

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In 1913, Shimoda Utako published a book, Japanese Women (日本の女性 Nihon no josei), in which she examined about 100 Japanese women mentioned in historical literary works such as Records of Ancient Matters (古事記 Kojiki), The Tale of the Heike (平家物語 Heike monogatari), and Chronicle of Great Peace (太平記 Taiheiki). Although it cannot be ascertained if Shimoda and Inoue were in direct contact about national morality, the book appears to be Shimoda’s answer to Inoue’s call for studies of Japanese virtues and traits: her explicit purpose of writing this book was to present the “special and distinctive characteristics of Japanese women” (日本の婦人の特性 Nihon no fujin no tokusei).22 This insistence on studying distinctive Japanese characters was a reaction to what Shimoda and Inoue perceived as alarming trends of the post-Russo-Japanese war era: the growth of Christianity, individualism and communism, all of which the nationalists considered as threats to the national polity. The 1910–11 “High Treason Incident,” culminating in the executions of twelve anarchists and communists for plotting to assassinate the emperor, intensified official fears of left radicalism.23 Shimoda Utako was also concerned about a nascent feminism. When her book Japanese Women was published, the so-called “New Women” (新しい女 atarashii onna) were challenging ryōsai kenbo ideals by rejecting traditional motherhood and wifehood. Worse yet, these independent-minded unconventional “new women,” such as Hiratsuka Raichō, published their views in their magazine, Bluestocking (青鞜 Seitō) from 1911 to 1916 and were receiving considerable attention from the public at the time. In this context, Shimoda Utako wrote a book to address a constituency that Inoue did not: women. She would have agreed with Inoue that it is important to learn about the special characters of the Japanese people as a whole (国民性 kokuminsei), but she also found it imperative for Japanese women to learn about their own heritage so that they could reject harmful foreign ideas such as feminism: “The people of a nation that are aware of their own national character will not accept foreign influence indiscriminately…. By abstracting one’s own national character from history and literature, [one can] critically examine foreign ideas and take what should be taken and discard what should be discarded.” 24 By examining Japanese women from the ancient period to the end of the Tokugawa era, she noted different tendencies in different periods, but overall, she identified ten virtues of Japanese women: 1) sincerity (誠実 seijitsu), 2) benevolence and compassion (仁慈 jinji), 3) humility (恭謙 kyōken), 4) chastity (貞淑 teishuku), 5) a strong sense of justice (義烈 giretsu), 6) diligence and frugality (勤倹 kinken), 7) the ability to endure hardship (堅忍 kennin), 8) being unaffected by small things (淡泊 tanpaku), 9) noble and pure spirit (高潔 kōketsu) and 10) elegance (優 雅 yūga).25 She noted that the Yamato race women have “innately strong will” and “purely beautiful sensibility” (先天的剛健なる意思と純美なる感 sententeki gōkennaru ishi to junbinaru kan). According to Shimoda, these “seeds” (the Yamato race) were planted in “temperate and fertile soil” (Japan), and received “fertilizers” (Buddhism and Confucianism) over time.26 In this way, though she still considered Buddhism and Confucianism to be historically oppressive toward women, she came to accept their contributions to Japanese women’s strong characters at their core.27 In the period 1915–1918, after the publication of Japanese Women, Shimoda Utako continued to publish stories with strong moral tones that aimed to fight “New Women” and “vainglory” (虚栄 kyoei). These were the years of the First World War, during which the Japanese economy, especially the textile industry that relied heavily on female laborers, grew considerably. Around the same time, some young women sought status and luxury, the trends that Shimoda saw to be harmful to society. She thus wrote tragic stories of those who pursued 82

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“vainglory,” or inspirational stories to encourage good virtues: loyalty, filial piety, chastity, frugality and so forth. She took the stories from various sources: a story of a filial girl from Russia, a selfless girl from the USA, or wise wives from Japan’s past.28 It was, however, in the early 1920s when Shimoda renewed her commitment to national morality for women that she served as the head of the Patriotic Women’s Association. The brainchild of Okumura Iwako, this organization, established in 1901, was something that Shimoda had been involved in from its inception. The association originally focused on providing support for soldiers, veterans (many of them were wounded or disabled), and families of deceased soldiers, but from 1917, it expanded its scope to add “relief efforts.” From 1920 to 1927, Shimoda, now in her 60s and 70s, served as the President of the organization, and under her leadership, the organization increased its philanthropic character, providing support for women and children needing assistance.29 From February 1921 to August 1922, Shimoda published a series of essays entitled “Our Sovereign and the People” (わが君民 Waga kunmin) in Aikoku Fujin (愛国婦人) a magazine published by the Patriotic Women’s Association.30 Like her Japanese Women, this series was not only in line with Inoue Tetsujirō’s vision of national morality, but also greatly expanded on it. The timing of publication of the essays is notable. It had been almost ten years since charismatic Emperor Meiji’s death. His successor, Emperor Taishō, was sickly and rumored to be mentally and physically impaired. There was a persistent rumor implying his “impairment”: it was said that at a solemn ceremony at the National Diet, the Emperor looked through a rolled-up document as if to look through a spyglass. Whether or not the rumor was true, by 1920, it was becoming too difficult for Emperor Taishō, then in his 40s, to carry out his official duties. Thus, the Crown Prince, Hirohito, started to represent him, and as of 29 November 1921, he officially became the regent. Additionally, Japan was going through an age of mass protests: the 1918 rice riots, demands for universal male suffrage, labor movements (the first “May Day” in 1920), and disputes between landlords and tenant farmers.31 Developments outside of Japan, such as the growth of Communism after the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) and the granting of suffrage to women in Europe and the United States during or shortly after WWI also affected domestic social issues. Moreover, the 1920s saw the emergence of the flappers or “modern girls” (モガ moga) and “modern boys” (モボ mobo), the young people who dressed in “radically” modern ways. In this context, Shimoda Utako decided to write about the warm and loving relationship between the Japanese Emperors and the subjects in “Our Sovereign and the People” as seen in tanka poems or Imperial decrees. She used the short form (5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern) of tanka poems to expound on these subjects in a modern, accessible manner. Shimoda was also able to rewrite the Imperial edicts, written traditionally in classical Chinese with markings to make them readable in Japanese (漢文 kanbun) so that they were accessible to her adult female readers. She mostly focused on historical poems and edicts but also occasionally juxtaposed references to Emperor Meiji, Empress Shōken, Empress Teimei and Crown Prince Hirohito. This was perhaps her attempt to divert attention away from the current occupant of the throne, as well as to instill a sense of national morality. She started the series with her recollection of Emperor Meiji’s new year’s prayer from the days when she was working for the Imperial family. The young Emperor, then in his 20s, asked the Great Ancestral God of Ise (i.e., the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu) to protect his people under his reign. Then she proceeded to introduce a poem by Empress Shōken, which illustrated her noble and compassionate character. The main focus of the first installment of the series, however, was Emperor Jimmu, the first Emperor of Japan. Her intention was to show the continuity Chapter 6: Kokumin Dōtoku for Women

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of “three thousand years” in the loving relationship between the Japanese Sovereign and the people. This warm relationship, Shimoda suggested, was inherent (先天的 sententeki) and the Imperial family’s love for the people was “hereditary” (遺伝的 identeki). Mentioning the “Great Ancestral God of Ise” (Amaterasu), Emperor Meiji, and Emperor Jimmu in the same article made the connections of these figures easily recognizable: Emperor Jimmu being the descendent of Amaterasu, and all the Japanese emperors being the descendants of this unbroken line. Shimoda explained that this amiable relationship between the Emperor and the people was something unique to Japan that cannot be found in other countries: “From the beginning of the founding of [our] country, 122 emperors thereafter to our current Emperor, the sovereigns have compassionately cared for the people, and the people have respected, adored, honored, and revered the sovereign. There are no such examples in any other countries’ history.” 32 She explained how Emperor Jimmu ruled the country with “sacred virtue” (聖徳 seitoku): he considered what would be beneficial to the people. When he built his castle, he went into the uninhabited forest, rather than taking away the cleared land from the people who already lived there. She rhetorically asked: “Are there any examples from any other countries where the ancient monarch with unlimited power valued the people so much?” 33 Shimoda also went on to explain more the virtues of Emperor Jimmu, such as his forgiveness extending even to those who went against him (and repented and returned to him), as well as how he treated his soldiers like his children. Like Inoue, Shimoda promoted the notion of Japan being a unique family nation in which the Imperial family represented the “parents” to Japanese subjects who were likened to their “children.” Compared with Inoue’s somewhat stoic presentation, that of Shimoda was emotionally charged, providing details, embellished with words of praise, and honorific language. Shimoda placed a strong emphasis on the virtues and benevolence of the Imperial family to the people. These virtuous “parents” elicited “filial piety” and “loyalty” from the “children” naturally; “loyalty” was not something demanded or coerced from the people. For example, Shimoda’s discussion of Emperor Nintoku well-illustrates the loving and caring character of the Japanese Emperors. Traditionally believed to have reigned in the 4th century, today this Emperor is mainly known for his colossal keyhole-shaped tomb in Osaka. His posthumous name “Nintoku” is indicative of Confucian virtue: nin (仁), the Japanese pronunciation of ren, which is usually translated into “benevolence” or “humanity” and toku (徳), de in Chinese, meaning “virtue.” Shimoda Utako explained: “The Emperor was so deeply wary of people going through suffering that he exempted them from taxation for three years, and extended the exemption for another three years. When he climbed up a high tower and looked down and saw the smoke [due to cooking] coming from common people’s houses, he was delighted….” 34 He proceeded to express his pleasure by saying how wealthy his country had become, but his Empress questioned the notion, pointing out how their Imperial Palace was in shambles and needed repairs. Emperor Nintoku answered: “The reason why Heaven established the sovereign over the people is so that [the sovereign] can make the life of the peasants easier…. The ancient sage blamed his own lack of virtues if there was even one person among his people who were cold and starving. If my people are poor, I am poor. If my people are happy and wealthy, then I am wealthy.” 35 Here, Emperor Nintoku was presented as an embodiment of a classic Confucian ideal ruler: a humble ruler who studied the way of the ancient sages to make the lives of people better. The ruler was to learn the way of antiquity so as to become a junzi (君子), the idealized person of noble 84

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character. So great was Emperor Nintoku’s virtue, Shimoda explained, that people came and fixed his palace. She exclaimed, “What a beautiful relationship the sovereign and the people had! Was it not the true great democracy?” 36 Clearly, Shimoda was critical of some trends of “Taishō Democracy.” In the era of intensified protests, she presented this “demokurashii” (デ モクラシー) of native origin as being far superior to that of foreign-inspired polities where the people screamed and demanded “democracy” from the sovereign. Shimoda also used “Our Sovereign and the People” to combat the spread of communism. Since communism tended to attract those who were struggling financially and who felt exploited by those at the top, Shimoda painted a picture of a frugal Imperial family that cared for all the people, high and low. Shimoda used several different terms to describe the common people, such as “tami/min” (民 the people), shomin (庶民 common people), and shūsho/moromoro (衆庶 the masses). More importantly, she used “shimotami/kamin (下民 lowly people) and saimin (細民 “thin” people, a euphemism for the poor people, hinmin 貧民) to make it clear that the Imperial family’s love and compassion extended to them. One of the best illustrations can be seen in the story of Emperor Shōmu. Best known for the construction of the Great Buddha of Nara (Tōdaiji Temple), this 8th-century Emperor is also known for establishing provincial temples (kokubunji) throughout the land. This was done out of his wish to protect the people from the epidemic disease ravaging the country. Shimoda decided to feature a decree by Emperor Shōmu in which he sent physicians and medicines throughout the country. After providing the kanbun original, she interpreted the edict: If the peasants [various lowly people] have long-lasting illnesses that do not heal after many years or are afflicted with serious illnesses and suffer days and nights, then I, as the father and mother of the people, cannot help but feel compassionate and wish to comfort them…. Please send physicians and medicine [throughout the country] and provide the remedial medical care so that everyone will be comfortable. For those with prolonged or serious diseases, provide grains [food] and help them.” 37 Here the kanbun original and Shimoda’s interpretation make it clear that the Emperor referred to himself as “the father and mother of the people” (民の父母 tami no fubo). This wording is significant as it allows a “feminine” quality, even for male emperors, to be included along with the masculine quality. With the Emperor being both “mother” and “father,” Shimoda presented a picture of the Imperial family that was naturally loving and compassionate toward all of their people, rather than demanding from the people or exploiting them. It was also implied that such a compassionate character was hereditary to this “divine” Imperial family. In the period when Shimoda and other leaders were concerned about the growth of communism (赤化 sekika “turning red”), and rampant labor movements, Shimoda made sure to emphasize the Emperor’s love for all the people, not just the rich and powerful, so as to fight the spread of communism, which was considered a major threat to the national polity. In “Our Sovereign and the People” Shimoda also incorporated stories of various female sovereigns, wives or concubines of the Emperors, and Imperial princesses. By so doing, she not only demonstrated the loving relationship between the Imperial Family and the people but also provided examples from the past to illustrate the special characteristics of the Japanese women. By incorporating the stories of women, she wished to make kokumin dōtoku more relevant to women. For example, here is a famous poem by Empress Jitō (r. 645–703) Chapter 6: Kokumin Dōtoku for Women

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included in Ogura hyakunin isshu (Collection of One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets): 春過ぎて夏来にけらし白妙の衣干すてふ天の香具山

(Haru sugite natsu ki ni kerashi shirotae no koromo hosu chō ama no kaguyama) The spring has passed / And the summer come again; For the silk-white robes, So they say, are spread to dry / On the Mount of Heaven’s Perfume.38 At a glance, this poem appears to be a mere depiction of the change of season from spring to summer. Shimoda explained: The Empress, who was also a female sovereign saw many summer clothes of common people hung to dry on the Mount of Heaven’s Perfume around the change-to-summer clothes time. She was delighted to see that the people were adequately provided and preparing for the change of season.39 In Shimoda’s hand, this famous poem was transformed into a poem expressing the Empress’s tender motherly love for the people. The assumptions that Shimoda made that the clothes belonged to the “common people” and they had “many” clothes, allowed Shimoda to make this poem about the Empress’ character and her connection to the ordinary people. She also made it relatable to her female audience, many of whom were “mothers,” by making the poem about motherly delight in seeing the child well-provided for. Whether or not the sovereign was male or female, Shimoda presented them to be “parental” figures as well as the embodiment of an ideal Confucian ruler who wished the best for his or her people. Her method was not to tell the readers to be “loyal” or “filial” but to provide compelling cases of the Imperial family’s loving and caring characters for whom the reader would be grateful and could not help but be loyal. The short series that meant to illustrate the warm relationship between the sovereign and the people allowed her to bypass questionable Emperors that did not fit this picture.40 Moreover, the virtuous Confucian ideal rulers theoretically set examples for the common people to follow. What Shimoda presented, though not explicitly, was the classic Confucian way of effectively ruling the society as expressed in the Analects 12:19: “The virtue of the gentleman [junzi] is like wind; the virtue of the small man is like grass. Let the wind blow over the grass and it is sure to bend.” 41 Shimoda depicted the Japanese Imperial family to be selfless and frugal; more concerned about the well-being of the people and the good of society as a whole rather than fulfilling selfish desires or their own material and physical comforts. This was precisely what Shimoda promoted among the Japanese people in general, and women in particular. She hoped the stories of the humble and selfless Imperial family would serve as an antidote to the harmful trends of individualism by setting examples for the people to follow. By providing easy-to-understand explanations of poems and Imperial edicts to the members of the Patriotic Women’s Association, not only did she try to instill a stronger sense of loyalty to already receptive readers, she also hoped to have an impact on their family members, especially on children. Shimoda saw that women played a crucial role in imbuing the sense of loyalty since they were the ones interacting with children from the impressionable earliest stage. 86

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National morality in practice (jissen) For Shimoda Utako, national morality was not merely ideas that needed to be taught in schools and homes, but also something that needed to be applied on an everyday basis. As stated earlier, the Wang Yangming School’s concept of chikō dōitsu, “the unity of knowledge and action” was an important influence from the early stages of her life. The school that she established, Jissen Women’s School, emphasized “putting into practice (実践 jissen).” She envisioned her students not only having “practical” skills for their own sake and for their families but also for the sake of Japan. She saw many ways Japanese women could and should contribute to society. “Putting into practice” was an expression of one’s loyalty to the state. What Japanese women could and should do for the state, as Shimoda saw it, was different from what Japanese men could and should do. Throughout her adult life, Shimoda firmly believed in separate spheres for men and women: the public sphere for men and the domestic sphere for women. She believed that women were given a “sympathetic heart” (同情心 dōjōshin) as a special gift from heaven. This gift could be very beneficial to the Japanese state, as it could lessen domestic and international tensions. It meant that Japanese women were to treat even potential adversaries such as hostile foreigners or discontented people (e.g., tenant farmers) with kindness and compassion.42 By doing so, the Japanese women would be the “buffers” (緩衝 kanshō) of tensions and the “apostles of peace” (平和の使徒 heiwa no shito), and this, to Shimada was an expression of loyalty in action.43 Additionally, women’s “sympathetic heart” could be utilized in helping and comforting the soldiers and their families, as well as in engaging in public service as the Patriotic Women’s Association had done. When the Great Kanto Earthquake struck in 1923, Shimoda, as the president of the Patriotic Women’s Association, took this unprecedented tragedy as an opportunity to expand the vision that she had been pursuing for a long time: improvement of the Japanese people’s mind, body and life in general through the education of women. In the Taishō era, Shimoda became critical of some female students who were “educated” only in theory (i.e., having “knowledge”) but not in “practice;” worse yet, some of them became even arrogant, extravagant and lazy.44 Shimoda considered these tendencies to be the effect of “harmful” ideologies such as individualism, which in her mind led to selfish attitudes and behaviors, rather than thinking of what would be best for the society. For Shimoda Utako, the Great Kanto Earthquake was a punishment from heaven (天の懲罰 ten no chōbatsu) but it could also be a great turning point.45 As the Imperial capital, Tokyo, was going through the reconstruction, she talked of the reconstruction of Japanese people’s spirit, alluding to the construction of a building: I hope that the reconstruction of the Imperial capital starts with building the central pillar, the national spirit of our people. It needs to be built upon its glorious long history, decorated with the fruit of new culture, and its bad leaves and dead branches need to be removed. We must solidly renovate the central hall of our Japanese race’s spirit, that is said to be shaken in recent years, and bear the fruit of true significance. To do so, more than anything else, we must have the women, the mothers of the nation rise up.46 Shimoda believed it was necessary for women to invest in the “education of their hearts” (心育 shin’iku) because it should be an antidote to the modern problems of hearts and spirits,

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such as selfishness, anxiety and depression. After their hearts were in the right place, there would be ripple effects on their family members. In addition to heart and spirit, Shimoda wished to see Japanese women helping to improve Japanese bodies. This had been a long-time vision of Shimoda Utako as she saw the Japanese people, especially Japanese women, as being physically weak compared to European or American women. To this end, Shimoda Utako had authored numerous instructional books on cooking, which inevitably addressed nutrition as well as safe and proper ways of procuring and processing food. She also wrote books on proper housekeeping since that could affect the physical and mental well-being of the people. For Shimoda Utako, improving the minds and the bodies of the Japanese people was a great service that Japanese women could do to their beloved country and the Imperial family.47 Shimoda also believed that Japanese women could express their loyalty to the state through frugality (倹素 kenso) and diligence (勤勉 kinben). These were some of the qualities that Shimoda identified to be the characteristics of Japanese women in her 1913 book, but she saw them as particularly important in the era of recovery after the earthquake. For her, the large part of being “frugal” and “diligent” meant being resourceful, eliminating unnecessary processes and being careful with spending money or time. By increasing efficiency in housework, for example, women would have time to contribute outside of the home, such as engaging in volunteer work to make Japan better. Though she was not completely opposed to making things “pretty” or “tasty,” she was opposed to excessive luxury, which was associated with selfishness and vainglory. For her these small efforts of women contributed to the state as a whole: “There is an old saying, ‘the source of wealth of a nation comes from the kitchens of each household.’ This is so true. Making and increasing wealth on a large scale mostly depends on the male brain, but the accumulation of wealth on a small scale depends on the hands of women.” 48 Thus, the Great Kanto Earthquake became the opportunity for Shimoda Utako to reassert her wish for Japanese women to take an active part in putting “loyalty” into “practice”: “I hope this great incident becomes the opportunity for us to put more effort into making our spirits and bodies healthier and stronger, as well as nurture [the virtues] of frugality and diligence.49 Better yet, the aftermath of the earthquake provided an actual demonstration of the Imperial family’s compassion, generosity, frugality, diligence and humility in action when they visited the victims and providing monetary support: … Immediately after the disaster, [our awesome Imperial family] provided a vast amount of relief funds. What was done by the [people of] high [places] was followed by the [people of] lower [places], and the wealthy people one after the another donated [money], and the people from various regions [of Japan] vied to be compassionate so that there were no victims of the disaster who starved….50 What she described here was the ripple effects of a benevolent Imperial family who ruled by exemplary actions. For Shimoda Utako, the actual actions to express one’s virtues were far more important than knowledge (知識 chishiki), logical understanding (理解 rikai) or academic abilities (学力 gakuryoku). In her mind, thus, the Imperial family not only possessed great virtues but they also embodied “the unity of knowledge and action.”

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Conclusion In the Taisho era, Shimoda Utako, a leading figure in women’s education in Japan, made her own distinct contribution to the ideology of national morality, which contained strong Confucian elements. Her relationship with Confucianism was complex. She was born into a prominent Confucian scholarly family but rejected male-chauvinistic aspects of Confucianism. Indeed, in her younger years during the Meiji era, Shimoda Utako was a part of the progressive movement and sought to raise women’s status as important members of the society who played a crucial role in strengthening the country. She blamed Confucianism and the Zhu Xi School of the Tokugawa era in particular, for degrading Japanese women. In order to break away from their slave-like status, Shimoda urged Japanese women to be “good wives and wise mothers” (ryōsai kenbo) so that they could play active roles in society. In the Taishō era, an older Shimoda Utako found the notion of ryōsai kenbo challenged by a younger generation of “New Women,” and feminists. There was also a rise of other “harmful” Western ideas such as individualism and Communism. In this context, Shimoda studied the unique Japanese characteristics in order to develop “national morality,” but with an emphasis on feminine virtues and the caring relationship between the Imperial family and the people. For Shimoda Utako, however, instilling a sense of loyalty was not enough unless it was matched by actions or “doing” something to contribute to the state. She emphasized jissen, or “putting into practice” and urged women to develop practical skills. This appears to have been inspired by the Wang Yangming School’s emphasis on “the unity of knowledge and action.” When the Great Kanto Earthquake struck the Tokyo region, Shimoda, as the head of the Patriotic Women’s Association, encouraged its members to take active roles in the relief, recovery and rebuilding, following the examples set by the members of the Imperial family. For a nationalist like Shimoda Utako, loyalty to the Imperial family was the utmost important virtue taught to Japanese children. To that end, she considered it imperative to have “wise mothers” not only in theory but also in practice. Shimoda Utako thus made national morality accessible and applicable to women.

Notes

1 Horiguchi Osamu, “Kantō daishinsai to sesshō Hirohito Shinnō” [ 関東大震災と摂政裕仁親王 The Great Kantō Earthquake and Prince Regent Hirohito],  Taishō Daigaku daigakuin kenkyū ronshū [大正大学大学院研究論 集 Collected papers of the Taishō University Graduate School] 37 (2013): 188–89; Horiguchi Osamu, “Kantō daishinsai to Teimei Kōgō” [関東大震災と貞明皇后 The Great Kantō Earthquake and Empress Teimei], Taishō Daigaku daigakuin kenkyū ronshū [大正大学大学院研究論集 Collected Papers of the Taishō University Graduate School] 97 (2012): 21–31. 2 Shimoda Utako, “Shinsaigo ni okeru nenshō shijo no seishin no zendō ni tsukite” [ 震火災後に於ける年少子女 の精神の善導に就きて On spiritual guidance of young children after the quake], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 December 1923) in Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen [下田歌子著作集資料編 The collected works of Shimoda Utako], ed. Itagaki Hiroko (Tokyo: Jissen Joshi Gakuen, 1998), Vol. 3: 171. 3 Shaun O’Dwyer, Confucianism’s Prospects: A Reassessment (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2019), 146–147; Inoue Tetsujirō, kokumin dōtoku gairon [国民道徳概論 An outline of national morality] (Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1912). 4 Chinese rendering of chikō gōitsu is zhixingheyi. In this chapter, Japanese renderings will be used for Chinese terms that are thoroughly domesticated in the Japanese cultural-linguistic context.

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5 Shimoda Utako, Fujin jōshiki no yōsei [ 婦人常識の養成 Cultivation of women’s common sense] (Tokyo: Jitsugyo no Nihonsha, 1910), 25–26. 6 Shimoda Utako, “Omoide no ki” [ 思ひ出の記 Reminiscence], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (May–December 1930) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 354. 7 Wm. Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedermann, eds. Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. 2, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 114–15. 8 Committee for the compilation of Principal Shimoda’s Biography, Shimoda Utako sensei den [ 下田歌子先生 伝 Biography of Shimoda Utako sensei] (Tokyo: Ko Shimoda kōchō sensei denki hensanjo, 1943), 35. 9 Tōjō also leaned toward Setchū gakuha ( 折衷学派), the group of Confucian scholars advocating combining the best features from several different schools including that of the Zhu Xi School as well as the unorthodox Wang Yangming and Ancient Learning Schools. See Shimoda Utako sensei den, 21, 24. 10 Shimoda Utako, “Omoide no ki” [ 思ひ出の記 Reminiscence], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 March 1930–1 December 1930) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 339–84. 11 Shimoda Utako sensei den, 109–114. The Three-Letter Classic for Women was published before the establishment of modern education system in 1872. It is written in kanbun (漢文 classical Chinese with markings). 12 Kazoku was the “noble” class mostly consisting of the aristocracy and former daimyō. 13 Guo Yanqi, “Shimoda Utako no joshi kyōiku shisō no henyō: Tōyō gakkō kara Ōbei ryūgaku maemade” [ 下田 歌子の女子教育思想の変容 桃夭学校から欧米留学前まで Changes in Utako Shimoda’s concepts of female education before her study in Europe and America] Josei to bunka: Shimoda Utako kenkyūjo nenpō [女性と文化: 下田 歌子研究所年報 Women and culture: the annual Bulletin of the Shimoda Utako Institute], no. 3 (2017): 83–100. 14 Paula Harrell, “The Meiji ‘New Woman’ and China,” in Late Qing China and Meiji Japan: Political and Cultural Aspects, ed. Joshua A. Fogel (Norwalk, CT: East Bridge, 2004), 118–19. 15 Shimoda Utako, “Toshi tachikeru hi” [ 年たちける日 A day reflecting on the past years], Nihon no josei [日 本の女性 Japanese women] (25 January 1903) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 5: 151–53. 16 Shimoda Utako, “Tokugawa baku seika ni okeru bumon no josei ga tokuso oyobi heimin bungaku ni ki wo haita musan kaikyū no josei” [徳川幕政下に於ける武門の女性が徳操及び平民文学に気を吐いた無産階級の女性 The high morality of the warrior class women and proletarian women who breathed common people’s literature under the Tokugawa Bakufu], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 September 1923) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 154. 17 Shimoda Utako, Fujin jōshiki no yōsei [ 婦人常識の養成 Cultivation of women’s common sense] (Tokyo: Jitsugyo no Nihonsha, 1910), 10. 18 Shimoda Utako, Ryōsai to kenbo [ 良妻と賢母 Good wives and wise mothers] (Tokyo: Toyamabō, 1912). 19 Shimoda, Ryōsai to kenbo, 85–93. Shimoda considered George Washington to be one of the greatest historical figures and Washington’s mother to be “the wisest of wise mothers” (kenbo chū no kenbo 賢母中の賢母). References to Washington’s mother can be found in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 1: 152–156, Vol. 5: 375–376 and Vol. 6: 320–326. Another woman who was considered “wisest of wise mothers” was the mother of the ancient Chinese sage, Mencius, but Shimoda only mentioned her a few times. See Ryōsai to kenbo, 58–64 in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 5: 106. 20 Shimoda Utako, “Heikō sōritsu man jusshūnen kinen shukuga shiki hi ni oite” [ 弊校創立滿十周年紀念祝 賀式日に於いて On the celebration of the ten-year anniversary of our school], Nihon no josei [日本の女性 Japanese women] (15 March 1909) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 6: 320–26; “Joshi sotsugyōsei ni nozomu” [女子卒業生に望む Wishes for the female graduates], Fujin Sekai [婦人世界 Women’s world] (3 April 1906) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 7: 2–3. 21 Eshima Ken’ichi, “Meijiki ni okeru Inoue Tetsujirō no kokumin dōtoku no keisei katei ni kansuru ikkousatsu” [明治期における井上哲次郎の「国民道徳論」の形成過程に関する一考察:「勅語衍義」を中心として The formative process of Inoue Tetsujirōs kokumin dōtokuron during the Meiji era: focusing on Chokugo Engi] Keiō Gijuku Daigakuin shakaigaku kenkyūka kiyō [慶應義塾大学大学院社会学研究科紀要 Collected papers of the Keio University Graduate School: studies in sociology, psychology and education] 67 (2009): 15–29. 22 In Nihon no josei [ 日本の女性 Japanese women] (Tokyo: Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, 1913), 3, Shimoda lists “upwards of a thousand-year history” of cultural achievements in Japan that “westerners do not know of ”: of its being an eastern nation of superior men (東洋の君子国 Tōyō no kunshi koku), its Confucian relation of ruler and subject (君臣の分 kunshin no bun) and its “splendid national morality and national spirit” (立派な る国民的道徳民精神 kokuminteki dōtoku kokumin seishin). These statements of national and Confucian moral

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particularity strongly resemble those Inoue made in Outline of a National Morality published the previous year. 23 Inoue had written Commentary on the Imperial Rescript ( 勅語衍義 Chokugo engi, 1891), after a Christian teacher at the First Higher Middle School, Uchimura Kanzō, refused to bow down to the Imperial signature on the Rescript at the beginning-of-the-year ceremony. 24 Shimoda Utako, Nihon no josei, 7–8. 25 Shimoda Utako, Nihon no josei, 564. 26 Shimoda Utako, Nihon no josei, 564, 566. 27 Shimoda’s comments on Buddhism and Confucianism can be found in Shimoda, Nihon no josei 23, 227–31, 424–36. 28 Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 8 contains her works published in a magazine Fujin sekai [婦人世界 Women’s world] from this time period. 29 Shimizu Miwako, “Aikoku fujinkai no jyochū o meguru shakai jigyō: ryō taisen kanki o chushin ni” [ 愛国婦 人会のをめぐる社会事業 両大戦間期を中心に Social works of jochū (housemaids) in the interwar period of Japan: focusing on the activities of the Aikoku Fujin Kai], Kansai Kokusai Daigaku kenkyū kiyō [関西国 際大学研究紀要 The bulletin of Kansai University of International Studies] 2 (2001): 97–112; As of 1920, the Patriotic Women’s Association had more than 1,100,000 members (when Japan’s total population was about 56 million). The membership data can be found in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 50. 30 Shimoda published short essays entitled Waga kunmin ( わが君民 Our Sovereign and the people) 18 times. There is also an essay “Kontoku umi no gotoshi” [坤徳海の如し The virtue of the Empress is like an ocean] in Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 May 1921) which can be considered a part of this series. It should be noted that Shimoda, as the President of the Patriotic Women’s Association, visited Sakhalin, Korea and Manchuria in 1921. 31 The eligibility was lowered from those paying more than 10 yen to 3 yen in 1919, but demand for universal male suffrage continued. 32 Shimoda Utako, “Waga kunmin” [ わが君民 Our Sovereign and the people], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 February 1921) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 8. 33 Shimoda, “Waga kunmin,” (1 February 1921), 10. 34 Shimoda, “Waga kunmin,” Aikoku fujin [ 愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 June 1921) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 22–23. 35 Shimoda, “Waga kunmin,” (1 June 1921), 3, 23. 36 Shimoda, “Waga kunmin,” (1 June 1921), 24. 37 Shimoda Utako, “Waga kunmin” [ わが君民 Our Sovereign and the people], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 February 1922) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 86–87. 38 Translation found at the University of Virginia, Japanese Text Initiative (website): http://jti.lib.virginia​ .edu/japanese/hyakunin/hyakua.html. Accessed August 16, 2021. 39 Shimoda, “Waga kunmin,” Aikoku fujin [ 愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 August 1921) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 42 40 Perhaps the most famous Emperor known for his cruelty is Emperor Buretsu. 41 The Analects of Confucius, 12:19, trans. D.C. Lau (London: Penguin, 1998). 42 In the 1910s and 1920s, the tension between Japan and the United States was growing, mostly stemming from the passing of anti-Japanese regulations in the 1913 California Alien Land Act and the 1924 Immigration Act (the “Asian Exclusion Act”). 43 Shimoda Utako, “Fujin to taigai shisō” [ 婦人と対外思想 Women and foreign thoughts], Aikoku fujin [愛国 婦人 Patriotic women] (1 October 1924) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 209; Shimoda Utako, “Kosaku sōgi to fujin no tachiba” [小作争議と婦人の立場 Tenant farmer strikes and women’s position], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 May. 1925) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 233. 44 The word “arrogance ( 傲慢 gōman)” or extravagant, and lazy (奢侈遊惰 shashi yūda)” can be seen in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 247, 268. 45 Shimoda Utako, “Shinko mizo no daishisai ni tsukite” [ 振古未曽有の大震災に就きて On an unpredecented earthquake], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 October 1923) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 161.

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46 Shimoda Utako, “Tamashii no dendō kaizō o yōsu” [ 魂の殿堂改造を要す The need for renovation of our soul], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 February 1924) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 177. 47 This included the Japanese people’s ability to settle and colonize the territories considered outside of mainland. Since the Meiji era, Shimoda was supportive of Japan’s expansion. 48 Shimoda Utako, “Tairyoku to zairyoku no zōshin ni tsukite” [ 体力と財力との増進に就きて On improvement of physical and economic strength], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 September 1926) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 293. 49 Shimoda Utako, “Daishinkasai ni okeru ōkata no dōjō wo kansha shite” [ 大震火災に於ける大方の同情を感 謝して Thanking everyone for sympathy after the earthquake], Aikoku fujin [愛国婦人 Patriotic women] (1 November 1923) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 167. 50 Shimoda Utako, [ 振古未曽有の大震災に就きてRegarding an unprecedented earthquake], Aikoku fujin [愛国 婦人 Patriotic women] (1 October 1923) in Itagaki, ed., Shimoda Utako chosakushū shiryōhen, Vol. 3: 163.

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Chapter 7 Modern Contextual Turns from “The Kingly Way” to “The Imperial Way” Chang Kun-chiang Translated by Ruth and John McCreery

Introduction On January 1, 1946, the Japanese emperor’s New Year address included the “Humanity Declaration:” The ties between Us and Our people have always stood upon mutual trust and affection. They do not depend upon mere legends and myths. They are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine, and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world.1 In this declaration, the emperor declared that he was not a “living god,” calling that belief a fiction spread by the military, political, academic and business worlds to unify the nation prior to the war. During the prewar period this fiction was treated as fact. Belief that a human emperor was divine and, thus, that the Japanese people were a superior race descended from the gods was propagated through ceremony, government and education. All three used the same formula, and, repeated over and over again, it became deeply embedded in Japanese hearts. Propagating those beliefs was part of the construction of modern Japan as required by the 19th-century concept of the nation-state. Japan became a model for nation-building throughout East Asia, and thus these beliefs continue even today to influence discussion of the nation-state both past and present.2 The denial that the emperor is a living god brings us to the topic discussed in this essay, the relationship between the Confucian “Kingly Way” (王道 ōdō) and the Japanese “Imperial Way” (皇道 kōdō) and how during Edo there was a long period of fermentation during which the Confucian Kingly Way was injected into Shintō. In this essay “contextual turn” refers to a concept developed by Huang Chun-chieh after many years of research on annotations of the Confucian classics from the perspective of

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cultural interaction. According to Huang, “The history of interactions among East Asian cultures reveals how interactions among texts, individuals and ideas from different regions resulted in the phenomenon called “contextual turns.” “Contextual turn” refers here to the process by which threads of logic found in foreign texts or thinkers are severed and replaced by new threads of logic, depending on which versions of texts are transmitted, and what local individuals or thought adds to them, to better fit the recipient culture.3 Thus, in the case considered here, in the Edo period there was an injection of Confucian ideals into Shintō, resulting in a Shintō-Confucianism synthesis, which in Meiji and prewar Japan underwent another contextual turn, becoming the Imperial Way, which transcended kingship and the concept of the nation-state. Whether the topic is Shintō or the Imperial Way, the Kingly Way must be taken into account. Comparing these two transformations not only illuminates the importance of the Confucian Kingly Way as an element in both Shintō and the Imperial Way; it also suggests that the basso ostinato4 in the implicit prototype for both was the outcome of these modern contextual turns and not the original Confucian Kingly Way.

Edo: the Kingly Way injected into Shintō The Kingly Way began as a set of Confucian ideals for government. For the Song NeoConfucianists, these ideals were taken primarily from Confucius and Mencius. The concept that the wise ruler embodies fairness and justice was taken from the Book of History (尚書 Shangshu), the Classic of Poetry (詩経 Shijing) and the Classic of Changes (易經 Yijing). These ideals were then universalized as models for virtuous behavior, with the moderation they preached not confined to rulers. Sima Qian (145–86 BCE) summarized these ideals in his introduction to the Records of the Grand Historian. Avoid suspicion. Be clear about what is and is not. Do not waver. Call virtue virtue, evil evil. Identify the wise and ignore the ignorant. That is how to cultivate the inner sage. To preserve and lose nations, to mend and wear out. That is the business of kings. Then we arrive at the Kingly Way [王道 Wangdao], Mencius’ theory of government. Mencius wanted the king to cultivate the virtue of the inner sage and behave like a king who follows the Kingly Way. Strengthening Confucius’ “study of the inner sage,” leads him to the doctrine of inherent goodness. That is where the Kingly Way of government begins. In other words, In the Spring and Autumn [Chunqiu], the master illuminates the way of the three kings and critically examines human affairs. He avoids speculation, distinguishes true from false, settles the uncertain, praises good, calls evil evil, elevates the wise, diminishes the unworthy. He protects the kingdom, continues his line, and assists those in need. This is the Way of Kings in its ideal form.5 When this concept of the Kingly Way was transmitted to Japan, it aroused repeated waves of discussion, especially during the Edo period. Edo Confucianists belonging to the Ancient Learning School (古学派 Kogakuha) debated two versions of how the ancient Sage Kings had ruled. Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728), the leader of the Ancient Text faction (古文辭 Kobunji), 94

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replaced the phrase “Kingly Way,” used by Itō Jinsai, the leader of the Ancient Learning School with the “Way of the Ancient Kings” (先王之道 Sennō no michi). Sorai’s “Way of the Ancient Kings” was based on the Six Classics, while Jinsai’s “Kingly Way” was based on the Four Books, especially the Analects (論語 in Japanese Rongo) and Mencius (孟子 in Japanese Mōshi).6 This debate was, however, confined to the Ancient Learning School and did not extend to discussion of the difference between the Way of Confucianism’s Sage Kings and the Way of the Japanese Emperor. I believe it remains plausible to argue that the Edo period debates surrounding the Kingly Way fed into later discussions of Shintō that contributed to the formation of the Imperial Way, a modern construction into which the Kingly Way was subsumed. The Edo period injection of the Kingly Way into Shintō can itself be divided into two phases: an early phase in which it was claimed that the Kingly Way and Shintō were equivalent and a later phase in which the Kingly Way was subordinated to Shintō. Confucianists believed that the Kingly Way was the ideal form of governance. Simply stated, the Kingly Way was the way of the Sage Kings who ruled ancient China with benevolence and righteousness. When, however, the Kingly Way arrived in Japan, it underwent a contextual turn. Throughout the Edo period, Confucianists conflated the Kingly Way with Shintō, breaking new ground with contextual turns to suit the Japanese context. The most famous example from early Edo is the Zhu Xi Learning (朱子学 Shushigaku) scholar Hayashi Razan (1583–1657), who wrote, The “three” [the horizontal stokes in the Chinese character for king, 王] are heaven, earth, and man. The vertical stroke that connects them is Shintō. In the Kingly Way, the ruler connects heaven, earth, and man. That is why he is called “king” [王]. In the character for “Lord” [主], the dot that sits above the king represents “fire.” It stands for the Sun, a fiery pearl, the sign of Amaterasu Omikami, the goddess whose descendants are the rulers of Japan. That is why Japan is called Nippon, the land of the rising sun.7 Hayashi Razan’s blending of the Kingly Way with Shintō was a reformulation of a statement in Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋繁露 Chunqiu fanlu) by the Han Dynasty author Dong Zhongshu: The ancient creators of writing drew three horizontal strokes, connected them, and called the result “King” [王]. The three horizontal strokes are Heaven, Earth, and Man. The vertical stroke that connects them is the Way [道]. Who else but the king could be the one who connects Heaven, Earth, and Man? 8 In Han Dynasty China, however, there was no Shintō. When the Kingly Way philosophy arrived in Japan in early Edo, it encountered Shintō and was quickly reshaped to fit Shintō traditions. Hayashi Razan was the first to suggest that the three Imperial Treasures, the Mirror, Jewel and Sword bequeathed to the Imperial Household by the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, embodied the three Confucian virtues, wisdom, benevolence and courage. He also wrote that “The three Imperial Treasures embody the elements of Kingly rule, the Kingly Way, Shintō and Principle.” 9 The Razan theory that the Kingly Way and Shintō are inseparable strongly influenced later Confucian scholars, among whom it became a fixed formula. Chapter 7: Modern Contextual Turns from “The Kingly Way” to “The Imperial Way”

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Kaibara Ekken (1630–1714) was another author who contributed to the theory that there was no contradiction between Confucianism, Shintō and the Way of the Ancient Sages.10 In his Lessons of the Deities (神祇訓 Jingikun), he explained that China’s ancient sages based their teachings on the Way of the Gods (Shintō), the Way expounded in the Yijing. Shintō and the Way explained in the Yijing are the same. Both pervade Heaven and Earth, and the Way of Heaven, Shintō and the Way of the Sages are not three separate things. The Way of Man is to follow the Way of Heaven and Earth. There is thus no difference between Shintō and the Way of the Sages in Kaibara Ekken’s theory, and while he never mentions the Kingly Way explicitly, his interpretation of the Confucian Way of the Sages was incorporated into the Kingly Way ideal. The proposition that there is no difference between the Kingly Way and Shintō was not confined to Zhu Xi Learning Neo-Confucians. Many Neo-Confucians affiliated with Yangming Learning (陽明学 Yōmeigaku) also espoused this theory, with only small differences. They frequently referred to the Yijing when discussing Shintō. Everyone knew that the term “Way of the Gods” (神道), Shintō in Japanese, was taken from the Chinese classic, the Yijing. The explanation of the hexagrams said, “Observe the Heaven. Throughout the four seasons, the Way of the Gods does not change. The Sages based their teachings on the Way of the Gods, and all under Heaven obeyed them.” 11 Japanese scholars frequently cited this text as evidence that Shintō and Confucianism were the same, with no difference between them. One outstanding example among Yangming School scholars was Kumazawa Banzan (1619– 1691), who compared the Yijing’s Eight Trigrams to Shintō’s Three Imperial Treasures, the Mirror, the Jewel and the Sword. He wrote, “The Three Treasures represent Japan. The Eight Trigrams represent the gentlemen of Tang (i.e., China).” 12 In the “Restoration of the Gods and Demons” chapter of his Responding to the Great Learning (大学或問 Daigaku wakumon), Banzan wrote that “The Way is the Way of the Gods of Heaven and Earth. The Way of China’s Ancient Sages and Japan’s Way of Gods and Men are both the Way of the Gods of Heaven and Earth.” 13 He follows Hayashi Razan in equating the Three Imperial Treasures with the three Confucian virtues, wisdom, benevolence and courage.14 The theory that Confucianism and Shintō are equivalent continued to find advocates in mid and late Edo. One example is the eclectic Confucianist Hoashi Banri (1778–1852). In his New Theory of Beginning Study (入学新論 Ryūshi shinron), he stressed that Shintō makes loyalty its purpose and purity its guide to action. In both respects it is no different from the Way of Confucius. Because, however, it regards the Emperor as divine, it does not preach or leave the mundane world behind, does not believe in karma, or speak obscurely of fate, recording and writing about its teachings did not flourish. While the core was firmly established, the fine details were left undone. That is why Emperor Nintoku embraced Confucianism and used it to lead his people. He defined the fundamental relationships, established punishments, and without invoking the authority of Confucius, preached the Way of humanity, knowledge, loyalty and filial piety. Those who preserved and guarded this way embodied Nintoku’s virtue.15 Hoashi Banri argued that there was no difference between Shintō values and Confucian virtues. He recognized that Japan’s Emperor was revered as a god, but did not include 96

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Buddhism, with its preaching and abandoning the mundane world in his synthesis of Shintō and Confucianism.

The Kingly Way subordinate to Shintō While the early Edo Confucianists combined Confucianism and Shintō, we see no attempt to assign a higher priority or to assert the superiority of one over the other. Then, however, natural disasters were added to the political and economic problems the Tokugawa regime was already struggling to solve. The 1850s saw peasant revolts, spurred by the Great Tenpō Famine (天保の大飢饉 Tenpō no daikikin) which began in 1832. There were several years of drought in the Kanto region, while Tohoku experienced floods. Harvests were poor, sending the price of rice skyrocketing. The people had no means of livelihood. This was the context in which the Ōshio Heihachirō incident occurred in 1837. This incident, in which Ōshio Heihachirō (1793–1837), a Neo-Confucian scholar of the Wang Yangming School, led a rebellion against the Tokugawa on behalf of the poor, shocked other Confucian scholars. Then, within fifteen years American Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry arrived with four warships in Uraga Bay and demanded that Japan sign a treaty of amity and allow trade with the United States, intensifying the dissatisfaction of loyalist samurai who revered the Emperor. With Japan assailed with troubles both foreign and domestic, the slogan “Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians” became the most potent weapon in the arsenal of those who wished to strengthen the Emperor’s authority and weaken the shogunate’s voice in the governing of Japan. In Sakuma Taika’s famous Japan vs China Explained (和漢明辨 Wakan meiben) published in 1778, the introduction includes the words, “The Way of their Ancient Sages and the Teachings of our Divine Emperor” 16 but here the words “Divine Emperor” refer only to the belief that Emperor Jimmu, the founder of the Japanese nation, was a direct descendant of Amaterasu as were his descendants, an unbroken line of Emperors connected by blood for more than 2,500 years. In Sakuma Taika’s explanation, “the ancestral Sun Goddess” (天祖 Tenso) and “heavenly offspring” (天胤 Ten'in) refer to this belief, but the connector term (亞) Sakuma uses to introduce the “divine emperor” concept is consistent with the fusion of Confucianism and Shintō and does not imply that Confucianism is subordinate to Shintō. That said, Sakuma’s superficial criticism of Confucianism was later used to elevate the authority of the Emperor and attack the authority of the Bakufu. As the end of the Bakufu drew near, the Tokugawa regime was plagued by both foreign threats and domestic troubles. These led to a stronger advocacy of Shinto as the embodiment of the Japanese spirit. Mito Learning (水戸学 Mitogaku) exemplifies this late Edo tendency. The Mito Learning scholar Fujita Tōko frequently used the phrases “Way of the Divine Emperor” (神皇之道 Jinnō no michi) and “Imperial Way,” treating them as synonyms. I regard Tōko as the origin of the post-Meiji Restoration usage of “Imperial Way.” Why? Because, while “Way of the Divine Emperor” can be simplified and shortened to “Imperial Way,” it could also be abbreviated as “Shintō.” The two abbreviations do, however, differ in one important aspect. Use of “Shintō” as an abbreviation for “Way of the Divine Emperor” gives relatively little emphasis to the reigning Emperor’s position. This is the way Hayashi Razan used the same term. Then, however, in the Bakumatsu period, the closing years of the Tokugawa shogunate, “Shintō” becomes the “Way of the Divine Emperor” and is abbreviated as the “Imperial Way.”

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In the Bakumatsu context, this phrase is a way of showing heightened respect for the reigning Emperor. In the cultural context of “Respect the Emperor, expel the barbarians,” that usage clearly marks a contextual turn. The Chinese characters 神道 now read as “Shintō” in Japanese may be the same, but their meaning is very different. In one of his poems,17 Tōko writes that failure to exemplify righteousness and rectify people’s hearts has caused the Imperial Way to stagnate and suffer calamities. In their heartfelt oaths to the gods, the ancients accepted the possibility of death. He also wrote that the Divine Land (China) had revered the gods and governed with a martial spirit, setting a precedent that can never be altered because the highest Heaven is forever unchanging. The Imperial Way had, however, decayed as the teachings of the Heavenly Ancestor (Amaterasu) had become confused and fallen into disuse. To return to the great principles and illuminate the way of the gods, the Imperial Household must regain its self-respect, avoid corruption by heretical tendencies, and found its teachings on loyalty and filial piety. In these passages, the phrase “Imperial Way” is filled with disappointment at the weakness of the reigning Emperor and hope that the shogunate will take the initiative in respecting the Emperor in a properly martial manner by expelling the barbarians who threaten his rule. As illustrated by this case, Mito Learning School scholars wanted to use the power of the Shintō belief in the divinity of the Emperor to unite and motivate loyal samurai throughout Japan. While not going so far as to reject Confucianism, they drew clear distinctions between China’s “sage” and Japan’s “divine,” China’s ancient kings and Japan’s Divine Emperor. As Fujita Tōko himself put it, “We must be aware that those in that other country speak of former kings. In Japan we speak of the Divine Emperor. Their country has its Emperor above in High Heaven (昊天上帝 Haotian shangdi). We revere Amaterasu Omikami (天照大 神).” He also said, Confucius was a sage. In him we recognize a standard for humanity. However, if in our divine country we only worship Confucius and discard the Way of the Divine Emperor, we become Chinese. What Confucius teaches begins with Haotian Shangdi. We should, thus, first worship our gods, who are the source of our Way and then respect Confucius to complement our Way.18 As indicated above, in Tōko’s writing we find clearly expressed the view colored by Shintō that Shintō is superior and Confucianism subordinate, with the teachings of Confucius reduced to a supporting, albeit large, role. These views strongly influenced the Restoration Loyalist samurai Yoshida Shōin (1830–1859), who was sharply critical of those who combined Shintō with Confucianism and Buddhism, treating them as equal aspects of a single whole.19 In his “enemies of Shintō” (神道之讎 Shintō no shū) theory explained in his 1855 Noyama Prison Manuscripts (野山獄文稿 Noyama gokubunkō), Shōin stated that, Confucianism and Buddhism supplement Shintō. But how can either Confucianism or Buddhism be compared with Shintō? Shintō is the ruler [君 Kimi]; Confucianism and Buddhism the ministers [相 Shō]. But ministers who see themselves as equal to rulers like the legs of a tripod should be punished. The vulgar views that Confucianism transformed the barbarians and civilized them and demonic monks abandon their rulers to worship Buddhas make them enemies of Shintō.20 98

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Since it is impossible for Shintō, Confucianism and Buddhism to form a tripod composed of equal elements, Shōin uses terms like “general” (將 shō), “minister” and “ruler” to clarify his comparison and draw attention to the primacy of Shintō.

From Meiji Restoration to the prewar period: the contextual turn from Kingly Way to Imperial Way Except for scholars associated with the Mito Learning School, Confucianists prior to the Meiji Restoration rarely used the term “Imperial Way.” Advocates of Imperial Learning, who stressed the Emperor’s divinity, more frequently used such terms as “Divine Emperor” or “Imperial Nation” (皇国 kōkoku). It is difficult to find anyone who used “Imperial Way.” From the Meiji Restoration until the 1930s and the Manchurian Incident, the term “Imperial Way” did not achieve universal currency. Except for a small handful of scholars, it was used interchangeably with “Kingly Way” and there was no clear difference between the two terms. In Taisho and early Showa, a new religion appeared—called Ōmotokyō (大本教)—that preached the Imperial Way ideal.21 But because its teachings, advocating the abolition of private property and taxes, were too radical for the times and took stands that transgressed the boundaries of Shintō, it was twice banned for violating then existing laws. Ōmotokyō beliefs were fundamentally different from those of government policy makers and other intellectuals who publicly advocated the use of “Imperial Way,” starting around 1932. Thus, this new religion was only a small interlude in the history of the Imperial Way ideal. For this reason, the 1930s are treated below as the boundary at which the Kingly Way underwent a contextual turn and became part of the discourse surrounding the Imperial Way. Ordinarily, when scholars search for the origins of Japan’s Kingly Way, they begin with the decree handed down by Amaterasu Ōmikami that Japan would be a land ruled by her descendants. In the Nihon Shoki (日本書紀) we find the words: This Reed-plain-1500-autumns-fair-rice-ear Land is the region that my descendants shall be lords of. Do thou my August Grandchild, proceed thither and govern it. Go! and may prosperity attend thy dynasty, and may it, like Heaven and Earth, endure forever.22 But the Kingly Way described here was, following the Meiji Restoration, always referred to as the “Imperial Way.” It was never discussed on an equal footing with China’s Kingly Way as described by Confucius and Mencius. From this we can infer that the distinction between the Kingly Way and Imperial Way in geographical terms was the product of modern thinking. During the Edo period, only a handful of scholars with the imperialistic historical perspective associated with the Mito Learning School discussed the difference in passing while addressing other topics. The Imperial Way had not yet become a topic for public debate. The first clear example of the authoritative use of “Imperial Way” occurs after the Manchurian Railway Incident on September 18, 1931. This is when Puyi, formerly China’s last emperor, was recruited by Japan to establish Manchuria as as a “Kingly Way Paradise” (王道 樂土 Ōdō rakudo), to embody the “Kingly Way Ideal” (王道理想 Ōdō shisō), guided by Japan’s “Imperial Way.” Before these events, the Kingly Way and Imperial Way were not clearly distinguished. Authors wishing to stress the Japanese-ness of Japan’s Imperial Way would use the phrase “the Way of the Gods” (惟神の道 Kannagara no michi), while using “the Way of Chapter 7: Modern Contextual Turns from “The Kingly Way” to “The Imperial Way”

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Emperors and Kings” (帝王の道 Teiō no michi) to describe China’s Kingly Way; but the difference remained without clarification. Thus, for example, the “father of Japanese capitalism” and founding member of the reorganized Confucian and Chinese Learning organization Shibunkai (斯文会), Shibusawa Eiichi, wrote in his “The Kingly Way and the Imperial Way” that, “The Imperial Way is the way of the First Kings, which in China is labeled the Kingly Way.” Shibusawa’s essay was published in 1922.23 That same year Tokyo University Professor Katō Genchi published his New Study of the Shintō Religion (神道の宗教学的新研究 Shintō no shūkyōteki shinkenkyū), in which he wrote that “The Way of the Gods (Shintō) and the Kingly Way or Imperial Way were one and the same,” 24 and later many Japanese emperors were recognized as ruling in accord with the Kingly way.25 Prior to the 1930s no clear distinction was drawn between the Kingly Way and the Imperial Way. While gods and men were differentiated, most people believed that the Imperial Way closely resembled the Kingly Way. It is common knowledge among scholars that discussion of the Kingly Way and Imperial Way was concentrated in the period from the Manchurian Incident through the end of WWII. This discussion was stimulated by Japan’s creation of Manchuria in northeast China.26 Following the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, military expansion gradually became Japan’s “sacred vocation.” Following its acquisition of Taiwan in 1895, Japan then swallowed up Korea in 1910, transforming it into a colony. Colonization of the Korean Peninsula allowed Japan to begin devouring China. The Manchurian Incident was a natural fruit of this process. Following the formation of Manchuria, founder and spiritual leader of the Black Dragon Society, Uchida Ryōhei wrote in his 1933 book Concerning the Imperial Way: Chinese civilization, Indian civilization, and European civilization all have their strengths and weaknesses. Among them, European civilization has given birth to modern civilization’s greatest calamities. The most urgent task confronting us is to undo those great calamities. To this end we must clearly expound the Imperial Way and make human hearts more virtuous. This is Japan’s mission, to save not only Japan itself but also all of humanity.27 Uchida Ryōhei’s proposals concerning the Imperial Way had a specific target, Zheng Xiaoxu, who in the early 1930s served concurrently as Manchuria’s Prime Minister, Army Minister and Education Minister. Zheng was a key figure in promoting the Kingly Way in Machuria both through his scholarly research and his promotion of the term “Kingly Way,” which took on renewed life in the 1930s following the founding of Manchuria. It then became another “conceptual tool,” becoming the basis for recognition and shaping of “new international law” throughout East Asia. Zheng Xiaoxu’s motivations for promoting the Kingly Way concept were, besides preserving order and advocating a return to proper imperial government, to use it as a weapon for resisting Western values and institutions and combating the Western-style democracy that had become popular since the 1911 founding of the Republic of China.28 However, Zheng Xiaoxu’s Kingly Way remained only an ideal and was never put into practice. For the practical exercise of power Zheng was dependent on Japan’s Kwantung Army. It was Uchida Ryōhei’s Imperial Way that determined the reality of the “Kingly Way Paradise” which Manchuria was supposed to become. We should note that there was no mature discussion of the Imperial Way before the creation of Manchuria. It was only after that event that the Imperial Way became a popular subject for study. It is, thus, demonstrably clear that the Kingly Way stimulated discussion of 100

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the Imperial Way. Whether Zheng Xiaoxu’s Kingly Way was or was not the genuine Kingly Way, there can be no denying that the Imperial Way drew sustenance from that Kingly Way. This may explain the popularity of the view that one was not the natural fruit of the other, but rather the product of its passage through the new nation’s propaganda apparatus. It is also necessary to include in this “popular subject” the Buddhism of that period, Imperial Way Buddhism, Imperial Zen and the efforts of the Imperial army to preach the Imperial Way in mainland China.29 How did the Imperial Way become a popular subject and how did Japanese intellectuals take the first steps to differentiate it from the Kingly Way and define the relationship between them? This is the question behind the following five brief conclusions, preliminary results of this author’s research.

Preliminary Conclusions Kingly Way and Imperial Way: four major differences Concerning differences between the Kingly Way and the Imperial Way, we now turn to the classic analysis by Kyushu University scholar Ōmori Kenzō. In a book posthumously published in 1937 Ōmori wrote: Peoples ruled by living gods call them “Emperor” and revere them as if they were Heaven itself. Rulers who serve Heaven and represent their peoples are called “King.” Those who embody Heaven and Earth lacking nothing become what tradition calls living gods; these can be called the Ultimate Emperors; everything under Heaven is one family and the loyalty of minister to ruler and the filial piety of son to father are the same. This great Way is called the Imperial Way. Intelligent and virtuous rulers who receive the clear Mandate of Heaven are called kings. They are the legitimate eldest sons of Heaven and care for and nurture all of their people. Their way is called the Kingly Way. […] For this reason, the founding of Manchuria brilliantly displayed the Kingly Way, proclaiming that it was one in both mind and virtue with our country. It is necessary, however, to notice and acknowledge the fundamental differences between us.30 Ōmori points to four major differences between the Imperial Way and the Kingly Way. First is god versus man. Second is the will of Heaven versus representing the people. Third is seeing all under Heaven as one family versus seeing the ruler as only the legitimate eldest son. Fourth is loyalty and filial piety versus benevolence and virtue. The Kingly Way gives greater weight to benevolence and virtue and relates to the fundamental character of Japan as a national polity (国体 kokutai). In contrast, the Bakumatsu era Mito Learning School stressed “a nation built on loyalty and filial piety.” Thus, for example, the Mito Learning scholar Aizawa Seishisai (1781–1863) in his New Theory (新論 Shinron) wrote that Japan is a national polity built by the gods and sages on loyalty and filial piety, from which are derived its martial spirit and concern for the fate of the people.31 “Nation built on loyalty and filial piety” and “loyalty and filial piety are one and the same” subsequently became core concepts put into practice by the government during the Meiji period.32 It is no accident that the Imperial Rescript on Education promulgated in 1890 does not include the Chinese character Chapter 7: Modern Contextual Turns from “The Kingly Way” to “The Imperial Way”

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for “benevolence” (仁). This was the result of intense debate resulting in a sharp distinction between the Confucian Kingly Way which teaches civilization and virtue versus the martial spirit and absolute reverence embodied in Japan’s Imperial Way. The Imperial Way preceded the Kingly Way Advocates of Japan’s Imperial Way refused to acknowledge the Imperial Way’s roots in China’s Kingly Way. Thus, for example, in a 1932 essay “Imperial Way Japan and Kingly Way Manchuria,” Ehira Shigeo wrote the following, It is said that Japan’s Imperial Way originated from China’s Confucian tradition. This is a great mistake. Chinese thinking spread to our country around the reign of Emperor Nintoku. The Imperial Way had already existed from earlier times, the time when Japan was established as a nation, no, from the time of the gods. Its fundamental principles were already formed in the Yamato era. It is for this reason that the Confucian teachings included in contemporary education are those consistent with the purity of originally Japanese thought. To supinely accept the influence of Chinese writing and accept what Mencius says about abdication in favor of virtuous successors, is unacceptable. We should only accept those parts that aid in the development of our own national thought [我が国民思 想 Waga kokumin shisō]33 This passage reveals three points about the development of this intellectual history. First, the Imperial Way is Japan’s own creation. It is thus unnecessary to passively accept Confucian teachings. Second, Shintō is the primary source of the Imperial Way. Confucianism is secondary. Third, Imperial Way nation Japan cannot accept Mencius’ theory of abdication in favor of virtuous successors; Japan can only accept whatever contributes to development of “national thought.” This third point demonstrates clearly how the scholars who developed the Imperial Way ideology did everything they could to escape Chinese influence. Forcefully asserting that the Imperial Way was Japan’s primordial heritage, they argued that for Chinese thought to enter Japan, it must undergo a “contextual turn” and become adapted to local conditions. It was not only Confucianism that was Japanized when transmitted to Japan. The same was true of Buddhism as well. Especially noteworthy is the way in which Ehira deploys the concept “national thought,” employing a modern idea anachronistically to interpret ancient thinking. Here we see him insisting on inserting “national consciousness,” (国 家意識 Kokka ishiki) a modern idea into his reading of ancient texts, allowing ideas like “the Japanese nation” (日本国民 Nihon kokumin) and “unifying the national polity” to influence his interpretation. Of course, these moves had a political purpose. When Manchuria was created in 1932, Japan’s intention was to make Manchuria a nation governed by the Kingly Way, subordinate to Japan’s Imperial Way and its people a nation sympathetic with Japan’s idea of what a nation should be. Thus was the Imperial way extended outside of Japan. Kingly Way ideals guided by the Imperial Way The Imperial Way could assist Manchuria’s becoming the paradise promised by the Kingly Way. When, however, Japanese scholars and the Japanese military used the slogan “Kingly Way Paradise,” 34 their subtext was that in China the Kingly Way was still at the stage

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of illegitimate hegemony. The Chinese were unable to fully realize Kingly Way ideals. Satō Keijirō, a leading member of the conservative agrarianist Imperial Way Self-Government Association (皇道自治会 Kōdō jichikai) offered the following explanation in 1932: As things now stand, a large proportion of the Manchu and Mongol population (around a third, 20 million people) see the Kingly Way as their own ideal. But because their understanding stops at the level of the text, there are recurring attempts to overthrow and reform the government. The result is always some form of illegitimate hegemonic rule. The place is a decadent mess, untamable with local resources alone.35 Because decadent China was unable to achieve the Kingly Way, it had repeatedly fallen under illegitimate, hegemonic rule. Support from Japan’s Imperial Way was required to realize the ideals of the Kingly Way. Providing this support was the role of those who promoted the Imperial Way. China’s Kingly Way was only an ideal, without practical authority. It needed the help of a higher power, Japan’s Imperial Way. The Confucian scholar Yasuoka Masahiro is another typical example of those who held these views about the Kingly Way. The 1932 publication of Research on the Kingly Way—Eastern Political Science (王道の研究——東洋政治學 Ōdō no kenkyū—tōyō seijigaku) also coincided with the creation of Manchuria. We can see in the title of his book that he saw the Kingly Way ideal as the core of “Eastern political science.” Yasuoka always rejected the use of the term “revolution” to describe the Meiji Restoration, arguing that Japan’s “restoration” (維新 ishin) and China’s “revolution” (革命 kakumei) were not the same. While acknowledging the reality of both the Kingly Way and Hegemonic Way (霸道 Hadō), he did his utmost to call into question Mencius’ statement that, “The people are of supreme importance; the altars to the gods of earth and grain are next; last comes the ruler,” claiming that was a modest statement that only a ruler should use in speaking of himself; it must not be said by his ministers. It is no surprise, then, that he rejected Mencius’ theory that a decadent ruler could be replaced. Claiming to act on behalf of the people to seize the throne for oneself was violent usurpation and the reason why the Hegemonic Way had prevailed in China, and China lacked true Kings as its rulers. making its government unstable and subject to frequent armed uprisings.36 According to Yasuoka, a nation with a proper King had never existed in China. The Kingly Way was realized in only one nation, by Japan’s unique Emperor system.37 He wrote, The intentions of the Kingly Way are unchanging. In today’s China, however, there is only the Hegemonic Way or Way of Usurper Kings. The true Kingly Way shines most brightly in the Way of Japan’s Emperor. That is why so many, who have not thought carefully, misunderstand the Kingly Way and call it the “Imperial Way.” 38 Yasuoka’s equating the Kingly Way and Imperial Way erases the attribution of the Kingly Way to China. China has known only the Hegemonic Way. It follows, then, that in the politics of the Far East the true realization of the Kingly Way can only be found in Japan. Indeed, in China since the Kingly Way was proposed, high points have occurred in only a few dynasties. As Lu Xun said, “In China there has never been a fully realized Kingly Way.” He wrote these sharply critical words, “As proved by the facts of our long history, those who Chapter 7: Modern Contextual Turns from “The Kingly Way” to “The Imperial Way”

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have used the words ‘Kingly Way’ in the past were not to be taken seriously. Those who speak of it now are offering new medicine.” 39 Another rare but not unique example is the eminent early 20th-century historian of China, Naitō Torajirō (pen name Konan), who following the creation of Manchuria, when everyone in Japan, high and low, was talking about the Kingly Way, carefully considered the matter, saying, “Although the expression ‘Kingly Way’ originated in China, if we examine China’s history, we find that there is no era in which the Kingly Way actually existed.” 40 The Kingly Way is only an ancient ideal, nothing more than an exegesis from ancient texts. The Kingly Way, this empty ideal, overlooked the importance of power, treating power as an attribute of the illegitimate Hegemonic Way. Below we see how Ehira Shigeo, in 1932, offered a new interpretation of the relationship between virtue and power: The Kingly Way ideology despised power and made virtue its essential element. Imperial Way ideology sees power as a natural manifestation of spirit, the power that comes from awareness of love, power whose foundation is love and becomes an instrument of this natural spirit. These two interpretations are fundamentally different. Confucian thinking develops from the idea of a virtuous nation that rejects nations in which authority depends on power. This thinking derives from a source fundamentally different from the traditional sources of Japanese thinking.41 “Virtue” and “power:” In Mencius’ version of the Kingly Way, these ideas distinguish the Kingly Way from the Hegemonic Way, which can be expressed in the paraphrase “The King uses virtue to rule his people; the Hegemon uses power.” 42 It is for this reason that Ehira Shigeo said that the Kingly Way despises power, while the Imperial Way insists on power. But this “power” is a manifestation of “natural spirit,” whose foundation is “love.” That love is like the love of a mother for her child, that may naturally compel her to use force in its defense. Ehira argues that because the Kingly Way ideal lacks this concrete manifestation of power, its significance is restricted to theoretical essays. If read with proper understanding, these theories point to the higher level of the Imperial Way, which is rooted in the power of love. It thus surpasses the power of the Hegemonic Way, which depends on military force and authority. Because the Imperial Way accepts this use of power (power rooted in love) it can manifest the ideals of the Kingly Way in a manner that the Kingly Way itself cannot. Broad versus narrow definitions The distinction between broad and narrow definitions of the Kingly Way can be found in the work of the journalist and Sinologist Tachibana Shiraki, an enthusiastic commentator on the theoretical construction of the Kingly Way nation. To Tachibana, the Kingly Way in the broad sense was a universal ideal that transcended national boundaries. The Kingly Way in a narrow sense, took on a distinctive national character confined to a particular people. The former supported the practical success of the Imperial Way of the Japanese people. The latter had survived in China. Tachibana wrote the following in 1942: What is called the Kingly Way is the goal of political practice and throughout East Asia it is an ideal for a perfectly virtuous society. The Kingly Way, broadly

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defined in this manner is realized concretely through the medium of particular histories. These local variations are the Kingly Way as narrowly defined. Strictly speaking the narrow definition applies only to China. What is now called the Kingly Way in Manchuria is different. In the decade since Manchuria was founded, this difference has become increasingly clear. In Japan, what is called the Imperial Way is another distinctive form of the Kingly Way developed over the course of many years. The Kingly Way in the broad sense is the product of the temperate zone’s moist climate. Put into practice in Japan, it became the Imperial Way. What is distinctive about the Imperial Way? In a word, the national polity. There is nothing wrong with saying that the Imperial Way is the Kingly Way reshaped by the distinctive features of Japan’s national polity. But what is the national polity? The Imperial Rescript on Education tells us, “Our Imperial Ancestors have founded Our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue; Our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire, and herein lies the source of Our education.” 43 Besides using “supranational” (超民族 chōminzoku) versus “national” (民族 minzoku) to distinguish broad and narrow definitions of “Kingly Way,” Shiraki also uses the geographical notion of “temperate moist zone” to suggest that those who live in similar environments will share pursuit of the Kingly Way as part of their cultures. Cultures formed in the temperate zone will develop similar flavors of virtue and pursue the development of the Kingly Way as a higher form of government. Shiraki distinguishes this form of cultural development from that which occurs in dry, desert zones. According to his theory, Japan, China, Manchuria and Korea are all located in temperate moist zones, but only China developed the Kingly Way in the narrowly defined sense. In contrast, Japan is the leading example of a nation whose Imperial Way achieves the more broadly defined Kingly Way ideal. Japan’s Imperial Way is based on the national polity, and that is the reason for its success in Manchuria. Using similar logic, Japan should proceed in the same way to expand its territory in China, where it will achieve a similar success. Relative versus absolute Besides scholars who used broad and narrow definitions to distinguish the Imperial Way from the Kingly Way, there were those who explained their difference in terms of absolute versus relative perspectives. The following texts are by the Buddhist scholar and priest Ma­ tsu­bara Chion, written in 1943: The Kingly Way is relative, the Imperial Way absolute. The Kingly Way respects the people’s will and measures its success by how well it accords with the people’s wishes. Because its subjects are individuals, differences arise among them. Thus, the Kingly Way cannot endure forever. The king is only a king, a king who represents the people’s interests. When unity of purpose is lost, he loses his authority. In this respect he resembles his ministers and may die at the hands of a rebel like An Lushan. Because king and ministers frequently oppose each other, the Kingly

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Way is fragile. The Shoguns were hegemonic rulers who imitated the Kingly Way. For this reason, they, too, rose and fell. It can, thus, be said that the Kingly Way could not last forever in our country. The Kingly Way seeks to reassure the people, but that means satisfying individuals. The Imperial Way is to naturally extend the burden of compassion to all equally, to make the joys and sufferings of all one’s own, to take responsibility for the good and evil deeds of ordinary people. … The Imperial Way is the manifestation of this Way, I, as a minister, believe in and follow this Way. That is the whole of this Way. Because the West lacks this Way, its royal dynasties do not survive for long. Because each claims perfection for itself, the battle of ideas is endless. While China once had this Way, it was never able to manifest it completely. Thus emperors were forced to abdicate, dynasties replaced one another. This Way, the Imperial Way, overcomes the selfishness that lies at the root of all disasters. It transcends egotism and opposition between self and other.44 In these passages, Matsubara Chion attempts to elucidate the ethical character of Japan’s Imperial Way. He argues that the Imperial Way surpasses the Kingly Way and the paths taken by the Western Imperialist Nations. He offers the one-sided argument that only the Imperial Way displays a natural and equal compassion for all. His argument depends, however, on the assertion that the Imperial Way is absolute and the Kingly Way is relative. The key difference lies in the Kingly Way’s king, who acts in accordance with his own wishes (which may be what the people want). Because, however, his intentions are personal, others will oppose them. Ministers may replace, even kill, their rulers. Dynasties change. In contrast, the Imperial Way transcends individual interests. It “naturally” takes responsibility for the people’s joys and sufferings and their good and evil deeds. In other words, the Kingly Way is “manmade,” the relationship of ruler and minister is relative. The Imperial Way is the fruit of direct, unbroken descent from the gods, making the relationship of ruler and minister absolute. We have briefly analyzed five types of attempts to specify the differences between the Kingly Way and the Imperial Way, examining each explanation and describing the reasons they offer. All are deficient in logic and lack historical evidence; all are attempts at selfjustification or wishful thinking. Underlying, however, this type of Imperial Way discourse, we find in every case the assumption that Japan is a successful nation-state (民族国家 minzoku kokka) that desires to expand into other nation’s territories. It must, therefore, find a way to transcend the borders of the nation-state and assert concepts with universal value, to enable different groups to co-exist and prosper together. As a result, during this period Japanese intellectuals were forced to go beyond the Confucian Kingly Way, whose value was already acknowledged worldwide. They had to elevate the Imperial Way and justify their claim that the Imperial Way was superior to the Kingly Way. But given these assumptions, how was it possible to offer a higher, still universal value? “God” was the answer. The assertion that Japan’s emperor was a god could be grounded in the myths that described the formation of the Japanese nation. But this origin implied that he could not be the Bible’s Jehovah, the Creator of the World. Trapped by this contradiction, they were forced to argue that a puffed-up interpretation of Japan’s uniqueness was of higher value than universality.

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Conclusion The Bakumatsu Mito Learning’s “Way of the Divine Emperor” was the seed from which the discussion of the Imperial Way grew. Because open support for “Imperial authority” was suppressed, “Respect for the Emperor” became its focus. From the Meiji Restoration (1868) to the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890), as modern Japanese statehood took firm shape, ceremonies, governance and education were united in a system of authority called State Shintō.45 Japan began to seize territory outside its own borders on the way to becoming a colonial power. The reign of the Meiji Emperor marked its greatest expansion of Imperial authority. The Emperor became a “living god,” a reality asserted to be fact in the Meiji Constitution. During the movement to make the Emperor divine, the Imperial Way was debated under the umbrella of Shintō. We can call this time the Imperial Way’s incubation period. The 1932 creation of Manchuria and Prime Minister Zheng Xiaoxu’s call to create a “Kingly Way paradise” expressing the hope that Japan’s Imperial Way would guide the new nation’s Kingly Way, stimulated and paved the way for the Imperial Way’s mature form. It is certain that throughout the development of the Imperial Way, during its sprouting, incubation and maturation, the Confucian Kingly Way was an indispensable reference. In other words, the Kingly Way stimulated Shintō, nourished Shintō, and became a key concept in the elevation of the Imperial Way. These facts alone warrant a deeper investigation. The Imperial Way is in every way, in every place, a product of modernity, what Eric Hobsbawm et al. have labeled an “invented tradition.” 46 Originally, no difference was seen between Confucianism and Shintō. Then, during the Bakumatsu “contextual turn,” Shintō took center stage, with Confucianism assigned a secondary, supporting role. Shintō would lead; the Kingly Way would follow. Then, as Japan modernized, there was another contextual turn, whose guiding concept asserted that the Imperial Way would provide the guidance that the Kingly Way required. During Japan’s modernization, the Confucian Kingly Way became of less and less value, increasingly relegated to a take-it or leave-it position.

Notes 1 Showa Emperor, Rescript on the Construction of a New Japan (Humanity Declaration), translation from Theodore McNelly, ed., Sources in Modern East Asian History and Politics (New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1967), 175–76. 2 Those most strongly influenced by Japan’s “nation-state” concept included China’s revolutionaries and reformers. Before the 1911 revolution, Sun Yat-sen said “End our captivity.” After the revolution, he proclaimed a “republic of five peoples.” Both slogans contain elements of Japanese “nation-state” thinking. When the reformer Liang Qichao regretted China’s lack of the concepts “state” and “nation,” he displayed the influence of his exile in Japan. For related research see Wang Ke, Minzu zhuyi yu jindai zhongri guanxi [民族主義與近代中 日關係 Nationalism and the Sino-Japanese relationship in the modern era] (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015). 3 Chun-chieh Huang, East Asian Confucianisms: Texts in Contexts (Göttingen and Taipei: V&R Unipress and National Taiwan University Press, 2015), 41–56. 4 The “prototype theory” is Maruyama Masao’s most famous idea. He developed this theory to explain how, in the course of Japan’s intellectual history, ideas from outside Japan were received and adapted. As these ideas were accepted, they passed through subjective filters and were, thus, assimilated by the Japanese spirit. Ideas that, through the ceaseless interaction between newer and older strata accumulated at the lowest layer became prototypes. See “Genkei, kosō, shitsuyōteion” [原型・古層・執拗低音 Prototypes, layers of history, and

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basso ostinato] in Maruyama Masao shū dai juni kan [丸山真男集 第12巻 Maruyama Masao: collected works, Vol. 12] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1996), 149–53. 5 Sima Qian, “Taishigong zixu” [ 太史公自序 Autobiography of the senior archivist], Shiji [史記 Records of the Grand Historian, Vol. 130] (Taipei: Ding Wen Shu Publisher, 1981), 3297. Passages translated by John McCreery. 6 Sima Qian, “Taishigong zixu,” 3297. 7 Hayashi Razan, “Shintō denja” [ 神道傳授 Reception of Shintō tradition] in Abe Akio, edited with annotations by Taira Shigemichi, Kinsei Shintōron-zenki kokuhaku [近世神道論•前期國學 Modern Shintō debates: early national learning] in Nihon shisō taikei [日本思想大系 Compendium of Japanese thought, Vol. 39], ed. Ienaga Saburo and Taira Shigemichi (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1982), 21. 8 Dong Zhongshu, “Wangdao tongsan” [ 王道通三 The Way of Kings Completes the Three], Chunqiu fanlu [春 秋繁露 Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals, Vol. 11] (Taipei: Zhonghua Shuju, 1975), 57. Passage translated by John McCreery. 9 Hayashi Razan, “Shintō denja,” 12–13. 10 Kaibara Ekken, Jingi [ 神祇 Gods of heaven and earth] in Ekken zenshū [益軒全集 Ekken collected works, Vol. 3] (Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1973), 645. 11 Huang Shouqi and Zhang Shan, eds., Zhouyi yizhu [ 周易譯注 Zhouyi, translated with annotations] (Taipei: Hanjing Cultural Enterprise, 1992), 173. Text translated by John McCreery. 12 Kumazawa Banzan, “Shugi gaisho shō” [ 集義外書抄 Excerpts from collected works on morality] in Yōmeigaku Daikei no Nihon no Yōmeigaku [陽明学大系之日本の陽明学 Compendium of Yangming Learning, Japan’s Yangming Learning] (Tokyo: Meitoku Shuppansha, 1973), 39, 496–97. 13 Kumazawa Banzan, Daigaku wakumon [ 大学或問 Responding to the Great Learning] in Banzan zenshū [蕃 山全集 Banzan collected works, Vol. 3] (Tokyo: Banzan Collected Works Society, 1940), 269. 14 Kumazawa Banzan, “Shugi gaisho shō,” 494. 15 Hoashi Banri, “Nyugaku shinron” [ 入学新論 New theory of beginning study] in Kinsei kōki juka shū [近世 後期儒家集 Late period early modern Confucianists], ed. Einaga Saburō and Okata Takehiko, in Nihon Shiso Taikei [日本思想大系 A compendium of Japanese thought, Vol, 47] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1984), 393. 16 Sakuma Taika, “Wakan meiben” [ 和漢明弁 Japan vs China explained], in Seki Giichiro, ed., Nihon jurin sōsho dai yon satsu [日本儒林叢書第4冊 Compendium of Japanese Confucianism, Vol. 4] (Tokyo; Tōyō Tosho Kankōkai, 1929), 4–7. 17 Fujita Tōko, “Kaitenshishi” [ 回天詩史 Poetry that changed the world], in Tōko zenshū [東湖全書 Tōko complete works] (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1940), 44. 18 Fujita Poetry “Kaitenshishi,” 105. 19 Yoshida Shōin, Noyama gokubunkō [ 野山獄文稿 Noyama prison manuscripts], in Yamaguchi-ken kyōiku kai, ed., Yoshida Shōin zenshū dai ni kan [吉田松陰全集第2巻 Complete works of Yoshida Shoin, Vol. 2], ed. Yamaguchi-ken kyōikukai (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten: 1934–36), 34. 20 Yoshida, Noyama gokubunkō, 34. 21 Deguchi Onisaburo (1871–1948) is said to be the founder of Ōmotokyō. In 1898 he established the Imperial Way Study Society in Kyoto. In 1903 he founded a religion, the Imperial Way Association, which in 1909 began publishing a newsletter titled Jikireigun (Upright Spirit Army), which criticized other religions and other Shintō sects. In 1912, the group changed its name to Omotokyo, then in 1915 changed it again to Imperial Way Ōmoto religion. Because its teachings were deemed too radical, it was twice banned, in 1921 and 1935. For related research see Mizuuchi Nagata, Kōdō ōmoto no shisō to kōdō—Kōdō ōmoto zenshi [皇道大本の思想 と行動——皇道大本前史 Imperial Way ōmoto in thought and action—the prehistory of Imperial Way ōmoto] Jinbungakuhō [人文学報 Journal of humanities] 108 (2015): 85–96. 22 Maruyama Rinpei, “Kamiyoshita, Tenson korin” [ 神代下‧天孫降臨 After the age of the gods and arrival of the heavenly descendants] in Teihon Nihonshoki [定本日本書紀 Nihon Shoki, revised edition, Vol. 2] (Tokyo: Kodansha), 52. 23 Shibusawa Eiichi, “Ōdō to kōdō” [ 王道と皇道 The Kingly Way and the Imperial Way] in Shibusawa shishaku katsurongo [渋沢子爵活論語 Viscount Shibuzawa’s living analects], ed. Adachi Daisuke (Tokyo: Sendensha, 1922), 181–82. 24 Katō Genchi, “Shintō to Nōdō moshiku wa Ōdō no kankei” [ 神道と皇道若くは王道との關係 Shintō and the Imperial Way’s relationship with the Kingly Way] in Shintō no shūkyōteki shinkenkyū [神道の宗教学的新研究 New study of the Shintō religion] (Tokyo: Daitokaku, 1922) Chapter 6, Part 9, 365–72.

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25 See, for example, Yamada Yoshinao, whose Kokushi kyōzai no mikata [ 国史教材の観方 Observations on materials for teaching Japanese history] (Tokyo: Meguro Shoten, 1927) includes a section titled “Consistencies in the Kingly Way of Japan’s Emperors,” in which he points to historical examples of previous emperors practicing the Kingly Way. 26 Chen Wei-fen, “Dao, wangdao, huangdao gainian zai jindai riben de quanshi” [ 「道」 、 「王道」 、 「皇道」概念在近 代日本的詮釋 Annotations of ‘the Way,’ ‘the Kingly Way’ and ‘the Imperial Way’ concepts in modern Japan] in Gao Mingshi, ed., Dongya wenhuaquan de xingcheng yu fazhan: rujia sixiang pian [東亞文化圈的形成與發 展：儒家思想篇 The formation and development of the East Asian cultural sphere] (Taipei: National Taiwan University History Department, 2003), 278–82. 27 Uchida Ryōhei, Kōdō ni tsuite [ 皇道に就いて Concerning the Imperial Way] (Tokyo: Black Dragon Society Publications, 1933), 5. 28 For a related analysis see Lin Chih-hung, “Wangdao letu: qinggan de dizhi he canyu ‘manzhouguo’ zhi disijie” [王道樂土：情感的抵制和參與「滿州国」之第四節 Kingly Way optimists: emotional resistance to participation in Manchuria], in Minguo nai diguo ye: zhengzhi wenhua zhuanxing xiade qing yimin [民国乃敵国也： 政治文化轉型下的清遺民 Enemies of the republic: Qing loyalists under a changing political culture] (Taipei: Lianjing Publishing Company, 2009), 331–59. 29 For recent research on Imperial Way Buddhism, see Nino Kazunobu, Kōdō Bukkyō to tairiku fukyō: jūgonen sensōki no shūkyō to kokka [皇道仏教と大陸布教——十五年戦争期の宗教と国家 Imperial Way Buddhism and its preaching in China—religion and nation during fifteen years of war] (Tokyo: Shakaihyoronsha, 2014). “Fifteen years” refers to the period between the Manchurian Incident in 1931 and Japan’s defeat in 1945. 30 Professor Ōmori Kenzō Memorial Society, ed., Ōmori Kenzō Kyōju ikō [ 大森研造教授遺稿 Professor Ōmori Kenzō’s posthumous manuscripts] (Professor Ōmori Kenzō Memorial Society, 1937), 331. 31 Aizawa Seishisai, “Shinron” [ 新論 New theory] in Mitkogaku: Nihon shisō taikei 53 [水戸学：日本思想大 系‧53 Mito School: compendium of Japanese thought 53], eds. Imai Usaburō, Seya Yoshihiko and Bitō Masahide (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1973), 382. 32 In the sacred principles listed at the beginning of the Imperial Rescript on Education, the four terms, “Benevolence,” “Righteousness,” “Loyalty” and “Filial Piety” are listed as of equal value. The explanation reads as follows:

Ye, Our subjects, be filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious; as friends true; bear yourselves in modesty and moderation; extend your benevolence to all; pursue learning and cultivate arts, and thereby develop intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers; furthermore advance public good and promote common interests; always respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth. In the Meiji Emperor’s Confucian tutor Motoda Nagasane’s “Appendix on Education” in Katō Shūichi, ed., Kyōiku no taikei [教育の体系 System of education] (Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1991), 84, we find the comment: “In essence, the Sacred Principles clarify the meaning of ‘Benevolence, Righteousness, Loyalty, and Filial Piety.’ ” 33 Ehira Shigeo, “Kōdōshugi Nihon to Ōdōshugi Manshū” [ 皇道主義日本と王道主義滿州 Imperial Way Japan and Kingly Way Manchuria] in Gendai shisōkai no dōkō to shinkō Nihonshugi [現代思想界の動向と新興日本主 義 Trends in contemporary thought and the new Japanism] (Tokyo: Sanyudo Shoten, 1932), 104. 34 Satō Keijirō, “Ōdōrakuto no kensetsu to sono hihan” [ 王道樂土の建設とその批判 Constructing the Kingly Way Paradise: a critique], in Satō Keijirō, Kyokutō henkyoku to Nihon no shōrai [極東変局と日本の将来 The changing situation in the Far East and Japan’s future] (Tokyo: Jinbukai Hongu, 1932), 50. 35 Satō, “Ōdōrakuto no kensetsu to sono hihan.” 36 Yasuoka Masahiro, Ōdō no kenkyū—tōyō seijigaku [ 王道の研究——東洋政治学 Research on the Kingly Way— Far Eastern political science] (Tokyo: Chichi Publishing, 2013), 261–64. The quotation from Mencius comes from Mencius, D.C. Lau, trans., (London: Penguin, 1970), VIIB 14. 37 Yasuoka, Ōdō no kenkyū—tōyō seijigaku, 271–72. 38 Yasuoka, Ōdō no kenkyū—tōyō seijigaku, 271–72. 39 Lu Xun, “Guanyu zhongguo de liangsan jianshi” [ 關於中国的兩三件事 Concerning two or three incidents in China], Qiejieting wenji [且介亭雜文集 Qiejieting Essays], in Lu Xun quanji [魯迅全集 Lu Xun complete works, Chapter 7: Modern Contextual Turns from “The Kingly Way” to “The Imperial Way”

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Vol. 6] (Beijing: Peoples Literature Publishing, 1996), 9–11. In this essay Lu Xun describes the relationship of the Kingly Way to the Hegemonic Way as like that of an older to a younger brother. 40 Naitō Torajirō, “Manshukoku kongo no hōshin ni tsuite” [ 滿州国今後の方針に就て Concerning the future direction of Manchuria], in Naitō Konan zenshū dairoku kan [內藤湖南全集 第6巻 Collected works of Naitō Konan, Vol. 6] (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1977), 181–85. 41 Ehira Shigeo “Kōdōshugi Nihon to Ōdōshugi Manshū,” 110. 42 See Mencius IIA 3. 43 Tachibana Shiraki, Shokuiki hōkōron [ 職域奉公論 Duty and public service] (Tokyo; Nihon Hyoronsha, 1942), 174–75. 44 Matsubara Chion, Nihon rinri no tokusei: seishi chōetsu no gyō toshite no chūkō [ 日本倫理の特性 : 生死超越の 行としての忠孝 The uniqueness of Japanese ethics: loyalty and filial piety that transcend life and death] (Tokyo: Nihon Kyōgakukenkyūkai, 1943), 25–28. 45 For the latest research on State Shintō, see Shimazono Susumu, Kokka Shintō to Nihonjin [State Shintō and the Japanese] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2010). This book distinguishes between State Shintō narrowly defined and State Shintō broadly defined, restricting the former to Shrine Shintō but including imperial household ritual and Kokutai ideals in the latter. 46 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

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Chapter 8 The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought: The Link between Daitō Bunka Gakuin and Chosŏn Gyunghakwon Kang Haesoo Translated by Ruth and John McCreery

Confucius was neither an advocate of classicism nor a glib progressive. He made the Great Way his model, led fairly, did not divide the scholar and the warrior, combined wisdom, benevolence, and courage, respected the ruler and loved the nation. Everything he held up was perfectly consistent with the Japanese Spirit. His virtuous teachings clarify superbly our Imperial Way and have long provided support for our Imperial Way.1 (Takada Shinji, “The Greater East Asian War and the Shibunkai”). Our Shibunkai has long supported the promotion of the precepts in the Imperial Rescript on Education, by purifying the teachings of Confucius and integrating them with the Imperial Way. Simply stated, we could call it Mito Learning.2 (Uno Tetsudō, “The Mission of the Shibunkai in the Current Situation”).

Introduction: Memories of Imperial Way Confucianism in Korea

This essay investigates discourse concerning Imperial Way Confucianism (皇道儒教 Kōdō jukyō) considered academically authoritative in Korea, in terms of the intellectual links between Imperial Japan and colonial Korea. While research on Imperial Way Buddhism has produced substantial results in Japan, Imperial Way Confucianism in colonial Korea has yet to become a common topic, appearing primarily in colonial-era research by Korean students studying in Japan related to the Chosŏn Gyunghakwon Confucianism Institute (조선 경학원; Chapter 8: The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought

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in Japanese 朝鮮経学院 Chōsen Keigakuin),3 together with occasional mentions in modern and religious history written by Japanese or Korean scholars. The majority of the research related to Imperial Way Confucianism was conducted by individuals affiliated with Daitō Bunka University (大東文化大学 Daitō Bunka Daigaku), founded as Daitō Bunka Gakuin (大 東文化学院) in 1924,4 and re-founded as a university in 1949. Its mission statement included the study of “Confucianism that purifies the Imperial Way and national polity.” It cannot be said, however, that the scope of this research included Japanese Confucianism or Imperial Way Confucianism in the 1930s. Daitō Bunka Gakuin graduates were employed by the Gyunghakwon, the colonial Korean Myeongnyun Hakwon academy (명륜학원; in Japanese 明 倫学院 Meirin Gakuin) which was located on the Gyunghakwon’s grounds (later titled 명륜전 문학교 Myeongnyun Jeonmun Hakgyo; in Japanese 明倫専門学校 Meirin Senmon Gakko) or the Korean Confucianism Federation (조선유도연합회 Chosŏn-yudoyeonhabho; in Japanese 朝鮮 儒道連合会 Chōsen judō rengōkai, formed on October 16, 1939), as mid-level officials charged with promoting Imperial Way Confucianism in Korea. In Japan there has been no research at all on those Korean scholars, including Ahn In-sik and Joo Byung-kŏn, who studied Imperial Way Confucianism.5 The same was true of research on the social and intellectual networks that included Japanese intellectuals and those connected with the Gyunghakwon or Myeong­nyun Hakwon, formed through ties created at Daitō Bunka Gakuin. Previous research on Imperial Way Confucianism in Korea has largely begun with “From Kingly Way Confucianism to Imperial Way Confucianism” (December 1939), by Takahashi Tōru (formerly professor in the law and literature faculty, and Korean literature department chair at the Keijō Imperial University), and considered his relationship with the Government-General of Korea and the Korean Confucianism Society. As the research reported here shows, however, the spread of discourse surrounding Imperial Way Confucianism as “purification of the Imperial Way and national polity” or “Japanese Confucianism” was, despite the on-going Government-General policy, largely confined to the Gyunghakwon, Myeongnyun Hakwon, and Korean Confucianism Federation circle with Ahn In-sik and Joo Byung-kŏn at its center. If we consider the role of Ahn and other members of the Gyunghakwon, Myeongnyun Hakwon, and Korean Confucianism Federation in exchanges concerning Japanese Confucianism as “Confucianism Purified by and Amalgamated into the Imperial Way” in their efforts to spread Imperial Way Confucianism in Korea, we learn that Takahashi, a graduate from the Chinese literature faculty of Tokyo Imperial University, played only a peripheral role in debate about Imperial Way Confucianism. This essay proceeds from a different angle than previous research on Imperial Way Confucianism in Korea, which has mainly taken Takahashi Tōru’s Imperial Way Confucianism as its starting point. Instead, it attempts to explain shared features of the “Confucianism Purified and Amalgamated into the Imperial Way” and “Confucianism Purified and Amalgamated into the Imperial Way and National Polity” (国体 kokutai) narrative jointly constructed by scholars from Daitō Bunka Gakuin in Japan and the Gyunghakwon–Myeongnyun Hakwon circle in Korea. Some readers may wonder why a study of Imperial Way Confucianism is approached from the Korean side of this discourse. Others may question what discourse on Japanese Confucianism originating at Daitō Bunka Gakuin meant in colonial Korea. For these reasons, this essay begins by exploring explanations of Imperial Way Confucianism and Japanese Confucianism by Ahn In-sik and Joo Byung-kŏn, who had been postgraduate students at Daitō Bunka Gakuin. Lastly, I will discuss the ideological work of Imperial Way Confucianism discourse reawakened in post-liberation Korea and postwar Japan. 112

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Daitō Bunka Gakuin and Gyunghakwon—Myeongnyun Hakwon The influence of the policy of promoting Imperial Way Confucianism was extended to colonial Korea in May 1938 following its implementation by National Mobilization Officials. But intellectual work on Imperial Way Confucianism had begun in Japan in the 1920s. Soon there was a narrative explaining how Confucianism could be purified and amalgamated into the Imperial Way. One base for creating this narrative was Daitō Bunka Gakuin in Tokyo, where the Society for Promotion of Japanese Confucianism (日本儒教宣揚会 Nihon jukyō senyōkai), founded in January 1934, published “Purifying Confucianism for the Imperial Way and National Polity” (皇道及國體に醇化せる儒教 Kōdō kyū kokutai ni junka seru Jukyō) in its periodical Japan’s Confucianism (日本の儒教 Nihon no Jukyō) the following June, one of the first appearances of this topic in the history of Japanese thought. On March 27, 1933, Imperial Japan had formally withdrawn from the League of Nations, leaving international society and becoming increasingly “isolated Japan.” In March 1921, ten members of the Japanese Imperial Diet’s House of Representatives, led by Kinoshita Shigetarō, proposed an “Act Related to Revival of Classical Chinese Learning (漢学 kangaku)” that led to the formation of the Eastern Culture Society (大東文化協会 Daitō bunka kyōkai) and the founding of Daitō Bunka Gakuin. The proposed act proclaimed: The Chinese Classics had since ancient times contributed to the creation of Japan’s culture and continued to be an accepted and beneficial component of Japanese thought. This makes the creation of a place for reviving the Chinese Classics and debating their relevance to the current situation an urgent matter. Thus we hope that the government will take appropriate measures for this purpose.6 Following the act’s passage by the Diet, the Eastern Culture Society was founded on February 11, 1923, then converted to an incorporated foundation in September of the same year. The first section of its bylaws, “Purposes and Programs,” declares that the foundation was being formed to propagate Confucianism to support reverence for the Imperial Way, purify the national polity, and nurture the people’s morality.7 Egi Kazuyuki, who later became vicechairman of the foundation, commented on its purposes as follows: Since the Great War, the brilliance of European civilization has in a brief moment been extinguished. The world of thought has been thrown into chaos. Culture must now be reconstructed along different lines. To meet the demands of this moment, our Japan has to preserve and revive its ancient culture. It is not enough to display the glory of our nation. We must, I believe, spread it throughout the Far East, building on the culture of the Far East to contribute to global culture. However, to achieve the purpose of this project, although Japan must lead this effort, we cannot rely on the people of Japan alone.8 Itō Takashi, a researcher studying Japan’s modern and contemporary political history, argues that the historical current that flowed from the act to revive the study of the Chinese classics to the formation of the Eastern Culture Society was a response to new circumstances during and after World War I.9 The formation of the Eastern Culture Society was, however, a conservative and reactionary movement against “European Civilization” following the

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war. The association’s “Purposes and Projects” were followed by Section 1, Article 1 in Daitō Bunka Gakuin’s university regulations, which states that the university’s goal is to teach East Asian Culture, with particular emphasis on Confucian precepts purified to support the Imperial Way and national polity “unique to our country.” 10 Moreover, Takebe Kin’ichi, who was appointed head of the education division of the Government-General in Korea on October 4, 1929 (serving until June 27, 1931), wrote in the Gyunghakwon Magazine (経学院雑誌 Keigakuin zasshi) No. 34, February 1932, concerning the promotion of Confucianism and the mission of Myeongnyun Hakwon. (The article was written in Korean mixed with kanji.) He strongly emphasized Governor-General Saitō Makoto’s advice regarding the mission of the Myeongnyun Hakwon and quoted the Resolution Concerning Encouraging Japan’s Cultural Activities passed by the Budget Committee of the House of Peers, in regard to the revival of the Chinese classics, concerning which he includes the following quotation: When we reflect on our current situation, there is the origin of East Asian Culture, long purified and adapted to the national polity and our ancestors’ teaching, that is, the Chinese studies or the Confucianism that has supported the Imperial Way. Since the Restoration, the introduction of Western culture has become an emergency, with no trend to abandon it naturally occurring. Unfortunately the old Confucian scholars who should be guides for our citizens are withering away and will not long be with us. If we do not take any remedial measures now, how can we lead people to achieve/go that way, to achieve the aforementioned great task? 11 [Emphasis in the original.]

Japanese Confucianism as Confucianism purified for Imperial Way and national polity From the proposal mentioned in the introduction to the previous section, we know that House of Peers member and seventh (January 30, 1932–February 9, 1938) Daitō Bunka Gakuin President Katō Masanosuke spoke at the Society for Promotion of Japanese Confucianism’s inaugural ceremony and Ancient Sages Festival, held at the Tokyo Kaikan (東京会 館) in the Marunouchi district of Tokyo on January 27, 1934.12 In his opening remarks at the ceremony, he said that the faculty and students of Daitō Bunka Gakuin had come together to establish the Society for Promotion of Japanese Confucianism and celebrate the ancient sages to promote a Confucianism purified for incorporation in the Imperial Way and national polity. This event was the first of what would be a nationwide series of events promoting Confucianism in an effort to spread Japan’s primordial spiritual culture and sweep away the harm done by attachment to materialistic civilization.13 At the inaugural ceremony, President Katō and the Minister of Education, Hatoyama Ichirō spoke. Congratulatory messages were delivered from leading political figures, including Prime Minister Saitō Makoto, who had served as the second Governor-General of Korea (August 1919–December 1927), Speaker of the House of Peers Konoe Fumimaro, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Akita Kiyoshi. Other politically active personages who sent messages included Manchuria Legislative Yuan Speaker Chao Hsin-po and Manchuria Envoy Plenipotentiary to Japan Ting Shih-yuan. There also was a message from Joo Byung-kŏn,

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a graduate of Daitō Bunka Gakuin. His remarks, along with those by Chiao Hsin-po and Ting Shih-yan, were written in kanbuntai (漢文体, a Japanese version of classical Chinese). From Korea came a congratulatory telegram, “Praying for the Society’s future,” sent by Gyunghakwon scholar and Daitō Bunka Gakuin graduate Ahn In-sik. From an external perspective, the inaugural ceremony for the Society to Promote Japanese Confucianism was a joint effort in which important persons from Japan, Manchuria and Korea were involved. It was a missionary effort to promote the spread of Japanese Confucianism, a Confucianism purified for incorporation into the Imperial Way and national polity. Ahn Gyo-hwan (formerly named Ahn Soon-hwan), who founded the Sun Moon Times in February 1935, and established the Korean Confucianism Association (조선유교회 Chosŏn yugyohoe; in Japanese 朝鮮儒教会 Chōsen jukyōkai) in 1933 and later joined the Korean Confucianism Federation, asserted the potential of Korean Confucians in his message “Presented to President Katō” (June 1935). In that message, we find the statement that “The Chosŏn Gyunghakwon is an example of people coming together with no connection to government agencies, as is the usual Korean practice. The Korean Confucian Federation is purely the product of people power, and already has more than 30,000 members, illustrating the extraordinary influence of appropriate guidance.” This statement makes a strong case for the latent potential of Korean Confucians.14 In February 1934, following the event described above, the Society for Promotion of Japanese Confucianism presented its first lecture at the Japan Youth Hall (日本青年館 Nippon Seinenkan) in the Outer Garden of the Meiji Shrine. From then until April, lectures were organized in other parts of Japan. In connection with these events the editors of Japan’s Confucianism wrote a column in which they stated that Daitō Bunka Gakuin had accepted responsibility for clarifying Confucianism. It had been training students for more than a decade when President Katō felt the need to propagate its work to society at large, establish the Society for Promotion of Japanese Confucianism, organize lectures, and set up courses to spread Confucian teachings. He was thus sincerely performing an essential service to the nation. In January 1936, a second volume of Japan’s Confucianism came out covering lectures presented in Urawa City, at the Tokyo Kudanshita Soldiers Hall (東京九段下軍人会館 Tokyō Kudanshita Gunjin Kaikan), and in Kyoto. In addition, on October 23, 1935, the Tokyo Central Broadcast Division broadcast President Katō’s speech, “Arousing the Japanese Spirit,” which was also included in the second volume of Japan’s Confucianism. In this way, President Katō Masanosuke and other Daitō Bunka Gakuin participants expounded and promoted anew a Japanese Confucianism purified for incorporation in the Imperial Way and national polity. This was at a time when talk about the Japanese spirit was on everyone’s lips because of the uncertain times created by Imperial Japan’s status as an isolated nation following its withdrawal from the League of Nations.15 The first appearance of the term “Imperial Way Confucianism” (皇道儒教 Kōdō Jukyō), a neologism formed by combining “Imperial Way” (皇道) with “Confucianism” (儒教), was in an essay titled “Confucianism as a Supporter of the Imperial Way” (皇道を扶翼する儒教 Kōdō wo fuyoku suru Jukyō) by Iwasawa Iwao, published in Japan’s Confucianism. In that article, Iwasawa rejected equating “the Imperial Way” and “the Kingly Way,” arguing that the idea of kingship emerged before the concepts “Confucian” and “Confucianism” were formed. Combining the Kingly way with “Confucian” and “Confucianism” was the work of Confucius and other Confucians who made the combined concept one of their major ideas. That is why the three distinctive features of Confucianism became (1) the Six Classics, (2) practical morality Chapter 8: The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought

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and (3) the founder, Confucius himself. Their discovery, practice, and extension found its ultimate goal in Confucianism, that is, the Kingly Way. Thus, the Kingly Way became the heart of the Confucian spirit and the mainstream of Far Eastern morality. The Imperial Way is not, however, the Kingly Way of the ruler who receives the Mandate of Heaven, based on the equation of the Mandate of Heaven with the will of the people. In the Imperial Way, god and ruler are one. Since the ruler is a god (現神 akitsumikami, divinity in human form) directly descended from the gods, he is not a ruler whose position depends on his virtue. Iwasawa also argues that the claim made by Imperial Way Confucianism comes down to the following point: the importance of recognizing the character of the ruler as a god and criticizing a globalist ideology (世界主義 sekaishugi) that lacks a definite territory, people and sovereignty. In this light the people of Japan have a unique characteristic to be proud of: an unbroken, unshakeable Imperial line. That understanding, he asserted, must be promoted.16 In addition, Japan’s Confucianism also published “On attending the Ancient Sages Festival” (先哲祭に列して Sentetsusai ni retsusite) by the historian Hashimoto Masukichi. Hashimoto argued that the Confucians among Japan’s ancient sages rejected another aspect of Confucianism, the concept of dynastic succession with one dynasty replacing another, and on the other hand, emphasized its unbroken family line and endeavored to support the Imperial Way. Thus Japanese Confucianism achieved its full and proper form. In contrast to Chinese Confucianism, which adheres to the ideal of the Kingly Way, Japanese Confucianism makes the Imperial Way its ideal. In this respect the two forms of Confucianism are fundamentally different. To Hashimoto, Japanese Confucianism was an aspect of the Imperial Way, which was based on the concept of the nation as one big family and rejected dynastic succession.17 “The Learned Wani” is another component in the narrative that forms the background to the origin of Japanese Confucianism as Confucianism purified and incorporated in the Imperial Way and national polity. Another historian, Nakayama Kyūshirō, published an article in Japan’s Confucianism titled “The Learned Wani’s Achievements” (博士王仁の功績 Hakase Wani no kōski) In it he wrote that Wani (王仁) was this country’s founding ancestral Confucian scholar, together with Achiki (阿直岐).18 To Nakayama it seemed only proper to recognize and express gratitude for Wani’s achievements. This would not only show proper respect to a great sage from the past—it would also benefit contemporary education and contribute to the harmonious merger of Japan and Korea.19 Daitō Bunka Gakuin’s President Katō Masanosuke stated the reason why China’s teachings of Confucius and Mencius, introduced to Japan along with Wani as a founding ancestor of Confucianism in Japan, were established as Confucianism, purified by the Imperial Way and national polity. “Our Confucianism was in many respects consistent with the Imperial Way and national polity, it had been purified and incorporated in them, becoming an essential element of Japanese morality and ethics.” 20 In this way in modern Japan, he asserted, the narrative about the establishment of Japanese Confucianism was told along with the Learned Wani narrative.21

Confucian wakening, promotion and Imperial Way Confucianism In discussions of Imperial Way Confucianism, Ahn In-sik was the main spokesman on the Korean side for he was one of the few members of the Korean Confucianism Federation who had been a student at Daitō Bunka Gakuin. Like Joo Byung-kŏn, who is discussed in the next

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section, after graduation Ahn In-sik remained a key link in the network of individuals associated with the university, in which he played a central role as a spokesman for Imperial Way Confucianism in colonial Korea. While still a student, he frequently published articles in Far Eastern Culture (東洋文化 Tōyō bunka), the journal of the Society for the Study of Far Eastern Culture (東洋文化學會 Tōyō bunka gakkai). Between 1928 and 1942, Ahn published prolifically in Far Eastern Culture, Gyunhakwon Magazine and other media on Classical Chinese and Confucian topic These early articles deserve consideration as studies prior to the publication of his major essays on Confucianism and the Imperial Way: “Imperial Way Confucianism,” (皇道儒学 Kōdō Jugaku in Confucian Way Magazine (儒道 Judō), No. 1, May 1942), “Imperial Way Confucianism, Part II” (皇道儒学 (二) Kōdō Jugaku (ni) in Confucian Way Magazine, No. 2, October 1942), and “The Characteristics of Imperial Way Confucianism” (皇道儒学 の本領 Kōdō Jugaku no honryō in Chōsen Journal (朝鮮), No. 347, April 1944), which will be discussed later. Except for Takahashi Tōru, whose “From Kingly Way Confucianism to Imperial Way Confucianism” was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Ahn was the only Gyungha­ kwon Confucian to use the phrase “Imperial Way Confucianism” in the titles of his articles. From the comment “To be continued” on the last page of “Imperial Way Confucianism, No. 2.” we can infer that Ahn intended to continue his discussion in a later issue. That continuation was never published. After some time had passed, however, his article entitled “The Characteristics of Imperial Way Confucianism” appeared in Chōsen, the official journal of the Government-General of Korea (No. 347, April 1944). That article occurred after “uniting all Confucians with Gyunghakwon at the center to support the formation of the national polity and establishing Imperial Way Confucianism based on the Japanese Spirit” had been declared as one of three founding principles of the Korean Confucianism Federation in March 1943.22 Earlier, in March 1941, the Government-General in Korea issued a notification that “instructions are made to replace what had been called “Confucian Way” (儒道) with “Imperial Way Confucianism” (皇道儒学).23 It was after these changes that Ahn published his thinking about Imperial Way Confucianism in the first two issues of Confucian Way magazine (儒道 Judō). There he wrote in his capacity as director of the Korean Confucian Federation’s education division. At least from the Korean Confucianists’ perspective, his essays signify the federation’s trying to lead the way in promoting this new theoretical orientation. To begin, the focus of “Imperial Way Confucianism (Part I)” was on the relationship between the Imperial Way and Japan’s being a nation like no other. Ahn discussed the Japanese spirit as the foundation for a moral, ethical nation, as manifested in the Imperial Rescript on Education, and the practice of loyalty and filial piety by the Japanese people based on the Rescript.24 Second, we see an account of the traditions of the Imperial Way and Confucian Way fused in the Japanese tradition in Confucius’ discussion of the greater good in the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋 Chunqiu) or the principle of reverence for the Emperor with emphasis on duty and the great principle of duty to the ruler (大義名分 taigi meibun). Examples of Japanese leaders mentioned in fusing the Imperial Way and Confucian Way include Kitabatake Chikafusa, who prepared the True Listing of the Divine Emperors (神皇正 統記 Jinnō shōtōki, completed in 1339, revised in 1343); the second Mito Daimyō Tokugawa Mitsukuni, who established the Shōkōkan (彰考館), an institute dedicated to the study of historical texts, and commissioned the compilation of the Great History of Japan, (大日本史 Dainihonshi, 38 volumes, started in 1657, completed in 1906); and the ninth Mito Daimyō Tokugawa Nariaki, who established the domain school Kōdōkan (弘道館) in July 1841. In Chapter 8: The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought

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Ahn’s eyes, all three established scholarly schools successful in combining the Imperial Way with the Confucian Way and were wellsprings of reverence for the Emperor (emphasis added.) 25 Ahn also states that by combining the Imperial Way with the purified Confucian Way, the finest ethics and morality were perfected. In “Imperial Way Confucianism (Part II),” Ahn begins his discussion of how to define Imperial Way Confucianism with the question raised by the sage kings Tang and Wu’s overthrowing their predecessors to found new dynasties ruling China. Ahn argued that it was better by far, for the sake of supporting the national polity, for Imperial Way Confucianism to reject the transfer of the Mandate of Heaven by armed rebellion. He cited Confucius’ discussion of duties in the Spring and Autumn Annals to assert that Japan is the only country in which the ideal government, in which the ruler rules and the minister obeys, can be found. It was for this reason, he said, that one of Imperial Way Confucianism’s distinctive features was its clear rectification of the concept of armed rebellion.26 For his second point, Ahn emphasizes the importance of loyalty and filial piety in the Imperial Way Spirit. He cites two sources, a passage from the Imperial Rescript on Education that reads, “Our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof ” and a statement from the first section of Seven Rules for the Warrior (士規七則 Shiki shichi-soku) by Yoshida Shōin, which says: “What makes a person a person is loyalty and filial piety.” He asserts that loyalty and filial piety are one (忠孝一致 chukō icchi) or, in other words, that loyalty and filial piety are essentially one thing and not two. Loyalty is filial piety, and filial piety is loyalty. They possess a shared nature that runs through them both.27 Ahn adds that this is the quintessence of Mito Learning (水戸学 Mitogaku) as described in the two volumes of the Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto (弘 道館記述義 Kōdōkan kijutsugi, hereinafter the Commentary) compiled by the Mito domain samurai Fujita Tōko and completed in 1847.28 The Commentary was Fujita’s personally annotated version of the Kōdōkan Manifesto, a work that he himself had drafted describing the educational policy of the Mito domain academy, which had been distributed in 1838 under the imprimatur of Tokugawa Nariaki. Ahn, while introducing the long annotation on “loyalty and filial piety are one” (忠孝無二 chukō muni), commented that it was an outstanding enhancement of the true principle that loyalty and filial piety are one, a distinctive feature of Imperial Way Confucianism. The knowledge of early modern Edo and Bakumatsu “Imperial Learning” (皇学 kōgaku) that informed how Ahn saw the development of Imperial Way Confucianism was discussed in the next section. Its discussion was exceptional among the Confucian scholars associated with the Gyunghakwon and Korean Confucian Federation, apart from Joo Byung-kŏn. It hardly needs saying that this knowledge was acquired through their connections with Daitō Bunka Gakuin. In Article 7, “Curriculum,” of the Daitō Bunka Gakuin Rules promulgated when it was founded as a technical school, we find the Commentary included among the materials to be covered in the first year of the regular course on Imperial Learning.29 While Ahn studied in the advanced division and might not have taken that course, he would have been familiar with the process by which “Imperial Learning” was formed, through discussions of texts, including the Commentary. In 1928, while Ahn was a student at Daitō Bunka Gakuin, Katō Toranosuke, then a professor there, published his Notes on the Commentary (弘道館記述義小解 Kōdōkan kijutsugi shōkai) (hereinafter Notes).30 In the introduction to a reprint of the Notes, written in October 1943, Katō wrote “In 1923, when the school was founded, I gave lectures on the Commentary 118

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for my course, and since then, the Commentary has become a mandatory part of the curriculum of the school…. If the Notes that I have written will be of any help to students, I will be more than happy.” In the introduction to the first edition published in October 1928, he had talked about the value of the Commentary in learning the substance of the national polity and fulfilling their responsibility as subordinates: Examining the origins of the Imperial Way, learning the essence of the national polity, striving to learn both literary and military arts, promoting loyalty and filial piety and thus fulfilling responsibilities as subordinates is the essence of righteousness.31 Society for the Study of Far Eastern Culture Chair Hiranuma Kiichirō, in his introduction to the Notes, written in October 1943, praised them lavishly: They [the Notes] have purified Confucianism in Japan’s national polity; merged and blended, the Imperial Way and Confucianism have become one. The various accomplishments of the scholars [that led to the Notes] should not disappear, especially those by Mito School scholars…. In the current state of the national polity and the unprecedented circumstances of the Sacred War, they remain essential for the great work of revitalizing Asia. Especially at this moment, propagating the Imperial Way is an urgent task. Not a day should be wasted in virtuously guiding thought both during and after the war.32 (Emphasis added.) For Katō to have taken the lead by making his thoughts public was not only seen to be a blessing for his readers but also an asset for nurturing public morals and sentiments; and it was very timely as well. In his Notes, Katō wrote about the importance of the Commentary in that “they stressed the school’s distinctive view that loyalty and filial piety are one and cannot be separated…. In this one book we find condensed the full scope, excellence, and literary quality of the Mito School’s teachings. This book is the only one needed to grasp the essence of Mito Learning. The book offers the keys not only to understanding Mito Learning but also for those who want to know the origins and progress of the national morality.” 33 He insisted, in other words, that the Commentary captured in condensed form the essence of what Mito Learning had to teach. In “The Commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto and Japanese Confucianism” (弘道館 記述義と日本儒教 Kōdōkan kijutsugi to Nihon jukyō) published in Japan’s Confucianism, local historian Okamura Rihei argued that Anyone who wished to study about Mito Learning and how it became a support for Japanese Confucianism must begin with the Commentary…. Those who worry about the nation should revive the spirit of Tōko, be awakened to their duty, and confirm their commitment to the Imperial Way. They should realize the necessity of sacrificing themselves for the nation.34 Meanwhile, Ahn argues as follows: Chapter 8: The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought

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The fundamental significance of Imperial Way Confucianism was, as I have previously explained, to clarify the meaning of national polity and prescribe the correct path for the nation’s citizens. Therefore, when we discuss, or act on the promotion of Japanese Confucianism, we should not swallow the mistaken thinking of China or cling to corrupt practices from the end of the Chosŏn period.35 That statement is based on Ahn’s own thinking on promoting Confucianism, that is, to get rid of Korean Confucianism’s tendency to adopt “literal translations of Chinese models” 36 as well as “the corrupt practices of the last days of the Chosŏn dynasty period” and “the bad habits of Confucianism in the past.” 37 He had already clearly announced this stance in “The Necessity for Promoting Confucianism in Korea” (朝鮮に於ける儒道振興の必要 Chōsen ni okeru jukyō shinkō no hitsuyō in Far Eastern Culture, No. 49, June 1928). As examined more closely in Part VI, he spelled out his own thinking concretely in his essay in Japanese, “The Construction of East Asia and the Spirit of Confucianism” (東亜ノ建設ト儒道ノ精神 Toa no kensetsu to Judō no Seishin in Gyunghakwon Magazine, No. 45, February 1940.)38 He concluded “Imperial Way Confucianism (Part II)” with the following statement: Gifted, among all the world’s nations, with the only imperial line unbroken for endless generations, with a glorious three-thousand-year history, there is no other country like Japan, nor another thinker like Confucius, who has been respected for twenty-five hundred years, despite changes of dynasty in China. Here, if the unbroken base of Confucius’ thinking is incorporated into the superior and unequalled national polity, and they are merged, blended and become one, it will increase the majesty of the national polity, to benefit humanity, to construct a new ethics unprecedented in human history, to establish fundamental principles for the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere and contribute to building a new world order. These are the ultimate goals of Imperial Way Confucianism (Emphasis added).39 A year and a half later, when Ahn published “The Characteristics of Imperial Way Confucianism,” there was little change from what he had written in “Imperial Way Confucianism” and “Imperial Way Confucianism (II).” 40 In his new rhetoric, “Japan” became “The Country of the Gods, Japan.” “New morality” became “New morality of the highest virtue.” “To contribute greatly to building a new world order is the ultimate goal of Imperial Way Confucianism” became “To contribute greatly to building a new world order in which the Asia-Pacific becomes an ideal world in which East Asia is a new Heaven. With this we can say that Imperial Way Confucianism will truly be completed.” This short essay, barely seven pages long, summarizes the two previous essays on Imperial Way Confucianism. The repetition in it of material from those two essays is conspicuous. The earlier two and the later essay have almost exactly the same content, namely, The Imperial Rescript on Education (教育勅語 Kyōiku chokugo) as a manifestation of the great Japanese spirit which is the foundation for a moral, ethical nation;

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Reverence for the emperor as the great virtue in Confucius’ discussion in the Spring and Autumn Annals, The Imperial Rescript on Education as the ultimate standard of ethics and morality, clarifying the primordial spirit of the Imperial Way and incorporating the essence of the Confucian Way; and The “Confucian Way” as having the principle of loyalty and filial piety as its fundamental teaching.41 However, he altered his comments from the section of “Imperial Way Confucianism (II)” titled “Promoting Japanese Confucianism Today” to stress that the goal of promoting Japanese Confucianism is to contribute to the sacred work of revitalizing Asia by establishing a new spiritual culture with Japan’s national polity as its cornerstone. He describes this aim as the fundamental character of Imperial Way Confucianism.42 Then, in 1944, with the Pacific War entering a new phase, he added to the expression “the substance of patriotic education” in “Imperial Way Confucianism (II), to write “It is the mission of patriotic education today to build a moral world based on shared principles.” 43 What is even more noteworthy is the link between the final paragraphs of “Imperial Way Confucianism (II)” and “The Characteristics of Imperial Way Confucianism.” That narrative is “If the unbroken base of Confucian thought is incorporated into the superior national polity without peer, they are merged, blended and become one.” Here we also find a thread that is consistent with the introduction to “The Characteristics of Imperial Way Confucianism,” i.e., “Imperial Way Confucianism is grounded in the primordial spirit of our nation’s Imperial Spirit, which incorporates the true essence of the Confucian morality that is the source of morals throughout the East … creating a virtuous cycle between the national polity and humanity, an indissoluble relationship in which the national polity and the highest form of national morality are totally integrated.” 44 As can be seen here, the “Confucianism purified for incorporation in the Imperial Way” narrative found in Ahn’s thinking is similar to that which first appeared when the Eastern Culture Society and Daitō Bunka Gakuin were founded. Ahn was a key figure in reproducing this narrative from his positions in the Gyunghakwon and Korean Confucian Federation. As both an instructor at the Myeongnyun Jeonmun Hakgyo and head of the education of division of the Korean Confucian Federation, he played a central role in implementing the establishment and spread of Imperial Way Confucianism in colonial Korea.

The Way becomes one Ahn In-sik was born in 1891 and graduated from the advanced course at Daitō Bunka Gakuin in March 1929. Joo Byung-kŏn (hereafter Joo) was born in 1890 but graduated two years later than Ahn, in March 1931. After graduation, both were appointed instructors at the Keigakuin’s Meirin Senmon Gakkō. From August 1943 to April 1944, Joo, writing in his capacity as an instructor at the Meirin Senmon Gakkō, published Facts about the Central Realm: in Chinese and Japanese (漢和中朝 事實 Kanwa chūchō jijitsu), in three installments in Confucian Way, Nos. 4–6.45 Facts about the Central Realm (中朝事實 Chūchō jijitsu) is known as a book on the history of reverence for Chapter 8: The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought

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the Emperor written in 1669 by the Edo-period Japanese Confucianist and military strategist Yamaga Sokō. It is likely that Joo’s interest in Sokō and his book was related to an upswell of popular interest in Sokō at that time. Okamura Rihei, who was mentioned in the previous section, produced an annotated version of the Facts about the Central Realm that was published by the Chinese and Japanese language studies publisher Meiji Shoin (明治書院) in 1942. Kobayashi Ichirō’s “Course on the Imperial Spirit” included discussion of Facts about the Central Realm in his fourth (April 1942) and sixth (June 1942) lectures. Joo, as part of his work creating materials praising and supporting the Imperial Way, had, at the same time he was publishing his “On Yi Yulgok Sensei” (李栗谷先生 Yi Yulgok Sensei) series in Confucian Way from January 1943,46 also serialized the Facts about the Central Realm: in Chinese and Japanese in that journal, starting from its fourth issue, in August 1943. This text was originally used in the “Course on Imperial Spirit” under the title Facts about the Central Realm. In the foreword to Facts about the Central Realm: in Chinese and Japanese, Joo wrote that General Nogi Maresuke admired Yamaga Sokō, and especially his book. He liked it so much that he had it reprinted and distributed to knowledgeable persons, libraries and public bodies at his own expense.47 That is why Joo translated and commented on its original kanbun (Classical Chinese) version and published it in Confucian Way. To Joo, Sokō was a “Japanese nationalist” who clarified the national polity and the distinction between inside Japan and abroad, and used his power to exercise bushidō, the way of samurai.48 It is unthinkable that Joo would have been able to do this translation without the scholarly experience he acquired at Daitō Bunka Gakuin. In this respect Joo was, like Ahn, an exception among the scholars at Gyunghakwon. The most noteworthy of Joo’s statements can be found in his essay “The Path Confucianism Should Take” (儒教の進むべき道 Jukyō no susumu beki michi) in the last issue of Gyunghakwon Magazine (No. 48, April 1944). There he describes Japanese Confucianism as a model implementation of Japanese neo-Confucianism. The Japanese neo-Confucianism known as Mito Learning defined neo-Confucianism in Japan and had as its focus “loyalty and filial piety are one” and “the literary and military arts cannot be separated (文武不 岐 bunbufuki).” 49 Mito Learning was created at the Mito Domain, the domain most closely related to the Tokugawa shoguns. It was, however, an historically grounded explanation of national policy constructed by the domain’s lord, Tokugawa Nariaki, and the group of samurai intellectuals that formed around him, whose political perspectives and opinions differed from those of the Tokugawa regime’s officials.50 The aforementioned text Kōdōkan Manifesto, ordered by Tokugawa Nariaki and drafted by the Mito samurai Fujita Tōko in 1838, contains the message “First, respect the gods: second, love the people; third, possess a warlike spirit; loyalty and filial piety are one.” 51, 52 The Great History of Japan (大日本史 Dainihonshi) was an attempt by Mito Learning scholars to compile a history that would provide historical proof for the legitimacy of Imperial and court rule. It was proposed by the Mito domain while early modern Japan was still governed by the samurai officials of the Tokugawa Shogunate. This attempt gave people involved in the compilation of The Great History of Japan a new perspective on Japan, one that went beyond Japan as a country under samurai rule.52 The grandeur of Japanese Confucianism and Mito Learning lay in its being a model implementation of Confucianism.53 In “The Path Forward for Confucianism,” Joo stated clearly that he was offering a few basic principles concerning Korean Confucianism, modeled on Imperial Way Confucianism, 122

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and that those basic principles are not taken from anything other than Confucianism.54 He stated that this was because the path forward for Confucianism in both China and Korea was the same, with no setting one above the other. This explanation of Japanese Confucianism as the Imperial Way Confucianism, which Joo had studied at Daitō Bunka Gakuin,55 and its narrative insisting that there was only one path forward for Confucianism, were an effort by Joo (as an professor at the Gyunghakwon’s Myeongnyun Jeonmun Hakgyo), to legitimize Imperial Way Confucianism in colonized Korea. It can, indeed, be said to be an attempt to establish a basis for discussing Imperial Way Confucianism, speaking from the Korean side.

Agreement between “World of Great Unity and Peace” and “The Great Spirit of the Sacred Work of Revitalizing Asia” Today, we who revere Confucianism have come to this our center, this sacred hall in Yushima [湯島聖堂 Yushima Seidō]. Confronted with the current chaos, we confront a world that does not yet know the outcome of the present crisis. This assembly is a vital opportunity to speak with each other about what the new state of the world should be and the steps required to achieve it. First, those of us who revere the teachings of Confucius must establish spiritual standards that will show all the people of the Far East the goal and make it our responsibility to provide guidance toward that goal. We must have faith that we can draw up a plan, cooperate with our country’s measures to construct the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and contribute in this way to world peace. Through our dedicated effort we must take the teachings of Confucius, which permeate the national spirits of all of the peoples of the Far East and make them an even more universal presence and spiritual guide. For this purpose, we must be more united and never retreat from our efforts to see Confucianism prosper and be ready to address changes in the state of the world.56 This quotation is from the introduction to a speech by Chinese Studies scholar and member of the Confucianist organization the Shibunkai (斯文会), Uno Tetsudō, delivered in October 1941 to a group of seventeen mid-level Confucians from the Korean Confucian Federation who participated in a pilgrimage to Japan’s “sacred soil” from October 17 to November 4, 1941.57 Uno’s speech was titled “Confucianism from the Perspective of Japanese Spirit” (日本精 神より見たる儒教 Nippon seishin yori mitaru jukyō). Uno argued that those possessing knowledge of Confucian teachings, which permeated the national spirits of all East Asian Peoples, should provide spiritual guidance to all of the peoples of East Asia. That said, the Confucian teachings that Uno spoke about were “Confucian teachings as seen from the perspective of the Japanese spirit.” This was the Confucianism that Uno was preaching to like-minded visitors from Korea. His “Confucian teachings from the perspective of Japanese spirit” were equivalent to the “national morality” as a right relation between ruler and ruled.58 Uno went on to explain further: In China, as everyone knows, one revolution followed another. The great ideals compiled by Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Annals were not fully respected. Only in Japan has there been an unbroken line of Imperial succession and the

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great principle of duty to the ruler [大義名分 taigi meibun] fully realized in the National Spirit. The school called Mito Learning arose to clarify the meaning of duty. From this point we can be sure that the true spirit of Confucian teachings flourished only upon reaching Japan.59 When Uno says that “the true spirit of Confucian teachings flourished only upon reaching Japan,” he is referring to the Imperial Rescript on Education promulgated by the Meiji Emperor. It is not only that “This Rescript brilliantly expressed the way in which the Nation’s people should be guided;” the Rescript was also “totally consistent with the Confucian spirit.” Uno was urging his colleagues from Korea to study Confucian teachings thoroughly, for it was essential to enlighten others about this thinking that originated in Japan.60 When Uno spoke of how Confucian teachings permeated the “national spirit” of the nations of East Asia and provided spiritual guidance to their peoples, his views were shared by Ahn and other Confucians in colonial Korea. While the words in which those views were articulated repeated the prevalent discourse in Japan, that does not imply that the process of sharing them was simply a matter of “agreement” or acceptance of a foreign product. Following the launch of the Korean Confucian Federation, a ceremony celebrating the establishment of the South Chungcheong Province Confucian Society (충청남도유도연합회 Chung­ cheong namdo-Yudoyeonhabhoe; in Japanese 忠清南道儒道連合会 Chūseinandō Judōrengōkai) was held on December 1, 1939. Ahn spoke about “The construction of East Asia and the Confucian Spirit,” which, as was noted before, was published in Gyunghakwon Magazine. His speech was almost as long as “Imperial Way Confucianism” Parts I and II combined. What we see in this speech is Ahn making public his own views while speaking on behalf of Gyunghakwon as one of its officials at the establishment of a provincial Confucian Society in his native place in South Chungcheong Province, after the establishment of the Korean Confucianism Federation. Here is what he had to say: The Japanese empire is founded on moral principles. Its founding ideals are, of course, different from those of other powerful countries. They unite ruler and people in the great spirit of universal brotherhood. Japan is qualified to lead the nations of the world by its twenty-six hundred year history during which its extraordinary national character, the crystallization of the priniciple of loyalty and filial piety, has united numberless hearts to form a national polity without peer, with an unbroken imperial line.61 It is necessary to start a new movement in the original spiritual culture of East Asia, to cultivate faith in loyalty and morality in the nation’s people, to be awakened and committed to live and die righteously, to spread this faith, to share the glory of this faith with the Chinese and Manchu peoples, to transcend ethnic and national borders, free ourselves from calculation and emotion, and become united in our consciousness and commitment to joining hands in the ideal world of Great Unity and Great Peace.62 By describing the Japanese Empire as having a moral foundation, he asserts that it is a righteous empire. Ahn, as a citizen of this righteous empire, emphasizes the principle of loyalty and filial piety, i.e., his willingness to live and to die for its moral principles. He says 124

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that loyalty and filial piety are inherent in the spiritual culture of the Far East. Thus, as a citizen of Japan, he must display this shared East Asian faith. Speaking to the members of the South Chungcheong Province Confucian Society, Ahn talks about the need to put aside calculations and feelings about the Chinese and Manchus and come together to build the ideal world of the Great Unity. That ideal world would be one in which Japanese, Manchus, Chinese and other peoples form an organic whole, a new world in East Asia. In other words, they will come together to construct a new order in Asia. This new order will be the world of the Great Unity envisioned in Confucius’ ideals.63 Speaking as an official at the Gyunghakwon, Ahn goes on to say forcefully in his speech that Japan’s building a new order in the Far East is a rare opportunity to promote Confucianism, to erase and reform the bad habits of the past, and to display in full the true Confucian spirit.64

Imperial Way Confucianism after liberation and after the war After Korea was liberated from Japanese rule, Ahn was arrested and later charged with being “anti-Korean” on May 26, 1949. At his trial, when the prosecutor asked him, “What is Imperial Way Confucianism?” he said only that it was a phrase made up by the Japanese, and that he didn’t fully understand its meaning. As illustrated by Ahn’s reply, the narrative that depicted Imperial Way Confucianism as “Confucianism purified for incorporation in the Imperial Way and national polity” disappeared with Imperial Japan’s defeat and the separation of Japan and Korea. That said, the discourse about moral principles that functioned as a mechanism for political domination by rules never lost its vital force in either Japan or Korea. It surfaced, for example, when Ahn published his “Confucianism in Chungnam” in December, 1965. In this article, Ahn lavished praise on the efforts by the National Reconstruction Movement (재건국민운동 Jaegeongugmin-undong) to remold humanity following the 1961 coup d’état by Park Chung-hee. He once again stressed the effectiveness of the Confucian Spirit’s contribution to achieving this aim. The Confucian Spirit, conceived as a model for humanity, would, after “fostering national spirit” and “a movement to promote morality,” reach its finale in “remolding humanity.” As when he was leading the effort to shape the discourse at the Gyunghakwon, Ahn once again sent a message to his fellow Confucians.65 He wrote, I respectfully say to my Confucian comrades: In these, the worst of times for Confucian teachings, we must master the spirit of dedication to the world’s salvation embodied by Confucius, elevate morality and support human relationships, doing everything in our power to achieve this movement’s sacred mission. We must devote ourselves in this way to strengthening the morals of our reconstructed nation, contributing in this way to peace for all of humanity.66 Reading this statement, we are reminded of what we saw where Ahn wrote about the role that the spirit of Confucianism would play in constructing East Asia. All that has changed is that the agent remolding morality is Korea’s “new nation” instead of Imperial Japan. When he writes about “strengthening morality” in the new Korea, we see signs of the same nationalism and authoritarian narrative at work in the Gyunghakwon Confucian discourse surrounding Imperial Way Confucianism when Korea was a colony in the Japanese Empire, ruled by the Japanese Governor-General.

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In today’s Korea, the reality of academic research on Imperial Way Confucianism cannot be separated from the question of “unaccounted-for history” or how to overcome the past. Since liberation, the use of discourse associated with Imperial Way Confucianism has continued in both South and North Korea. Narratives of Imperial Way Confucianism are, along with the advocates of morality as a mechanism of discipline and control for the existing ruling powers, issues that must be examined in considering the future of Korean society.

Notes

Takada Shinji, “Dai tōa sensō to shibun” [大東亜戦争と斯文 The Greater East Asian War and Shibun], Shibun [斯文] 24, no. 10 (October 1942): 17. 2 Uno Tetsudō, “Jigyoku ni tai suru shibunkai no shimei” [ 時局に対する斯文会の使命 The mission of the Shibunkai in the current situation], Shibun [斯文] 24, no. 6 (June 1942): 14. 3 The Sungkyunkwan ( 成均館; in Korean 성균관), which had been the highest-ranking educational institution during the Chosŏn dynasty, was renamed Gyunghakwon in 1911, during the colonial period. It became an institution of Korean Confucianists who directed the Government-General of Korea, including its financial aspects. 4 Myeongnyun Hakwon was founded on February 26, 1930, based on Order 13 issued by the GovernmentGeneral of Korea. Its name was changed to Myeongnyun Jeonmun Hakwon on February 18, 1939. Article 1 of the provisions for Myeongnyun Jeonmun Hakwon under Order 13 stated, “The purpose of Meirin Senmon Gakuin is to train good, loyal imperial subjects, based on the Imperial Spirit, through the study of Confucianism and the elucidation of the essence of the national ethics.” Myeongnyun Jeonmun Hakwon was promoted in status to Myeongnyun Jeonmun Hakgyo on March 17, 1942, and was then reorganized as the Chosŏn Myeongnyun Yeonsŏngso (조선명륜연성소; in Japanese 朝鮮明倫錬成所 Chōsen Meirin Renseisho) on October 14, 1944. 5 Ahn In-sik (1891–1969), who taught at Myeongnyun Hakwon and then became a professor at Jeonmun Hakgyo and head of the Gyunghakwon, entered the advanced course at Daitō Bunka Gakuin in April 1925, and graduated on March 25, 1929 (as one of the twenty-one in the third graduating class). Joo Byung-kŏn (1890–?), who also taught at Myeongnyun Jeonmun Hakgyo, was, like Ahn, a product of the temporary teacher training program attached to Chōsen Keijō Futsū Gakkō (朝鮮京城普通学校), completed the Daitō Bunka Gakuin basic program and graduated from its advanced course in March 1931 (as one of the twentyfour in the fifth graduating class). 6 See Tomizu Hirondo, Kokusei ronshū [ 国政論集 Collected essays on national government] (Unpublished Manuscript, 1924), 77. See also Kinoshita Shigetarō den [木下成太郎先生伝 Biography of Kinoshita Shigetarō] (Sapporo: Kinoshita Shigetarō Sensei Publication Society, 1967). 7 Daitō Bunka Gakuin, ed., Daitō Bunkain yōran [ 大東文化学院要覧 Handbook of Daitō Bunka Gakuin] (Tokyo: Daitō Bunka Gakuin, 1933), 7. 8 Egi Kazuyukio okina keikendan [ 江木千之翁経験談 The Revered Egi Kazuyuki talks about his experiences] (Tokyo: Egi Kazuyukio Keikendan Publication Society, 1933), 143. 9 Itō Takashi, Showa shoki seijishi kenkyū: Rondon Kaigun Gunshuku mondai wo meguru shoshūdan no taikō to teikei [昭和初期政治史研究―ロンドン海軍軍縮問題をめぐる諸政治集団の対抗と提携 Historical research on early Showa politics–groups opposing or partnering surrounding the London Naval Treaty] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1969), 396. 10 Daitō Bunkain yōran, 12. 11 Shibunkai Editorial Committee. Shibun rokujūnen shi [ 斯文六十年史 Sixty-year history of Shibun] (Tokyo: Shibunkai, 1929), 339. 12 For the aims behind founding the Society for Promotion of Japanese Confucianism, see Katō Masanosuke, “Nihon Senyōkai sōritsu no shushi” [日本宣揚会創立の趣旨 Objectives in founding the society], in Nihon no Jukyō [日本之儒教 Japan’s Confucianism, Vol. 1] (Tokyo: Nihon Jukyō Senyōkai 1934), 177–85. 13 Katō Masanosuke, “Hakkaishiki shikiji” [ 発会式式辞 Opening remarks at inaugural ceremony], in Nihon no Jukyō [日本之儒教 Japan’s Confucianism, Vol. 1], 8–9. 1

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Ahn Gyo-hwan, “Katō sōchō ni teisu” [加藤総長に呈す Presented to President Katō], in Nihon no Jukyō [日本之儒教 Japan’s Confucianism, Vol. 2] (Tokyo: Nihon Jukyō Senyōkai, 1936), 282. Ahn Gyo-hwan also participated in the Shibunkai Conference on the Confucian Way in the spring of 1935, where he said that Japan was the home of the ruler of East Asia, heir to ten thousand generations, the national polity was strong, the Imperial Way primordial, purifying Confucianism, a wellspring of virtue. “Jukyō tame Tōyō daishūkyō fukokubun” [儒教為東洋大宗教布告文 Confucianism as a great Far Eastern religion], in Yushima Seidō fukkō kinen Judō taikaishi [湯島聖堂復興記念 儒道大会誌 Proceedings of the Conference on the Confucian Way in commemoration of the restoration of the Yushima Sage Hall], ed. Fukushima Kashizō (Tokyo: Shibunkai), 392. 15 Katō Masanosuke, “Saibun” [ 祭文 Formal address], in Nihon no Jukyō [日本之儒教 Japan’s Confucianism, Vol. 2], 4. 16 Iwasawa Iwao, “Kōdō wo fuyoku suru Jukyō” [ 皇道を扶翼する儒教 Confucianism as a supporter of the Kingly Way], Nihon no Jukyō [日本之儒教 Japan’s Confucianism, Vol. 2], 46–47. 17 Hashimoto Masukichi, “Sentetsusai ni retsusite” [ 先哲祭に列して On attending the Ancient Sages Festival], Nihon no Jukyō [日本之儒教 Japan’s Confucianism, Vol. 2], 147–48. 18 Nakayama Kyūshirō, “Hakase Wani no kōseki” [ 博士王仁の功績 The Learned Wani’s Achievements], Nihon no Jukyō [日本之儒教 Japan’s Confucianism, Vol. 2], 127. 19 Nakayama, “Hakase Wani no kōseki,” 124–25. 20 Katō Masanosuke, “Nippon seishin no sakkō” [ 日本精神の作興 Arousing the Japanese spirit], Nihon no Jukyō [日本之儒教 Japan’s Confucianism, Vol. 2], 82. 21 For more insight into the processes of thought behind modern intellectual reconstructions of the origin of traditions such as this, see Edward W. Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). 22 Government-General of Korea, Social Studies Division, Chōsen shakai kyōiku yōran [ 朝鮮社会教育要覧 Handbook of social studies in Korea] (Seoul: Government-General of Korea, Social Studies Division, 1941) and and Nihon shokuminchi kyōiku seisaku shiryō shūsei dai gojū kan [日本植民地教育政策史料集成（朝鮮篇）第 51巻 Collection of historical documents on the history of education policy in the Japanese colonies (Korean edition), Vol. 51], eds. Watanabe Manabu and Abe Hiroshi (Tokyo: Ryuukeishosha, 1989), 77. 23 Chōsen shakai kyōiku yōran, 69. 24 Ahn In-sik, “Kōdō Jugaku” [ 皇道儒学 Imperial Way Confucianism], Judō [儒道 Confucian way], no. 1 (May 1942): 31–32. 25 Ahn, “Kōdō Jugaku,” 32–25. After Ahn In-sik graduated from Daitō Bunka Gakuin, Iijima Tadao, then a teacher at the Gakushuin secondary school and a lecturer at Daitō Bunka Gakuin, commented on the completion of the Dainihonshi and the founding of late Mito Learning. Iijima said that while previous Confucians had labeled the way of Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen, and Wu the Kingly Way, late Mito Learning spoke about the Way of the Divine Emperor, abbreviated as the Imperial Way. They thus fully incorporated the essence of Confucianism into the Imperial Way. The compilation of the Dainihonshi begun by Tokugawa Mitsukuni was completed during the Mito School’s late period, but because the result had been tempered through debate between different schools stretching back to the start of the Edo period, questions such as why Japan’s history had become Confucian in form and how Confucianism was molded into something unequivocally Japanese were answered. A masterpiece was produced. See Iijima Tadao, “Nihon Jukyō” [日本儒教 Japanese Confucianism] in Nihon seishin [日本精神 The Japanese spirit] (Tokyo: Risosha, 1940), 65. Iijima also said that Confucianism had been fully blended into the Imperial Way and purified through its incorporation into the Imperial Way. Motoda Nagazane, who participated in drafting the Imperial Rescript on Education and the writing of the official commentary said that the Imperial Way was the best interpretation of Confucius’ Analects. See Iijima Tadao, “Yushima Seidō no Fukkō wo Kasu” [湯島聖堂の復興を賀す Congratulations on the restoration of the Yushima Sacred Hall], Shibun [斯文] 17, no. 5 (1935): 24. 26 Ahn In-sik, “Kōdō Jukyō (ni)” [ 皇道儒学（二）Imperial Way Confucianism (Part II)], Judō [儒道 Confucian way], no. 2 (October 1942): 35–38. 27 Ahn, “Kōdō Jukyō (ni),” 38. 28 Ahn, “Kōdō Jukyō (ni),” 41. 29 Other texts to be studied included the Shōchoku-engi ( 詔勅衍義 Commentary on the Rescript); Naobinomitama (直毘霊 Restoration of the soul); Jinno Shōtōki (神皇正統記 Authentic lineages of the Divine Emperor), 14

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and Shinron (新論 New theory). See Shibun rokujūnen shi [斯文六十年史 Sixty-year history of Shibun] (Tokyo: Shibunkai, 1929), 430. 30 Katō Toranosuke, Kōdōkan Kijutsugi kokai [ 弘道館記述義小解 Notes on the commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto], (Tokyo: Bunmeisha, 1944), 30. 31 Katō, Kōdōkan Kijutsugi kokai, preface to the second edition, 3. (The first edition was published in 1928.) 32 Katō, Kōdōkan Kijutsugi kokai, Introduction, 1–2. 33 Katō, Kōdōkan Kijutsugi kokai, 30. 34 Okamura Rihei, Kōdōkan kijutsugi to Nihon Jukyō [ 弘道館記述義と日本儒教 The commentary on the Kōdōkan Manifesto and Japanese Confucianism] Nihon no Jukyō [日本之儒教 Japan’s Confucianism, Vol. 2], 78–79 35 Ahn, “Kōdō Jukyō (ni),” 41. 36 Chōsen shakai kyōiku yōran, 68. 37 Ahn In-sik, “Keigaku no riyō to Jurin no kakusei” [ 経学の利用と儒林の覚醒 Use of keigaku and awakening Confucianists], Shunjū [春秋], 2, no. 3 (April 1941): 151. (The original version was written in Korean with a mixture of Chinese characters.) 38 Ahn In-Sik, “Tōa no kensetsu to Judō no seishin” [ 東亜ノ建設ト儒道ノ精神 The construction of East Asia and the Confucian spirit], Keigakuin Zasshi [経学院雑誌 Gyunghakwon magazine], no. 45, 77–78 (in Japanese). See also Chōsen shakai kyōiku yōran, 68; Park Sanjun, “Kaichō shikiji” [会長式辞 Chairman’s remarks], Judō [儒道 Confucian way], no. 1 (May 1942): 53–54. 39 Ahn, “Kōdō Jukyō (ni),” 43. 40 Ahn In-sik, “Kōdō Jugaku no honryō” [ 皇道儒学の本領 The characteristics of Imperial Way Confucianism], Chōsen [朝鮮], no. 347 (April 1944): 32. 41 Ahn, “Kōdō Jugaku no honryō,” 27, 29, 31 and 32. 42 Ahn, “Kōdō Jugaku no honryō,” 30. 43 Ahn, “Kōdō Jugaku no honryō,” 30. 44 Ahn, “Kōdō Jugaku no honryō,” 26. 45 Yamaga Sokō zenshū [ 山鹿素行全集 Collected works of Yamaga Sokō] had been published by the Teikoku Hōkokukai in 1917. It was then published in 1936 as the Yamaga Sokō collection [山鹿素行全集 Yamaga Sokō zenshū ] as the eighth in the Kokumin seishin bunka bunken [国民精神文化文献 Documents on the national spirit and culture] series by the Kokumin Seishin Bunka Kenkyūjo. 46 Joo Byung-kŏn, “Yi Yulgok sensei” [ 李栗谷先生 On Master Yi Yulgok], Judō [儒道 Confucian way], no. 3: 84. 47 Joo Byung-kŏn, “Kanwa chūchō jijitsu” [ 漢和　中朝事実 Facts about the central realm, in Chinese and Japanese], Judō [儒道 Confucian way], no. 4 (1943): 49. 48 Joo, “Kanwa chūchō jijitsu,” 51. 49 Joo Byung-kŏn, “Jukyō no susumu beki michi” [ 儒教の進むべき道 The path Confucianism should take], Keigakuin zasshi [経学院雑誌 Gyunghakwon magazine], no. 48 (April 1944): 39. 50 Koyasu Nobukuni, “Kokutai no sōshutsu—Sorai seisaku ron to Mitogaku” [ 「国体」の創出——徂徠制作論と水 戸学 Creation of the national polity—the making of Sorai Theory and Mito School Learning], (Unpublished blog article, 2018), accessed on June 1, 2020, http://blog.livedoor.jp/nobukuni_koyasu/archives/78134360​ .html. 51 Joo, “Jukyō no susumu beki michi,” 9. 52 Koyasu, “Kokutai no sōshutsu—Sorai seisaku ron to Mitogaku.” 53 Joo, “Jukyō no susumu beki michi,” 39. 54 Joo, “Jukyō no susumu beki michi,” 39. 55 Joo, “Jukyō no susumu beki michi,” 39. 56 Editorial Committee of the Korean Confucianism Federation. “Chōsenjurin Seichijunpaiki” [ 朝鮮儒林聖地 巡拝記 Korean Confucian scholars pilgrimage to a sacred place] (Seoul: Korean Confucianism Federation, 1943), 77–78. 57 “This pilgrimage to a sacred place, as Kim Byeong–wook (writing under his Japanese name Nagata Tanehide), head of the group, official in the Korean Government-General and head of the culture section of the Korean Confucianism Federation, made clear, had as its objective…researching the essence of Imperial Way Confucianism in Japan, to contribute to establishing Imperial Way Confucianism in Korea.” “Chōsenjurin Seichijunpaiki,” 71. 58 “Chōsenjurin Seichijunpaiki,” 81.

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“Chōsenjurin Seichijunpaiki,” 78. Seichijunpaiki,” 83–84. 61 Ahn, “Tōa no kensetsu to Judō no seishin,” 77–78. 62 Ahn, “Tōa no kensetsu to Judō no seishin,” 82. 63 Ahn, “Tōa no kensetsu to Judō no seishin,” 91. 64 Ahn, “Tōa no kensetsu to Judō no seishin,” 91. 65 Ahn In-Sik, quoted in Misan Sŏnsaeng Kinyŏm Saŏphoe, ed., Misan mun’go [ 미산문고 Misan writings] (Seoul: Munjosa, 1973), 233. 66 Ahn, “Confucianism,” 275. 60 “Chōsenjurin

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Chapter 9 The Image of the Kingly Way during the War: Focusing on Takada Shinji’s Imperial Way Discourse Park Junhyun Translated by Ruth and John McCreery

Introduction

This essay evaluates the position of the Imperial Way (皇道 Kōdō ) in the history of Japanese philosophy by examining the thinking of Takada Shinji (1893–1975). We begin by considering previous Korean research. Opinions concerning the Imperial Way have been expressed primarily in the context of research on Korean history, in particular on the history of “Imperial Way Confucianism” (皇道儒学 Kōdō jugaku). The leading research in this field was conducted by Jung Ukjaee1 and Kwon Inho2 and focused on Takahashi Tōru (1878–1967).3 Jung’s research is primarily conducted from a policy perspective and explores the propagation of Imperial Way Confucianism in Korea and the implementation of policies based on it. Kwon’s research sorts through Takahashi’s advocacy of the Imperial Way, but jumbles together the concepts of Imperial Way and Imperial Way Confucianism. Since, moreover, Kwon’s research is focused on Takahashi’s activities in Korea, it does not take full account of research on the Imperial Way conducted in Japan. For the reasons sketched above, the interpretations provided by previous research lack the type of philosophical analysis of the Imperial Way and Imperial Way Confucianism required to fully grasp the basic elements of their origins, significance, changes and implications in Japan. Jung’s and Kwon’s earlier research has been concerned primarily with the discussion of the Imperial Way or Imperial Way Confucianism in the context of Korean history and, therefore, lacked sufficient discussion of the Imperial Way concept. The purpose of this essay is to conduct a philosophical analysis of Imperial Way discourse and to locate this discourse in the history of philosophy in Japan. It investigates primarily the works of Takada Shinji, a sinologist, philosopher and leading member of the Confucian and Chinese studies organization the Shibunkai (斯文会) during the 1930s and 40s. It was Takada 130

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who, in the late 1930s, first systematized the Imperial Way concept. It is true that the antecedents for Imperial Way thought can be found in 17th-century Edo-period scholars such as Hayashi Razan. It is also true that other members of the Shibunkai such as Shionoya On and Inoue Tetsujirō had been writing on the Imperial Way concept in the mid-1930s, and the Confucian scholar Yasuoka Masahiro had started writing about this same concept as early as 1932.4 Nevertheless, Takada was the first to endeavor theorizing this concept thoroughly on a Confucian philosophical footing. In doing so, he created the framework for subsequent discussion of the Imperial Way through his innovative use of “the Mandate of Heaven” and “the Rectification of Names” to ground his theories. Now, however, over 75 years after the end of the Second World War, Takada’s ideas and philosophy have disappeared from history. That he was a sinologist is all that remains. This essay begins, therefore, by investigating Takada from an historical perspective. It then goes on to investigate Takada’s Imperial Way discourse from a philosophical perspective. It concludes by considering the Imperial Way during the war and attempts to position it in the history of philosophy in Japan.

Takada Shinji

Takada Shinji was a Chinese philosophy scholar (支那哲学者 Shina tetsugakusha) born in 1893 in Usa-gun, Oita Prefecture. A professor at Tokyo Imperial University from 1928 to 1948,5 he also served as a professor at Keijō Imperial University in Seoul.6 His pen-name was initially Tōken (韜軒), which he changed to Tōken (陶軒) 7 when he joined the faculty of Tokyo Imperial University, then to Kaian (楷菴) in 1945. During his time on the faculty at Keijō Imperial University, from 1924 to 1928,8 he conducted research on Seogye, i.e., Park Sedang, a late Chosun-era scholar and critic of orthodox Zhu Xi Confucianism.9 That was the first scholarly research on Park Sedang.10 It is noteworthy in that, in Korea, Park Sedang did not become the subject of any scholarly studies until the 1950s. As can be seen here, Takada was deeply involved with Korea during the Japanese colonial period. The focus of this essay is, however, an analysis of the significance of his discourse concerning the Imperial Way. Takada studied abroad in Germany (1928–1929), and in the USA and China in (1929– 1930).11 At that time, study abroad in Germany or other countries was a privilege restricted to a handful of members of Japan’s elite.12 It was a measure of his influence and public acceptance as a scholar that in 1939, while a Tokyo Imperial University professor, he was invited to deliver an Imperial New Year’s Lecture to the Emperor and imperial family. From 1936 on, the scope of Takada’s research expanded. Until 1936, his research had been concentrated almost exclusively on the concepts “learning” (学 gaku), “nature” (性 sei), “principle” (理 ri) and especially “the Mandate of Heaven” (天命 tenmei). Then, starting in 1936, he added “Manchuria” (満洲国) and “Imperial Way” (皇道 Kōdō) to his topics. It is easy to confirm from his writings before and after 1936 that his discussion of these new topics was consistent with the core focus of his earlier research on the Mandate of Heaven and what Mencius had described as China’s “Kingly Way” (王道 Odō). In other words, the changes in the scope of his research were not accompanied by a change in argument. Takada’s academic background included his academic connections at both Tokyo Imperial University and the Shibunkai. It was because of his belonging to the academic lineages of the prominent scholars Inoue Tetsujirō and Hattori Unokichi 13 that he became a Tokyo Imperial University professor. The influence of these two scholars formed the core of Takada’s

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thinking. Of particular note is Inoue’s influence in making the Mandate of Heaven an important research theme, until 1936, for Takada.14 Hattori’s impact as Takada’s mentor extended far beyond his academic influence. Hattori was the leader in rebuilding the Shibunkai, which in those days functioned as Japan’s brain trust for Confucian thought and Chinese studies,15 and became an important platform for Takada as well as Hattori and Inoue. As can be seen in the “Shibun” (斯文) in the Shibunkai’s name, this association was formed to conduct research on Confucianism.16 The group had been founded in 1880 as the Confucian Text Study Society (斯文学会 Shibun gakkai)17 but at first was not well known to the public. In 1918, however, following Hattori’s rebuilding, the name was changed to Shibunkai, and the group became a powerful influence in social and political as well as academic circles. This fact can easily be confirmed by examining the membership of the Shibunkai at this time. Besides many Tokyo Imperial University professors, it included members of the Tokugawa clan, prominent political leaders such as Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu, and business leaders, including Shibuzawa Eiichi.18 Members of the Shibunkai’s board of directors were, like Takada, invited to participate in the Imperial New Year’s Lecture.19 More than simply an academic society, it was a group that was strongly influential in many directions, including influencing members of the Imperial family. That was the position from which Takada, as the editor-in-chief of Shibun, the society’s journal, was responsible for the tone and direction of its contents.20 As indicated above, Takada was more than a specialist in Chinese classics and more than a philosopher. He was active as an ideologue with an editorial position in an academic society with a quasi-official nature. In that context, his main research after becoming the journal’s editor seems rather removed from the metaphysical field in which he had worked until 1935. Takada published Comparative Political Science (比較政治学 Hikaku seijigaku),21 a compilation of his research from 1935 and earlier, in 1939. Comparative Political Science includes a systematic theoretical framework for the “Imperial Way,” deepening extant interpretations of this concept by his Shibunkai peers and by others, illustrating the process through which the concept was disseminated and for what purpose. Takada’s explanation for his preferred interpretation of the Imperial Way pulls together his research prior to 1935. He shows, in particular, how his research on the Mandate of Heaven can be transformed into a political philosophy or ideology. The second part of this essay turns to a comprehensive examination of the construction of Takada’s Imperial Way discourse.

Explaining the Imperial Way Takada’s remarks concerning the Imperial Way were not the result of research devoted exclusively to this topic. His primary focus was comparing the Imperial Way with the Kingly Way. His goal was an ideal Imperial way, his own philosophical ideal, which would also provide a guide for practical governance. Takada’s book Comparative Political Science was the only work in which he addressed the Imperial Way directly and discussed concretely his assumptions about it. To Takada the Imperial Way was the Way of the Empire of Japan,22 a way with its origins in Shintō, spelled out in the Imperial Rescript on Education.23 Comparing it to the Kingly Way, he asserted that the Imperial Way was government by divine command, government established in the time of the gods. In contrast, the Kingly Way was, in the end, just focused on governmental operations.24 While both ideals were thought to be focused on government, they were different

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in key points. Takada compared these differences directly. Consider for example, his citation of the following passage from the Imperial Rescript, in which he describes their similarities: Our Imperial Ancestors have founded Our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue; Our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. 25 Drawing on this passage, Takada argued that the Empire of Japan was founded on the manifest virtue of the Imperial family, which thus already possessed the Mandate of Heaven. It therefore exemplified the virtuous government to which Confucius referred when he spoke about an earlier China as a model for the Kingly Way. Virtuous government was the fundamental similarity between the Imperial Way and the Kingly Way.26 Given this assumption, let us look more closely at Takada’s discussion of the Imperial Way.27 Takada’s Imperial Way discourse is constructed around two axes. One is “the way of governing the people,” (民を治むるの道 min wo osamuru no dō) named the Mandate of Heaven (天命 Tenmei). The other is “the way of self-cultivation,” (身を修むるの道 mi wo osamuru no dō) named the Rectification of Names (正名 Seimei).28 As can be seen in its description as the way of governing the people, discussion of the Mandate of Heaven is addressed to rulers. Similarly, its description as the way of self-cultivation implies that discussion of the Rectification of Names is addressed to the ruled. The Mandate of Heaven First, we will consider what Takada had to say about the Mandate of Heaven. Until he received his doctorate in 1935, the Mandate of Heaven had been the primary focus of his research. Takada’s interpretation of the Mandate of Heaven is grounded in Confucius but theological and ethical in form. It has two aspects. One is Confucianism; the other is the development of a logic addressed to those in authority. A factor affecting the Confucianist aspect of that interpretation was a trend among those studying “Chinese philosophy” in the academic world in Takada’s time. In those days, research in Chinese philosophy had shifted from research grounded in philosophy to the adoration of Confucius.29 That was the context that shaped Takada’s construction of the Mandate of Heaven. To Takada, Confucius’ “Heaven” (天 ten) applied to virtuous men entitled to be rulers (君主 kunshu), i.e., “Sons of Heaven”(天子 tenshi).30 Such men were entitled to govern their countries. Takada argued that ren (in Japanese, jin; 仁 benevolence) was the heart of Confucius’ thought.31 According to Confucius, ren was virtue—or, more precisely, the way to achieve virtue. Takada said that ren encompasses the whole of Confucius’ way. But ren is only human virtue.32 Confucius said of ren that its greatness and other absolute qualities should be acknowledged.33 What Confucius meant by the Mandate of Heaven was the legacy of earlier eras’ thought about Heaven but not identical with that thought. It departed, in particular, from the earlier times’ reverence for a transcendent Heaven or supreme deity.34 To explain what Confucius meant by virtue, Takada discussed four passages from the Analects. The first was the following:

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The Master being very sick, Zi Lu asked leave to pray for him. He said, “May such a thing be done?” Zi Lu replied, “It may. In the Eulogies it is said, ‘Prayer has been made for thee to the spirits of the upper and lower worlds’.” The Master said, “I have not prayed for a long time.” 35 Here we see Confucius confessing to Zi Lu that he has not prayed to the gods for a long time. To Takada, this passage implied that Confucius felt no shame toward the gods, for his actions in everyday life were virtuous.36 Thus he felt no need to pray. In other words, the virtue of an individual did not require prayers to the gods. For his second example, Takada turns to the case of Wang Sun Jia: Wang Sun Jia asked, saying, “What do you think about the saying ‘It is better to sacrifice to the kitchen god than to the god of the family shrine’?” Confucius said, “Not so. If you offend Heaven, there is no one you can pray to.” 37 Here, Wang Sun Jia is the king of Wei and possesses real power. In contrast to a powerless king, he speaks in a way intended to flatter Confucius. By comparing a ruler to Heaven, Confucius pushes back against his lack of seriousness. To Takada, “kitchen god” and “god of the family shrine” do not point to a minor deity like the original Chinese “kitchen god” but instead to an absolute master of the universe.38 Thus, the ruler, the Son of Heaven, who has received the Mandate of Heaven has absolute authority. Concerning Confucius’ attitude, Takada argues that, while noting the duty to respect the king, what Confucius hopes for is pure virtue that feels no shame toward Heaven.39 In Takada’s third quote, the topic turns to righteousness. The Master said, “To worship other than one’s own ancestral spirits is flattery. If you see what is right and fail to act on it, you lack courage.” 40 In Takada’s understanding of this passage, “For a man to sacrifice to a spirit which does not belong to him is flattery” and “To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage” are not two separate sentences. They are tightly interconnected.41 Here we see the influence of Park Sedang.42 That is, to worship the one who should be worshipped is the proper way to serve a true lord. Thus, righteous behavior (義 gi)43 requires courage.44 The fourth example is as follows: Fan Chi asked about the nature of wisdom. Confucius said, “Working to give the people justice and paying respect to the spirits, but keeping away from them, you can call wisdom.” 45 Takada’s analysis of this passage is that the spirits do not bestow blessings. Only if people do everything in their own power will spirits come to their aid.46 This is not the worship of supernatural beings who exist somewhere else. It is only when we cultivate virtue in ourselves that we achieve connection with the will of Heaven.47 In sum, Takada argues that only when humans do all that they can to fulfill the duties appropriate to their status will Heaven respond to their efforts.

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Based on his interpretation of these four passages, Takada transformed Heaven into an absolute and interpreted the Mandate of Heaven in a way which emphasized virtue. Confucius’ Mandate of Heaven was the foundation on which he constructed his own understanding. In this way, Takada’s explanation of the Mandate of Heaven differed from that developed in early China and made virtue its essential core. Thus, Takada advocated the proposition that ren, “benevolence,” is ren “human” (or, in the Japanese readings, jin, “benevolence,” is jin, “human”).48 More concretely, he argued that human beings could perfect themselves by leading virtuous lives. Instead of everything depending on Heaven, the thinking in early China, Heaven’s blessing depended on humans fulfilling their duties and living virtuous lives. Given this interpretation of Confucianism, the Mandate of Heaven was restricted to these rulers in a manner that evoked the second aspect, religious reverence. As indicated above, to preserve that absolute authority of the Mandate of Heaven, it was necessary for Heaven to exist absolutely. It was for this reason that Takada interpreted “Heaven” from a theological perspective. Takada’s Heaven was, he said, the same as Confucius’ Heaven. This Heaven was not a being who reached out to help humanity. It was the Mandate of Heaven that made a virtuous ruler a “Son of Heaven.” 49 It was also, like the Western “God,” conceived as a transcendental being.50 But while Takada described Heaven as an absolute divinity like the God of Christianity, the one who exercised that power on its behalf was the Son of Heaven. Takada insisted, therefore, on the absolute authority of both Heaven and the Son of Heaven. Takada presented two considerations as evidence of absolute authority. One was taken from Chinese history, the other from Japan. In the case of China, Takada offered the examples of Yao, Shun, and the Duke of Zhou, emphasizing the necessity of having a Son of Heaven who possessed the Mandate of Heaven to govern a country.51 In China, however, the Mandate of Heaven could be and was withdrawn, and therefore China had gone through a series of dynasties.52 To Takada, Japan was the opposite. In Japan, he argued, the Mandate of Heaven never changed. Takada offered two reasons for this difference. First, after Japan’s imperial house received the Mandate of Heaven, there were no other dynasties. Second, because the current imperial household were direct descendants of Heaven’s gods, the Japanese emperor was a living god.53 A political message emphasizing the absolute authority of the imperial system, this assertion that Japan’s Mandate of Heaven is eternal was also an expression of Takada’s ideological aspiration. Takada made benevolence (仁 jin) an element of the virtue that obtains the Mandate of Heaven. He went on to propose that benevolence combines five constituent paths: (1) acting properly (宜敷を得るの道 yoroshiki wo eru no dō), (2) choosing the good (択善の道 takuzen no dō), (3) moderation (節文の道 setsubun no dō), (4) joy (楽の道 raku no dō) and (5) expelling evil (兇寇除去の道 kyōkōjokyo no dō).54 The Rectification of Names To Takada, the primary meaning of the Rectification of Names was loyalty (忠 chū). In writing about the Rectification of Names he stressed five points: (1) the way of the ruler and minister; (2) the way of parent and child; (3) the way of older and younger brother; (4) the way of husband and wife; (5) the way of friends.55 Each embodied a core virtue. For the way of ruler and minister that virtue was loyalty; for the way of parent and child, filial piety (孝

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kō); for the way of older and younger brother, affection (友 yū); for the way of husband and wife, harmony (和 wa); for the way of friends, trust (信 shin). Takada’s discussion was based on the ideal embodied in the Duke of Zhou and the ideal relationships between individuals of different status described by Confucius. His interpretations resemble those in the Rectification of Titles (正名分 Zheng míng fen) by the Ming Dynasty Confucian scholar Cai Qing (1453–1508). In Takada’s case, however, the “names” (名) making up those titles were not just applied to objects. They were extended to relationships—ruler and minister, parent and child—and the significance of the names was the relationships to which they were attached. When writing about the Rectification of Names, Takada argued that it was already a reality in Japan.56 In contrast, Chinese history revealed an inability to realize Confucius’ ideals, the ideal Kingly Way. 57 The true realization of those ideals was Japan’s Imperial Way.

Conclusion This essay has focused primarily on Takada Shinji’s interpretation of the Imperial Way. There were numerous reasons why interpretations of the Imperial Way were hotly debated during the period in which he was writing. Major topics included, along with his critique of Mencius’ explanation for dynastic succession, the desire to guide Japan’s becoming an ideal nation-state based on the thinking of Confucius himself. When discussing the interpretation of the Imperial Way described above, Takada drew on Plato. The reason was his conceiving the Imperial Way’s Son of Heaven as a philosopherking. Takada’s Rectification of Names thus comes to resemble the allocation of statuses in Plato’s ideal State.58 To Takada, the Imperial Way was not only the ideal form for a nationstate, but it was also his perception of the Empire of Japan at that time. The construction of his interpretation of the Imperial Way was based on discussions of the ideal nation in Eastern philosophy. However, his praise for the Empire of Japan remains controversial. This interpretation of the Imperial Way was set in opposition to the Kingly Way described in the ancient Chinese classic Mencius. Takada’s concept of the Imperial Way became a focus for bringing together scholars studying Confucianism who would then develop “Chinese philosophy” as an academic subject and make it influential. That is an undeniable historical fact. That it contributed to the ideological legitimation of Japanese imperialism during the Second World War also deserves critique. However, until there has been a thorough investigation of the discourse surrounding the Imperial Way, it will not be possible to clarify it. Thus, this essay has reviewed multiple views concerning the interpretation of the Imperial Way, to pave the way for a comprehensive reassessment.

Notes

Jung Ukujae, “Chosun Yudo Yeonhaphoe eui gyeolseong gwa ‘Kōdō Jugaku’” [조선유도연합회의 결성과「皇 formation of the Chosun Federation of Confucianism and “Japanized Confucianism], Hanguk dokrib undongsa yeongu [한국동립운동사연구 Research on the Korean independence movement] 33, (2009), 227–64. 2 Kwon Inho, “Takahashi Tōru eui Kōdō Jugaku” [ 타카하시 도오루의 황도유학 Takashi Tōru’s Imperial Way Confucianism], Daedong cheulhak [대동철학 Great East philosophy] 55, (2011), 1–24. 3 Takahashi Tōru (1878–1967), a scholar of Confucian studies and Korean literature, became a professor at Keijō Imperial University in 1926, the principal of Keijō Private Keika College in 1940, and an emeritus professor after retiring as a professor at Keijō Imperial University. In 1945 he became director of Keijō Keigakuin 1

道儒学」The

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and Meirin Gakuin. He served as vice president of the Society of Korean Studies and founded the Chōsen Geppō (朝鮮月報). His works include Chōsen Jugaku taikan [朝鮮儒学大観 Confucianism in Korea] and Richō Bukkyō [李朝仏教 Buddhism in the Yi Dynasty]. Source: Ueno Masaaki, Nihon jinmei daijiten [日本人名大辞典 Dictionary of Japanese Names] (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2001). 4 For discussions of the development of Imperial Way Confucianism, see Kang Haesoo, “Hwangdo yuhak gwa doeui damron, gurigo shikminji chosun” [황도유학’과 ‘도의’담론, 그리고 식민지조선 Imperial Confucianism, morality, discourse and colonial Korea], Hangughag-yeongu [한국학연구 Korean studies] 28 (2012): 637–72, and the chapters by Kang Haesoo, Chang Kun-chiang, Jiang Dongxian and Shaun O’Dwyer in this volume. 5 “Takada Shinji” in Nichigai Associates, ed., Nijūseiki Nihonjinmei jiten [ 20世紀日本人名事典 Major 20thCentury People in Japan: A Biographical Dictionary] (Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, 2004), accessed 19th September 2021. https://kotobank.jp/word/高田%20真治-1648179. 6 Takada was an assistant professor from 1928 to 1934 and a full professor from 1934 to 1945 at Tokyo Imperial University, then continued to hold that position at the University of Tokyo until 1948. He was dismissed pursuant to Cabinet Order 62:2:1, in January, 1948. See Okatsuka Kiyoshi and Uno Seiichi, eds., Takada Shinji Hakushi koki kinen ronbunshū [高田眞治博士古希記念論集 Collection commemorating the seventieth birthday of Dr. Takada Shinji] (Tokyo: Daitō Bunka Daigaku Kangakukai, 1963). 7 The character 軒 in those pen names was handed down from Inoue Tetsujirō to Hattori Unokichi and then from Hattori to Takada, demonstrating that Takada was a successor to Hattori. Inoue Tetsujirō used 巽 軒, Hattori Unokichi used 隨軒, Takada 韜軒 (and later 陶軒); Hattori’s student Katō Jōken used 維軒, while Fujitsuka Chikashi used 素軒. 8 Takada was a preparatory course teacher at Keijō Imperial University from 1924 to 1925, an assistant professor from 1925 to 1927, and a preparatory course assistant professor and university professor from 1927 to 1928. See Okatsuka and Uno, Takada Shinji Hakushi koki kinen ronbunshū, 1. 9 Park Sedang (1629–1703) was a Chosun Dynasty scholar famous for declaring himself a rebel against thinking confused by Neo-Confucianism. He was known for his theory of inductive reason, his tendency to practicality and his interest in Daoism. See Song Hang-ryong, “Seogye Park Sedang eui no ‘jang yeongu wa doga chulhak sasang’” [西溪 朴世堂의 老・莊硏究와 道家哲学思想 Seogye Park Sedang’s studies of Laozi and Zhuangzi and Daoist philosophical thought], Daedong munhwa yeongu [대동문화연구 Daedong culture research] 16 (1982): 45–47. 10 Takada Shinji, “Shibenroku wo yomu” [思弁録を読む Reading records of speculations, 1–5]. Serialized in Vol. 9, no. 1, 2, 4, 7, 11 (1927), and Vol. 10, no. 6 (1928), 12–18, 14–20, 15–22, 24–32, 9–22. 11 See Okatsuka and Uno, Takada Shinji Hakushi koki kinen ronbunshū, 2. 12 Tsuji Naoto “Nijū seki shoto ni okeru Monbushō ryūgakusei no haiken jittai to sono henka ni tsuite no kōsa­tsu” [二十世紀初頭における文部省留学生の派遣実態とその変化についての考察 Changes in the number of exchange students sent abroad by the Ministry of Education in the early 20th century], Tōkyō Daigakushi kiyō [東京大学史紀要 Journal of the History of the University of Tokyo], no. 26 (2008): 21–38. 13 Hattori Unokichi was both a scholar specializing in “Chinese philosophy” ( 支那哲学 Shina tetsugaku) and an educational administrator. He graduated from the philosophy program at Tokyo Imperial University in 1890. In 1891 he was employed as a professor at the Third Higher School and the Tokyo Higher Normal School. In 1897, he was appointed secretary to the Minister of Education. In 1898 he became an assistant professor at Tokyo Imperial University; in 1899 he was appointed a professor at Tokyo Imperial University and also went to study in Qing China. In 1900, he traveled to Germany as an exchange student, where he received his doctorate in 1902. Then, at the invitation of the Qing government in China, he dedicated himself to the founding of Beijing Normal University. After returning to Japan in 1908, he became a professor in the Faculty of Letters of Tokyo Imperial University, where he lectured on Chinese Philosophy and systematized the study of ceremony and ritual based on his understanding of Western philosophy and social thought. In 1915, as Professor of Japanese Studies at Harvard University, he lectured on Confucianism for one year. In 1924, he became dean of the Literature Faculty of Tokyo Imperial University, and in 1926 was appointed both a member of the founding committee and chancellor of Keijō Imperial University. After retiring from Tokyo Imperial University and becoming an emeritus professor, he served as president of Kokugakuin University and dean at Tōhōbunka Gakuin. He also served as chair of the Shibunkai, the Nihonkōdōkai, and the Nikkagakukai. See Publication Committee for the Festschrift in Honor of Hattori Unokichi, ed., Hattori sensei koki shukuga kinen ronbunshū [服部先生古稀祝賀記念論文集 Festschrift in honor of Hattori Sensei] (Tokyo: Fuzanbō, 1936).

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Takada Shinji, “Inoue Sonken Sensei no tsuioku [井上巽軒先生の追憶 Memories of Master Inoue Sonken], Shibun [斯文] 26, no. 11/12, (1944): 16. 15 For detailed research about the Shibunkai, see Park Youngmi, “Kyunghakwon e seo boinun geundae ilbon eui yuhak kyunghyang: Tokyo shibunkai eui kwankei rul jungsimeuro” [경학원에 보이는 근대 일본의 유학의 경향: 東京斯文会의 관계를 중심으로 The research on the influence of modern Japanese Confucianism at Kyungha­ kwon: a focus on the relationship with the Shibunkai], lbonhag-yeongu [일본학연구 Japanese studies] 27 (May 2009): 91–117. 16 “Shibunkai go-annai” [ 斯文会ご案内 Shibunkai guide], (Tokyo: Yushima Seido and Public Interest Incorporated Association Shibunkai, 2009), accessed December 26, 2019, http://www.seido.or.jp/shibunkai.html. 17 Chen, Wei-fen, “Shibun Gakkai no Keisei to Tenkai” [ 「斯文学会」の形成と展開 Formation and development of the shibun gakkai], Chūgoku tetsugaku ronshū [中国哲学論集 Studies in Chinese philosophy] 21, (1995): 86–100. 18 For more information on the Shibunkai’s organizational aims and membership, see the introduction in this volume. 19 Inoue, Hattori, Uno and Fujitsuke Chikashi among others were responsible for the annual Imperial New Year’s Lecture. 20 Takada was editor-in-chief from 1936 until the war’s end in 1945. 21 Takada Shinji and Hama Shigetoshi, Hikaku seijigaku [ 比較政治学 Comparative political science] (Tokyo: Nankōsha, 1939), 7. 22 Takada and Hama, Hikaku seijigaku, 7. 23 Takada and Hama, Hikaku seijigaku, 11. 24 Takada and Hama, Hikaku seijigaku, 11. 25 Imperial Rescript on Education. Japanese and English versions of the Imperial Rescript on Education can be found at this archived website: https://web.archive.org/web/20200322102836/http://www.meijijingu​.or​.jp:80​ /english/about/6.html, accessed August 30, 2021. 26 Takada and Hama, Hikaku seijigaku, 7. 27 Takada and Hama, Hikaku seijigaku, 178. 28 Takada and Hama, Hikaku seijigaku, 14. Hereinafter references to “the way of governing the people” and “the Mandate of Heaven” will be consolidated under “the Mandate of Heaven” and “The way of selfcultivation” and “the Rectification of Names” under “the Rectification of Names.” 29 The Shibunkai held an annual Confucius Festival. This festival was not a solely Shibunkai event. It was jointly organized by the Shibunkai and the Keigakuin in Korea to showcase exchange between Japan and Korea. See Park Youngmi, “Kyunghakwon e seo boinun geundae ilbon eui yuhak kyunghyang: Tokyo shibunkai eui kwankei rul jungsimeuro,” 91–117. 30 “Sons of Heaven” hereinafter. 31 Takada Shinji, Jukyō no seishin [ 儒教の精神 The spirit of Confucianism] (Tokyo: Dainippon Tosho, 1937), 284. 32 Takada Shinji, Morohashi Tetsuji, et al. Kōshi no shisō, denki oyobi nenpu [ 孔子の思想・傅記及年譜 Confucius’ thought, biography and chronology] (Tokyo: Shunyodo, 1937), 80. 33 Takada Shinji, Morohashi Tetsuji, et al. Kōshi no shisō, denki oyobi nenpu, 80. 34 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai [ 支那思想の展開 Development of Chinese thought] (Tokyo: Kōdōkan Tosho, 1944), 97. 35 Confucius, The Analects, Shu Er, 34. English translation based on A. Charles Muller, trans., The Analects of Confucius, Resources for East Asian Language and Thought Website, 2021, accessed September 22, 2021. http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/analects.html. 36 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 99. 37 Analects, Ba Yi 13. English translation based on A. Charles Muller, trans., The Analects of Confucius Resources for East Asian Language and Thought Website, 2021, accessed September 22, 2021. http://www​ .acmuller.net/con-dao/analects.html. 38 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 99. 39 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 99. 40 The Analects, Wei Zheng, 24. English translation based on A. Charles Muller, trans., The Analects of Confucius Resources for East Asian Language and Thought Website, 2021, accessed September 22, 2021. http:// www.acmuller.net/con-dao/analects.html. 14

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Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 100. Tak Yanghyun, ed., “Seogye Park Sedang eui Yugachulhak bipan, sabyunrok 3: je 3 jang noneo e daehan bipan” [서계박세당의 유가철학 비판: 사변록3, 제 3장 논어에 대한 비판 Seogye Park Sedang’s critique of Confucian philosophy 3: a criticism of the Analects, chapter 3] E-Purple (2018), Chapter 24. 43 Here, 義 (gi) refers to all correct behavior. 44 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 100. 45 The Analects, Yong Ye, 22. English translation based on A. Charles Muller, trans., The Analects of Confucius Resources for East Asian Language and Thought Website, 2021, accessed September 22, 2021. http://www​ .acmuller.net/con-dao/analects.html. 46 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 100. 47 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 101. 48 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 35. 49 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 10. 50 Takada Shinji, Tōyōshichō no Kenkyū [ 東洋思潮の研究 Research on currents in Oriental thought] (Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1944), 127. 51 Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no tenkai, 15, 57. 52 Takada Shinji, Takada chose to use the term “revolution in succession,” ( 歴世革命 rekisei kakumei), rather than “dynastic revolution.” (易姓革命 ekisei kakumei), See Takada Shinji, Shina shisō no kenkyū [支那思想の研 究 Research on Chinese thought] (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1939), 33. 53 Takada Shinji, Takada Shinji, Shina shisō to gendai [ 支那思想と現代 Chinese thought and today’s world] (Tokyo: Dainippon Tosho, 1940), 58. 54 Takada and Hama, Hikaku seijigaku, 31. 55 Takada and Hama, Hikaku seijigaku, 111. 56 Takada, Shina shisō no tenkai, 62. 57 Takada, Shina shisō no tenkai, 62. 58 Takada, Shina shisō no tenkai, 12. 42

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Chapter 10 Watsuji Tetsurō’s Confucian Bonds: From Totalitarianism to New Confucianism Kyle Michael James Shuttleworth

Introduction Watsuji Tetsurō is perhaps best regarded for his ethical theory which has unfortunately been tainted by the charge of totalitarianism. This criticism presumes that he supported a dictatorial government which demands the total subservience of the subject to the sovereign. And although Watsuji states that his theory of betweenness (間柄 aidagara) involves the negation of both individuality and community in the first volume of his Ethics (1939), the concrete application of his ideas in the second volume (1942) culminates in the nation where the individual is subordinated to the state. There are three aims of this chapter. Firstly, it is my intention to argue that this charge of totalitarianism is a consequence of Watsuji’s incorporation of the Confucian Five Human Bonds or Relationships (五倫 Gorin): the relationship between father and son, husband and wife, eldest and youngest sibling, sovereign and subject, and friend and friend. Secondly, it will be claimed that Watsuji overcomes this criticism in his postwar revision of the second volume of Ethics (1946) by resituating his account within a New Confucian framework. Thirdly, it will be illustrated that despite overcoming the charge of totalitarianism, Watsuji’s Confucian-inspired account of the family nevertheless remains open to the charge of conservativism. In order to achieve these aims, this chapter will be divided into four sections. I will begin by explicating the presence of the five Confucian bonds within Ethics. Here it will be illustrated that Watsuji uses these bonds to explain the core concept of aidagara in the first volume, and that he utilizes these bonds to convey the concrete application of aidagara in the second volume. Next, the criticism of totalitarianism will be discussed. Here particular emphasis will be placed upon critiques of Watsuji in Western scholarship, and it will be argued that these criticisms are a consequence of that scholarship’s interpretations of the Confucian relationship between subject and sovereign. Thirdly, I will consider the emergence of New Confucianism in response to such criticisms. Here it will be shown that New Confucianism is

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based on the attempt to reconcile Confucianism and democracy, and in this respect it will be suggested that the postwar revision of the second volume of Ethics can be understood to have been developed within a New Confucian framework. Finally, I will consider contemporary criticisms of New Confucianism. In particular, I will look at the feminist critique and apply this to Watsuji’s account of the family in order to illustrate the charge of conservativism.

Watsuji’s Confucian Bonds Watsuji’s engagement with the five bonds begins from the outset of his ethical enquiry in Ethics (1939).1 Here, Watsuji seeks to establish an understanding of ethics based upon the relationship between people rather than from the individual standpoint of consciousness alone. To provide the foundation for his argument, he first presents a linguistic deconstruction of the word for ethics (倫理 rinri). Watsuji equates the first character (倫 rin) with companion (nakama), which he reinterprets to mean a group taken as a relational structure and those individuals who constitute that group. Watsuji elucidates upon his reinterpretation of nakama through the example of the Confucian bond between father and son. Here it is explained that a father and son do not first exist as separate individuals who then later come together to form this bond. On the contrary, as Watsuji elucidates, “the father acquires his title as father, and the son as son, only within this relationship. In other words, they become father and son by virtue of their being the constituents of that nakama.” 2 He continues to explain that a relationship constitutes two men as father and son, while another may determine two people as friends because nakama entails a specific way of being with others, and as such, nakama provides a certain structure or pattern. The second character of the word “ethics” ri (理), entails “reason” or “principle” and emphasizes the way, or order of such behavior. On this understanding, Watsuji presents ethics as the order which causes the communal existence of humans to be what it is, namely, the laws of social existence. Since ethical orders already exist, this suggests that they already contain a moral imperative. Watsuji again draws upon Confucian bonds to explicate his point, this time focusing upon the relationship between friends. Here, Watsuji notes that in order for friendship to exist, there must be trust. His point is that “to the extent that a relation to friendship has become a reality, ‘trust’ as the constative way of behavioral association already exists as the foundation of this relationship. Without this trust, there is no friendship” 3 For this reason, Watsuji claims “ethics is not mere moral obligation but already exists; yet it is not the mere laws of being, but must be endlessly realized.” 4 However, he notes that this presupposes an account of Chinese values which would need to be substantiated. At this stage this is not problematic because he does not espouse these values but instead employs them for the purpose of elucidation. In the second volume of Ethics (1942), Watsuji illustrates the concrete application of his theory of aidagara through “ethical organizations” (人倫的組織 jinrinteki soshiki).5 Influenced by Hegel’s theory of ethical life (Sittlichkeit), Watsuji structures his account of society around the organizations of family, local community, cultural community and nation state.6 In his account, the smallest social totality is the couple, who share a sexual relation which is mediated by love. The trust relation between the couple is realized through fidelity (貞操 teisō), and when the couple exchange vows they must also cultivate marital harmony (夫婦 相和 fūfuaiwa). When the couple procreate their love is then mediated through their child, through whom they then share a biological relation. The relationship between parent and

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child is then advanced through filial piety (孝 kō), that is, by fulfilling their filial duties and not betraying their parents trust. When the family increases, the relationship between siblings is then mediated by a shared love for the parents. The second ethical organization is the local community, which is constituted of neighbors who share a geographical location, and which is mediated by a shared way of life. In order for trust to flourish, the individual must place the community before oneself and one’s family. This is achieved through the virtues of integration (一人前になる ichininmae ni naru), fraternity (博愛 hakuai) and consideration (心遣い kokorotsukai). The next ethical organization is the cultural community which is conceptualized in terms of art, language, scholarship and religion. Art expresses the essence of a community, language underpins all other aspects, scholarship portrays intellectual development as a cumulative process and religion symbolizes the home ground of existence.7 Unlike the local community, which is a physical relationship, the cultural community is spiritual and maintained when those who share these values form a friendship (友情 yūjō). In the final organization, the nation-state, the previous organizations of family, community and culture are subsumed. That which binds these aspects together and maintains this structure is sacredness and it is mediated by the force of law. Here the primary relationship is between the citizen and ruler. Here Watsuji claims that the citizen expresses sincerity through absolute obedience (絶対服従 zettai fukujū), while the ruler expresses sincerity through benevolent rule (仁政 jinsei). When each understands their place and acts accordingly, they enact the virtue of justice (正義 seigi) and ethical relationships can flourish. Within these organizations, we can see respective representatives of the five Confucian bonds. In the family the first key relation is between husband and wife, whose love flourishes whenever their faithfulness is maintained. The husband’s and wife’s love then develops when they produce children, who then have a duty to their parents. As the family increases, the youngest child is then obligated to the eldest child and the shared love for their parents. In the cultural community, we can see the bond between friend and friend established between those who share the same cultural identity and values of art, language, scholarship and religion. In the state, the defining relation is that between subject and sovereign who must trust one another to fulfil their socio-political duties. Namely, the subjects trust the sovereign to be just and benevolent and the subject responds through obedience. It is also this volume which attracts the most controversy. In particular, Watsuji’s account of the subject and sovereign has received negative attention in Western scholarship. In what follows, I will consider the charge of totalitarianism against Watsuji and illustrate that this stems from the incorporation of the aforementioned Confucian bonds.

Criticism of totalitarianism A number of commentators have suggested that totalitarianism is immanent within Watsuji’s thought and taken him to task over this. As stated in the introduction, totalitarianism is the ideology that the individual members of a nation are totally subservient to the authority of the state. In Watsuji’s thought, this criticism is directed towards his theory of society, where the Japanese nation is presented as the embodiment of the national will. Gino Piovesana was one of the first Western commentators to articulate this criticism. In Piovesana’s account, when we appraise the political implications of Watsuji’s social relationism, it amounts to a “totalitarian state ethics.” 8 Robert Bellah also expresses this criticism, but appeals to the

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critique of ideology made against Watsuji by the likes of Maruyama Masao and Tosaka Jun. Through this critique, Bellah believed the totalitarian elements inherent within Watsuji’s theory of ningen were exposed.9 Peter Dale likewise claims that “Watsuji moves to a position which denies autonomy to private, individual consciousness itself….” 10 The consequence of this denial in Watsuji’s theory of aidagara for Dale is the subsequent submergence of the individual into society through the reinforcement of social relations within Japanese consciousness.11 Steve Odin brings Bellah’s and Dale’s positions together to claim “At the political level of discourse, the danger of Watsuji’s communitarian ethics of the family system based upon his ningen model of personhood and aidagara theory of relations is that it is all too easily applied in the direction of what has been called by scholars a ‘totalitarian state ethics’ and even a ‘fascist ideology’.” 12 Nevertheless, Odin acknowledges the Confucian influence here, stating “In Watsuji’s Confucian model of the self, however, a phylogenetic explanation of collective group-consciousness is fully articulated in terms of its fundamental notion of li (禮) or institutionalized rites of propriety.” 13 More specifically, Odin claims “Despite the fact that Watsuji’s Confucian/Zen model of the self as ningen purports to establish a middle path between the individual and social aspects of personhood, his own theory moves in the direction of collective group-consciousness to the degree that the individual is absorbed into the community, thereby landing in what some political analysts have called a totalitarian state ethics.” 14 In what sense, however, can this criticism of totalitarianism be linked specifically to Watsuji’s incorporation of the five Confucian bonds? Watsuji’s account undoubtedly incorporates Confucian elements, but to what extent are these to blame for his supposed totalitarianism? One might seek to dismiss this position on the grounds that the second volume of Ethics was published in 1942 during the height of imperial expansion in Japan, and when nationalist sentiment was running rampant. On account of this, one may claim that Watsuji was simply a product of his times.15 We can see such a position upheld by Bernard Bernier, according to whom “[Watsuji’s] adoption of ‘reverence for the Emperor’ as the foundation of the unity of the Japanese people through time can be seen as part of the nationalistic imperial ideology characteristic of the prewar period. It can also be seen as the political manifestation, or, conversely, as the basis, of the totalitarian tendencies that we saw earlier in his philosophical system.” 16 This perspective is further substantiated by Watsuji’s association with two nationalistic texts, namely, the Imperial Rescript on Education (教育勅語 Kyōiku chokugo), promulgated in 1890, and Fundamental Principles of National Polity (国体の本義 Kokutai no hongi), promulgated in 1937. Anton Sevilla draws comparisons between Watsuji’s social theory within the second volume of Ethics and the Imperial Rescript. In Sevilla’s account, “Watsuji stresses the importance of absolute obedience, especially in times of war, (which is an ethical duty to protect one’s ethical totality). He also gives his support to the Imperial Rescript on Education, and, in line with this, describes justice as ‘each citizen finding his/her place’ and benevolent rule (jinsei) as guaranteeing this ‘justice’ for the people.’ ” 17 Moreover, Watsuji was implicated in the development of the Fundamental Principles, having served on the committee that drew up the first draft. Watsuji’s connection to this text has been used to support the view that he was a nationalist sympathizer and to emphasize his totalitarianism. As Christopher Goto-Jones makes explicit, “There has been a tendency for postwar historians to use Watsuji’s membership of this committee as evidence of his complicity in the orthodox ideology of the wartime state.” 18 However, the correlation between such texts and the charge of totalitarianism can Chapter 10: Watsuji Tetsurō’s Confucian Bonds

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more accurately be understood as a consequence of these texts also incorporating Confucian ideals. In each of these texts, one can clearly see the presence of the key Confucian concepts of filial piety and loyalty. In the Imperial Rescript, these two traits are presented as virtuous and prideful: “The fact that my subjects show their loyalty to me and show filial love to their parents in their millions of hearts all in unison, thus accumulating virtue generation after generation is indeed the pride of my nation, and is a profound idea and the basis of our education.” 19 Furthermore, the moral character of the Japanese people is connected to the cultivation of filial piety: “You, my subjects form full personalities by showing filial love to your parents, by making good terms with your brothers and sisters, by being intimate with your friends, by making couples who love each other, [and] by trusting your friends.” 20 Moreover, in Fundamental Principles, the concept of loyalty in relation to the Emperor is further emphasized where it is claimed, “Loyalty means to revere the Emperor as [our] pivot and to follow him implicitly. By implicit obedience is meant casting ourselves aside and serving the Emperor intently.” 21 The concept of filial piety is also expressed in relation to the cultivation of character where it is stressed that “The true characteristics of filial piety in our country are its perfect conformity with our national polity by heightening still further the relationship between morality and nature. Our country is a great family nation, and the imperial household is the head family of the subjects and the nucleus of national life.” 22 This position is also maintained by Furukawa Tesshi who claims that the essence of national polity (国体 kokutai) was derived from the concepts of loyalty and filial piety, which were taken from the ideology of the five Confucian bonds, and subsequently became the basis for reverence of the Emperor.23 Thus, even if Watsuji is a product of his times, the cause of his totalitarian tendencies can be indirectly linked to the five human relations. That is, both Watsuji’s ethical organizations and the supposed totalitarian elements in his thought, which are shared with the Imperial Rescript and Fundamental Principles, can be seen to be underpinned by loyalty and filial piety, the latter of which is the underlying theory of the five bonds. However, the charge of totalitarianism is not unique to Watsuji but has been levelled against Confucianism in general.

New Confucianism On the fourth of May 1919, a cultural movement occurred in China spearheaded by classically trained intellectuals such as Hu Shih and Lu Xun. Termed the “New Cultural Movement,” this countermovement was characterized by the criticism of Confucianism from a democratic standpoint.24 One of the primary criticisms was that the three guiding moral principles of Confucianism were against humanity.25 Within Confucian thought, the five bonds are supported by the three guiding moral principles, which entail that the rulers set rules for the ministers, the fathers set rules for the sons, and the husbands set rules for the wives. One common criticism of these principles is that the relationship between the two parties is unequal. For example, the ministers are expected always to obey the rules set by the ruler, regardless of whether these rules are reasonable or not. The knock-on-effect is that the ministers must then implement these laws, potentially subjugating the subjects. Thus, while the general criticism of the three guiding moral principles is one of extreme paternalism, in terms of the relationship between the sovereign and their subjects, it can more specifically be seen as one of totalitarianism. In order to reply to the challenges posed by the New Culture

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Movement, supporters of Confucianism then attempted to modify it to fit with democratic society. This countermovement led to the establishment of New Confucianism in China and Taiwan,26 the aims of which are most coherently expressed within the Declaration on Behalf of Chinese Culture (為中国文化敬告世界人士宣言 Wei zhongguo wenua jinggao shijie renshi xuanyan, 1958).27 Here it is argued that it is a mistake to believe Chinese culture and democracy are incompatible. As the authors make explicit, “It is unjustifiable to assert that there was no democratic seed latent in Chinese culture, because both Confucian and Taoist political thought had confirmed that the ruler should never abuse his power.” 28 In the New Confucian’s defense, checks and balances had previously been put in place via sophisticated bureaucratic systems to ensure that rulers did not abuse their positions.29 Moreover, while in Imperial China the Emperor represented the will of the people, the authors argued that the idea of the people’s will as representing the will of Heaven was always present in ancient Chinese philosophies. In this respect, advocates of New Confucianism sought to quell the criticism of totalitarianism by illustrating that not only could Confucianism impede totalitarianism, but that it could be reconciled with democracy. This development of Confucianism in response to democracy was not unique to China and its territories. New Confucianism can also be seen as a movement in modern Japanese Confucian studies. As noted with the examples of the  Imperial Rescript and Fundamental Principles, traditional concepts of loyalty and filial piety were being reworked into a modern framework in Japan.30 This line of argument is also developed by Kiri Paramore and Shaun O’Dwyer, who each claim that Inoue Tetsujirō, reconfigured disparate Confucian doctrines to be both distinct from and equivalent to western political-ethical philosophy. Indeed, according to Paramore, “The main academic contribution of his career is usually viewed in terms of his attempt to integrate the teaching of East Asian thought, in particular Confucianism, into a Western academic framework, creating an intellectual history basis of the ‘national ethic’ as ‘Japanese philosophy.’ ” 31 O’Dwyer goes further to suggest that Inoue’s development of these Confucian ideals was to create a unified national morality which could stem the corrosive incursions of Western morality. As O’Dwyer attests, “This was for the purposes of ethnocultural nationalist or Pan-Asian self-definition against the West, and against the culturally corrosive intellectual and economic forces attributed to it at different times; atomistic individualism, egoism, materialism and neoliberalism.” 32 It is my claim, however, that not only can Watsuji be understood as an advocate of this movement, but contrary to Inoue, he can be seen to develop his position in a more positive light. Although there is no recorded intellectual collaboration or mutual acknowledgment between Watsuji and the Chinese philosophers associated with New Confucianism, it is not necessary to adhere to such a literal understanding of the boundaries that constitute New Confucianism. Nakajima Takahiro, for instance, has interpreted “New Confucianism” to simply refer to postwar Japanese sinology.33 My own understanding is slightly more specific than this, insofar as I seek to illustrate that there are parallels between Chinese New Confucian thought and Watsuji’s postwar writings. Namely, their efforts to reconcile Confucianism with democracy, and their cultural conservatism. However, this was not the case with Wa­ tsu­ji’s work produced during the war. In the wartime-published second volume of Ethics (1942), Watsuji makes some disparaging remarks about democracy. His primary claim was that democracy cannot truly represent the will of the people because it is artificially constructed. As he explains, “The general will Chapter 10: Watsuji Tetsurō’s Confucian Bonds

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is decided via ballots. However, these ballots merely represent no more than the will of the individual self, and so the selves of the majority replace the self of the sovereign as the bearer of authority. […] Sovereignty ought to be completely ‘public,’ and should not admit of self/ ego even if it is that of the majority.” 34 In Watsuji’s account, rather, the unity between the nation and the state should be a natural, substantial relation between the people and a divine ruler. He also extends this criticism to other organizations which he believes to be none other than artificially constructed “functional” totalities, such as the League of Nations, which he criticizes for simply protecting the private interests of egoistic countries.35 However, in the postwar revision of the second volume of Ethics (1946) there is somewhat of a political transformation. Here Watsuji retracts his criticism that democracy cannot represent the will of the people, and instead claims that totality can be realized through self-awareness and reason.36 Moreover, while he previously condemned the League of Nations he here suggests that the United Nations possesses the power to bring nations together by treating each of these as sovereign totalities and in this respect it may provide the means to end war.37 As a consequence of these postwar changes, and by taking a more favorable approach to democracy, Watsuji can be seen to overcome the criticism of totalitarianism. Despite Piovesana’s previous criticism that Watsuji’s social relationism amounts to a “totalitarian state ethics,” he also acknowledges that this aspect of Watsuji’s thought was corrected in the post war edition.38 This view is also espoused by Sakai Naoki who exclaims that “Watsuji deproblematized and depoliticized the existence of the nation itself.” 39 However, more than this, and more importantly for our enquiry, Watsuji’s democratization can be understood in relation to New Confucianism.40 As previously noted, one of the main tenets of New Confucianism is the attempt to overcome criticisms made from a democratic perspective. As seen in the New Confucian Manifesto, in order to portray the compatibility of Confucianism with democracy, an attempt was made to illustrate that the people could veto the Emperor to prevent totalitarianism, and that the people’s will is none other than the will of heaven. We also see these same two philosophical maneuvers made by Watsuji, and it is in this regard that we ought to understand his theory within a New Confucian framework. That is, by minimalizing the nationalist elements in his thought, by claiming that the Japanese nation state is not the ultimate totality, but one of many nations which each deserves space to flourish, Watsuji not only accommodates democratic theory, but expands his Confucian account to fit within the definition of New Confucianism. Thus, as we can see, Watsuji did try and accommodate his thought to the new democratic dispensation, making it parallel with the democracy-affirmative New Confucians in China and Taiwan. However, despite Watsuji’s efforts to reconcile Confucianism with democracy, it will be argued that the cultural conservatism which his postwar ethical theory preserves, raises the question of whether his New Confucianism can support a more culturally diverse liberal democracy that incorporates gender equality.

Critique of conservative New Confucianism Although Watsuji can be seen to overcome the criticism of totalitarianism by resituating his thought within a New Confucian framework, there are nevertheless problems with New Confucianism. Sakamoto Hiroko, for example, criticizes New Confucianism from a feminist perspective. In particular, Sakamoto argues that “There is no idea to advocate equality, even if there is a bodily difference. At the foundations, there are of course similarities with

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classical Western philosophy. However, this foundation is none other than the frequent use of the Confucian male-centric and fatalistic vision of ‘nature’.” 41 This criticism can also be extended to Watsuji’s account of the family insofar as he draws upon democratic theory to develop the subject-sovereign relationship, but fails to reevaluate the relations between husband and wife and parent and child. In terms of family, there are two criticisms which can be levelled against Watsuji. Firstly, in Watsuji’s theory of the family the wife is understood as other to the husband. As Watsuji puts it “What we can draw out from the unity of a couple is the complementary relationship between husband and wife. This has been understood as a yin-yang relationship since olden times.” 42 In this relationship, the husband participates in masculine endeavors such as labor and providing protection, while the wife focuses on childrearing and housekeeping, and supports her husband. The claim that women are merely “other” to men is the basis of feminist critique. That is, the idea that a wife is subsidiary to her husband not only ignores the efforts of the suffragettes and subsequent rights of women, but denies recognition of their equality, thus suggesting they are not equal in terms of social status. Indeed, such arguments were prevalent in Japan contemporary to Watsuji.43 The movement against conservative gender ideology in early 20th-century Japan is perhaps best expressed by the Japanese Bluestocking Society (青鞜社 Seitō-sha). Initially a literary network, the aim of this society was to advance the level of women’s literature, allow women to develop their talents, and to recruit female literary geniuses. The primary outlet for their views was the literary magazine Bluestocking (青鞜 Seitō), which was edited by Hiratsuka Raichō, and which published its inaugural issue in September 1911. A political, feminist transformation in the magazine occurred when women who had suffered from domestic abuse began contacting Hiratsuka for advice. These cries for help prompted Hiratsuka to compose a criticism of the existing, outdated marriage system. In her essay, “To the Women of the World” (世の婦人たちに Yo no fujin tachi ni), which appeared in April 1913, Hiratsuka criticized the tradition of arranged marriage, rhetorically questioning, “How many women have, for the sake of financial security in their lives, entered into loveless marriages to become one man’s lifelong servant and prostitute?” 44 She also criticized the role of wife and mother as the only calling for women. In her own words, “Besides being a ‘good wife and wise mother’ (良妻賢母 ryōsai kenbo), why shouldn’t there be limitless callings for women, for every individual?” Moreover, she claims that not only are women limited in their social capacities to two roles, but education and expectations cause women to become subsidiary to men. As she explains, “feminine virtues,” such as obedience and loyalty, only exist “for the sake of men’s lives.” 45 While Hiratsuka’s criticisms focus on the state-sanctioned gender ideology of “good wife and wise mother” these also apply to the Confucian view of women implicit within Watsuji’s account. However, Erin McCarthy can be seen to defend Watsuji indirectly against this critique, by arguing that his concept of ningen can in fact contribute to feminist studies. McCarthy claims Watsuji’s account of non-duality complements Luce Irigaray’s care ethics. More specifically, McCarthy sees Watsuji as espousing a relational account of the human which does not treat the other as something to be dominated. As McCarthy states, “Irigaray’s metaphor of fluidity and mucosity and Watsuji’s concept of ningen not only allow for but promote non-totalizing frameworks. That is, ways of understanding that are open to, and encouraging of, communion with the other without assimilating or subsuming what is different to what is the same.” 46 Chapter 10: Watsuji Tetsurō’s Confucian Bonds

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Furthermore, in Watsuji’s defense, one could suggest that Confucianism in fact possesses the latent means to address such claims of inequality. While the majority of Confucian bonds are hierarchical (husband to wife, parent to child, eldest to youngest sibling, and sovereign to subject), the relationship between friends is somewhat different. Unlike other bonds which require one constituent to assume a position of authority over the other and to set rules and standards which the other must obey, friends exist in a relation of mutual recognition. That is, friends are not expected to set standards for one another but simply to share the same values. In this respect, the potential for recognition of equal status between friends can be seen to exist in Confucianism. In what way, however, can this be employed to address claims of inequality between men and women? Although the bond between husband and wife can be understood as a functional relationship, it could also be inferred that the potential to transcend this simple functionality also exists. Namely, were the couple to cultivate a friendship by sharing the same values, for example, then it could be suggested that they might also exist in a relation of equality. The second criticism is that Watsuji’s account is not representative of contemporary conceptions of the family. Watsuji’s theory requires marriage for the development of totality, however, as Sevilla notes, this marriage is only between heterosexual couples.47 Moreover, the family only progresses in terms of totality when the couple procreate, thus sharing a biological relationship which mediates their love, but this excludes adopted children. Contemporary conceptions of family are not restricted to heterosexual couples, and the institution of marriage no longer carries the same normative weight, with single parents becoming the new norm. Many couples also choose to adopt children, or raise those who were conceived within their partner’s previous relationship. In Watsuji’s account, however, it seems that those who cannot conceive are incapable of achieving totality. Thus, Watsuji’s account alienates a large percentage of those who exist outside of the traditional concept of family. And as such, his account neither provides an accurate representation of what a family is, nor what it ought to be. Both of these criticisms, of Watsuji’s theory espousing the inequality of women and as representative of an outdated model of the family can be traced to his Confucian bonds. Firstly, the view that women are not equal to men is a standard criticism against Confucianism as elucidated by Sakamoto and brought about by the hierarchical structure of the family which suggests that wives ought to be subservient to their husbands. Granted, however, Wa­ tsuji does not incorporate the three guiding moral principles, which infer that the husband sets rules for his wife. Secondly, the structure of the family as complete with the conception of children is likewise inferred, where there is an emphasis on the relation between parent and child, and eldest and youngest siblings. Although Watsuji’s account of the family does go beyond that which is implied by the Confucian relations, in terms of biological children, it nevertheless relies upon these bonds for its basis. Thus, while New Confucianism provides one possibility for reframing Watsuji’s ethics in order to avoid the criticisms of totalitarianism, it remains open to debate whether it can be compatible with gender norms in liberal democratic societies.

Conclusion Whether or not Watsuji is guilty of the charge of totalitarianism is a question which has been discussed ad infinitum, and is subsidiary to the aim of this enquiry. The aim has simply been

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to illustrate that what has led to such criticism is his incorporation of the five Confucian bonds, and that his re-evaluation of these bonds in the postwar edition of the second volume of Ethics (1946) led to the cessation of these criticisms. And while it was demonstrated that Watsuji overcomes the criticism of totalitarianism in his postwar revision of the second volume, he does so by adopting a position of New Confucianism. However, it was also shown that his Confucian-inspired account of the family nevertheless remains open to the charge of conservativism. Interestingly, in the third volume of Ethics (1949) Watsuji himself critically evaluates the Confucian elements inherent in Japanese society and their compatibility with modern civilization. In particular, he criticizes the fixation on dominant forms of filial piety, such as the relationship between parent and child, which take precedence over other forms of family relations and public relations. And while he expresses the necessity to rethink these relations, he also acknowledges the embeddedness of these roles and relationships within Japanese society. Thus, there are certainly grounds for arguing that Watsuji himself later sought to overcome the conservative elements in his thought by turning away from an authoritarian account of Confucianism. However, the extent to which Watsuji’s reconfiguration of filial piety enables him to overcome the charge of conservatism is a significant question and one which requires further research.

Notes 1

In the 1934 publication Ethics as the Study of Human, Watsuji relies heavily on the five relations in order to articulate his concept of rinri, focusing particularly on the account provided by Mencius. Watsuji Tetsurō, “Ningen no gaku toshite no rinrigaku” [人間の学としての倫理学 Ethics as the study of human] in Watsuji Tetsurō zenshū dai kyū kan [和辻哲郎全集 第九巻 Complete works of Watsuji Tetsurō, Vol. 9] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1962), 7–10. 2 Watsuji Tetsurō, David A. Dilworth, trans., “The Significance of Ethics as the Study of Man,” Monumenta Nipponica, 26, no. 3/4 (1971): 397. 3 Watsuji, “The Significance of Ethics as the Study of Man.” 4 Watsuji, “The Significance of Ethics as the Study of Man.” 5 Within each of these ethical organizations the relationship in question develops through organizationspecific virtues. Within the family, for example, the couple’s relationship is developed through love, which is in turn mediated through the virtue of marital harmony. For an analysis of the role of virtues within the second volume of Ethics, see Shuttleworth, K.M.J. “Virtues and Ethics in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku,” Asian Philosophy 30, no. 1 (2020): 50–73. 6 Watsuji’s discussion also includes an account of economy, but this is not to be understood as an “ethical organization” per se, but instead as a transitional stage between local community and cultural community. 7 The homeground refers to the understanding that everything exists out of nothing. To achieve this standpoint in terms of ethics requires one to arrive at the standpoint of nonduality through the realization that ethics is neither entirely individual, nor entirely communal. This is in turn achieved through Watsuji’s concept of authenticity (本来性 honraisei). For further elucidation of the concept of honraisei and a comparison with the concept of authenticity see Shuttleworth, K.M.J. “Watsuji Tetsurō’s Concept of Authenticity,” Comparative Continental Philosophy 11, no. 3 (2019): 35–50. 8 Gino K. Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought 1862–1994: A Survey (New York: Routledge. 1962), 148. 9 Robert N. Bellah, “Japan’s Cultural Identity: Some Reflections on the Work of Watsuji Tetsurō,” The Journal of Asian Studies 24, no. 4 (1965): 573–94. 10 Peter Dale, The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986), 217. 11 Dale’s ultimate concern is with nihonjinron ( 日本人論)—the theory of Japanese uniqueness—and which he claims is advanced through Watsuji’s concept of fūdo, which grants a special place to Japan in terms of its

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supposed climatic and cultural distinction (see Dale, The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness, 43f). Harry Harootunian takes a similar approach, though focuses on Watsuji’s stratigraphic history (jūsōsei) as advanced within the 1935 publication Further Studies on the History of Japanese Spirit (続日本精神史研究 Zoku Nihon seishinshi kenkyū). According to Harootunian, “Watsuji was also sure that this historic capacity for stratifying moments of the past to preserve them in each present was unparalleled among the nations of the world. It was what distinguished Japan as unique from other cultures and would prove to be the only way to grasp the ‘Japanese spirit’.” (Harry D. Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 257.) Watsuji’s nationalist sympathies have also been subject to debate by William Lafleur and Sakai Naoki. Focusing on the 1944 essay “The National Character of the Americans” (アメリカの国民性 Amerika no kokuminsei), Lafleur and Sakai each evaluate it from a postmodern perspective. Sakai accuses Watsuji of racism on account of his cultural typology. (Sakai Naoki, Translation and Subjectivity: On Japan and Cultural Nationalism (University of Minnesota Press, 1996)). Lafleur, on the other hand, claims Watsuji’s critique of Western rationality contained a latent critique of Japanese rationality itself. (William R. LaFleur, “Reasons for the Rubble: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Position in Japan’s Postwar Debate about Rationality,” Philosophy East and West 51, no. 1 (2001): 1–25.) 12 Steve Odin, “The Social Self in Japanese Philosophy and American Pragmatism: A Comparative Study of Watsuji Tetsurō and George Herbert Mead,” Philosophy East and West 42, no. 3 (1992): 494. 13 Odin, “The Social Self in Japanese Philosophy and American Pragmatism,” 483. 14 Odin, “The Social Self in Japanese Philosophy and American Pragmatism,” 495–96. 15 Although John Maraldo also appeals to Watsuji’s social context, rather than doing so to implicate Watsuji as a fascist sympathizer, he instead defends Watsuji on the grounds of political coercion from the state. As Maraldo explains, “In considering the question of Watsuji’s totalitarianism, we should also take into account his political milieu. Watsuji wrote during a time when the Japanese nation-state increasingly undermined trust relationships. The state not only practiced censorship but also conducted a ‘thought inquisition’ (思想審 議会 shisō shingikai) in which intellectuals were interrogated and even imprisoned.” (John Maraldo, “Watsuji Tetsurō’s Ethics: Totalitarian or Communitarian?” in Komparative Ethik: Das gute Leben zwischen den Kulturen, ed. Rolf Elberfeld and Günter Wohlfart (Koln: Edition Chōra, 2002), 192.) 16 Bernard Bernier, “National Communion: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Conception of Ethics, Power, and the Japanese Imperial State,” Philosophy East and West 56, no. 1 (2006): 96. 17 Anton Luis Sevilla, Watsuji Tetsurō’s Global Ethics of Emptiness: A Contemporary Look at a Modern Japanese Philosopher (New York: Palgrave, 2017): 59. 18 Christopher Goto-Jones, “The Way of Revering the Emperor: Imperial Philosophy and Bushidō in Modern Japan” in The Emperors of Modern Japan, ed. Ben-Ami Shillony (Leiden: Brill Academic Pub., 2008), 39. Bernard Bernier is one such critic. In Bernier’s own words “Watsuji’s position in this instance is close to the kokutai doctrine that was a hallmark of the extreme nationalism of Japan in the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, Watsuji was one of the writers of the 1938 Kokutai no hongi, which was the official text of the imperial ideology during the war years. And as such, he can be seen as one of the intellectuals who defined the ideological context of the Japanese imperial state up to 1945.” (Bernier, “National Communion: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Conception of Ethics, Power, and the Japanese Imperial State,” 95.) However, Goto-Jones defends against such an interpretation, claiming “It seems relatively clear that there is considerable philosophical space between Watsuji’s position and that of the Kokutai no Hongi in several important respects. A key differentiation is the place of Buddhism in Watsuji’s work, which is largely absent from the government’s text.” (Goto-Jones. “The Way of Revering the Emperor: Imperial Philosophy and Bushidō in Modern Japan,” 39.) 19 Kikuchi Dairoku, Imperial Rescript on Education in Japanese Education: Lectures Delivered in the University of London (London: Wentworth Press, 2019), 3. 20 Kikuchi, Imperial Rescript on Education in Japanese Education: Lectures Delivered in the University of London. Although the Imperial Rescript is written from the perspective of Emperor Meiji, it was mostly composed by Inoue Kowashi, who would later go on to become the minister of education. 21 John Owen Gauntlett, trans., and Robert King Hall, ed., Kokutai No Hongi (Fundamental Principles of National Polity) (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2014), 80. 22 Gauntlett and Hall, Kokutai No Hongi, 89. 23 Furukawa Tesshi, Kaisetsu [ 解説 Interpretive essay], in Watsuji Tetsurō zenshū dai jusan kan [和辻哲郎全集 第十三巻 Complete works of Watsuji Tetsurō, Vol. 13], (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1962), 505.

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24 Not all of the criticisms raised against Confucianism were philosophical perspectives. For example, Lu Xun wrote novels to show that the lives of women who are totally obedient to their husbands are terrible. 25 Prior to the movement, intellectuals such as Tan Sitong had previously criticized the three guiding moral principles theory. 26 While Xiong Shili (born in Huanggang, Hubei in 1885 and remained as a lecturer at Peking University until his death in 1968) has been credited with the establishment of New Confucianism, this term was retrospectively applied by Mou Zongsan (born in Shandong province in 1909, moved to Taiwan in 1949, and later to Hong Kong where he died in 1995) who divided the Confucian tradition into three distinct stages: pre-Qin Confucianism (Classical Confucianism), Song-Ming Confucianism (Neo-Confucianism) and contemporary Confucianism (New Confucianism). 27 The Manifesto was collectively authored by Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, Xu Fuguan and Zhang Junmai. 28 Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan, Zhang Junmai and Tang Junyi. “Wei zhongguo wenhua jinggao shijie renshi xuanyan: women dui zhongguo xueshu yanjiu ji zhongguo wenhua yu shijie wenhua qiantu zhi gongtong renshi” [为中国文化敬告世界人士宣言：我们对中国学术研究及中国文化与世界文化前途之共同认识 Manifesto on behalf of Chinese culture respectfully announced to the people of the world—our joint understanding of sinological study and Chinese culture with respect to the future prospects of world culture], in ed. Feng Zucheng, Dangdai xinrujia [當代新儒家 Contemporary new Confucianism] (Beijing: Sanlianshuju, 1989), p.41. 29 In Mou’s moral metaphysics he claims that while Western philosophy consists in constructing metaphysics from epistemology and logic, consequently arriving at ethical principles by means of ontology, for Confucian thought, on the other hand, ethics was the starting point and subsequently led to in the construction of a metaphysics. (Umberto Bresciani, Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian Movement. (Taipei: Taipei Ricci Institute for Chinese Studies, 2001), 378.) 30 According to Watsuji, loyalty and filial piety are synonymous. As he exclaims in Climate and Culture “the virtue that is called filial piety from the aspect of the household becomes loyalty from the standpoint of the state. So filial piety and loyalty are essentially identical, the virtue prescribing the individual in accordance with the interests of the whole.” (Watsuji Tetsurō, Fūdo Ningengakuteki Kōsatsu [風土人間学的考察 Climate and culture: a philosophical study] (Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, Ministry of Education, 1961), 148.) 31 Kiri Paramore, “‘Civil Religion’ and Confucianism: Japan’s Past, China’s Present, and the Current Boom in Scholarship on Confucianism,” The Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 2 (2015): 277. Paramore even goes as far to argue that Inoue was the first person to interpret Confucianism in terms of “philosophy,” and that his approach became the basis for subsequent attempts to approach Confucianism in contemporary thought. As Paramore makes explicit, “Inoue Tetsujirō’s exposition of Confucianism as moral philosophy basically emphasized the separation of the political and individual spheres, supported by the separation of the categories of philosophy and religion. Confucianism as ‘philosophy’ was thus positioned within the modern pantheon of rational knowledge, with a particular role in affecting discussions on politics. [...] Most modern scholars of Confucianism over the past century, including in the West, whether they realize it or not, have followed this model.” (Paramore, “‘Civil Religion’ and Confucianism: Japan’s Past, China’s Present, and the Current Boom in Scholarship on Confucianism,” 278.) 32 Shaun O’Dwyer, Confucianism’s Prospects: A Reassessment. (New York: State University of New York Press, 2019), 12. 33 Nakajima Takahiro. Practicing Philosophy between China and Japan (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy, 2011). 34 Watsuji Tetsurō, “Rinrigaku jō” [ 倫理学上 Ethics] in Watsuji Tetsurō Zenshū dai jū kan [和辻哲郎全集 第十巻 Complete works of Watsuji Tetsurō, Vol. 10] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1962), 427. 35 Watsuji, “Rinrigaku jō,” 424–27. 36 Watsuji, “Rinrigaku jō,” 613–17. 37 Watsuji, “Rinrigaku jō,” 609–13. 38 Gino K. Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought 1862–1994, 143. 39 Sakai Naoki. Translation and Subjectivity: On Japan and Cultural Nationalism, 108. 40 In the second volume of Ethics the subject-sovereign relationship is hierarchical: when the sovereign dictates, the subjects must obey. However, in The Symbol of National Unity (1948) Watsuji reconfigures the relationship between the sovereign and subject, where it is claimed that the Emperor represents the “sovereign will of the people.” (Watsuji Tetsurō zenshū [和辻哲郎全集 Complete works of Watsuji Tetsurō, Vol. 14] 336.) According to Sakai, “what Watsuji attempted to achieve was a reformulation of the status of the

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emperor so that the emperor could be given an important role in the legitimation procedure of a so-called democratic Japan.” (Sakai Naoki, Translation and Subjectivity 108.) And while Watsuji may have intended to alleviate criticism of the emperor as solely responsible for the outcome of the Second World War, we here see him redefine the relationship between subjects and sovereign to become a democratic relation with the people deciding their own government through free, rather than having it dictated to them. A further way in which Watsuji can be considered to develop his thought within a New Confucian framework resides in the shared attempt to establish a non-binary moral theory. As Jana S. Rošker makes explicit, “For most modern Confucians the main problems of human existence cannot be resolved by exclusively ethical, organizational, or contractual methods and approaches; instead, humanity must also find solutions that are rooted in a deep individual awareness of the importance of the ethical conditionality of human life.” (Jana S. Rošker, “Modern Confucianism and Chinese Theories of Modernization,” Philosophy Compass 10 (2015): 6.) For Watsuji, such awareness is made manifest through his concept of aidagara, which offers a role-based account of ethics in relation to the ethical organization within which one is situated. 41 Sakamoto Hiroko, Rensa suru Chūgoku kindai no “chi” [ 連鎖する中国近代の 「知」Modern Chinese “knowledge” being linked] (Tokyo: Kenbun Shuppan, 2009), 286. 42 Watsuji Tetsurō zenshū, 379. 43 Although Watsuji never directly addressed the feminist movement, he does speak positively about the feminist and writer Yosano Akiko’s poem Thou Shalt Not Die in his autobiography. Although it is commonly seen to espouse anti-war sentiment, Watsuji praises it on the grounds that “it frankly declared feminine emotion.” More specifically, Watsuji explains “It is extremely natural that a woman would possess the emotion which Akiko expressed at the time of her family member going to war.” (Watsuji Tetsurō. “Chūgakusei” [中 学生 Middle school student] translated by K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. European Journal of Japanese Philosophy 6 (2021): 267–323.) 44 Hiratsuka Raichō, “To the Women of the World” in Jan Bardsley, The Bluestockings of Japan: New Woman Essays and Fiction from Seito, 1911–1916 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 94–103. 45 Hiratsuka, “To the Women of the World,” 103 46 Erin McCarthy, Ethics Embodied: Rethinking Selfhood through Continental, Japanese, and Feminist Philosophies (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 81. 47 Sevilla, Watsuji Tetsurō’s Global Ethics of Emptiness, 17.

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Chapter 11 Thinking about Confucianism and Modernity in the Early Postwar Period: Watsuji Tetsurō’s The History of Ethical Thought in Japan Alexandra Mustătea

Introduction

Maruyama Masao’s Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (日本政治思想史研究 Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū),1 published in 1952, has come to represent a landmark in international research on Tokugawa Confucianism, informing many of the current approaches to early modern intellectual history and its relationship to the emergence of a national conscience in Japan. The same year, another leading Japanese philosopher of the 20th century, Watsuji Tetsurō, published his The History of Ethical Thought in Japan (日本倫理思想史 Nihon rinri shisōshi),2 an impressive volume broader in scope than Maruyama’s, which also included several chapters on the intellectual history of Tokugawa Confucian ethics. And yet, somewhat surprisingly, the latter hardly garnered the same attention from philosophers or intellectual historians, although some of his other works on ethics—especially Climate and Culture (風土 Fūdo) and Ethics (倫理学 Rinrigaku)—are widely regarded as some of the most representative texts of 20th-century Japanese philosophy.3 Watsuji’s History is sometimes credited as being the first apolitical, purely scholarly study of Japan’s cultural and intellectual history; 4 in such accounts, his History is generally set against Inoue Tetsujirō’s, who took many liberties with historical truth in favor of ideological content.5 Yet (strictly) in terms of early modern Confucian intellectual history, Watsuji’s work has been largely overshadowed by Maruyama’s Studies, both domestically and internationally. Why is it important, then, to go back and examine an early postwar work which seems to have been largely forgotten now? The reasons are twofold. Firstly, Watsuji’s approach to the issue of Confucianism and modernity not only offers an interesting alternative to Maruyama’s theory, but it also opens an intriguing new path towards discussing Confucianism’s destiny in modern and contemporary Japan. Secondly, History also helps to unveil the profound debt

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Watsuji owes Confucianism in terms of his own philosophy of ethics, therefore potentially adding more nuance to contemporary debates surrounding his much more popular Ethics. To address these two points, the argument will be structured as follows: the introductory part will briefly discuss the place Watsuji’s History occupies within his own philosophy of ethics, as well as in the larger context of Confucianism’s destiny in postwar Japan. The second part will discuss the philosopher’s take on Confucianism’s relationship with Japanese modernity by focusing on (1) the role he carves out for it, both in the larger history of Japanese ethical thought, and more specifically in the emergence of a national consciousness; and, (2) its role during the intellectually tumultuous Meiji period and the creation of a Japanese nation-state. Lastly, starting from Watsuji’s examination of the forces shaping the historical process, and from some open questions left by his interpretation of Confucianism in History, the concluding discussion will explore the possibility of redefining the frame of reference by which we approach the “Confucian legacy” in contemporary Japanese philosophy.

The History of Ethical Thought in Japan: a context The weight of the past: Watsuji and Confucianism Before discussing History’s place in Watsuji’s philosophical system, it might be worth considering some possible reasons for the philosopher’s relative obscurity in the field of Englishlanguage Japanese Confucian studies, as well as the overall lack of engagement with the Confucian undercurrents of his philosophy of ethics, as this provides a necessary background for the ensuing discussion. Although a definitive reason is hard to pinpoint, considering the larger historical context of History’s creation—as opposed to Maruyama’s Studies—could offer some possible answers. Of course, one very simple reason why Maruyama’s Studies has completely eclipsed Watsuji’s History in the field of Tokugawa Confucian intellectual history could be as simple as the different scope of their investigation, which sets their respective undertakings in somewhat different fields. While Maruyama’s essay was very specifically aimed at following the evolution of Tokugawa Confucian thought in relation to the emergence of a modern national conscience, Watsuji’s History had the much broader scope of tracing the entire history of ethical thinking in Japan and identifying the underlying mechanisms of the historical process. However, this cannot be the only reason for the general lack of engagement with Watsuji’s work on Confucianism and with the Confucian undercurrents of his own philosophy of ethics. Another possible dimension to this issue might be of a political nature. Throughout his career, Maruyama was an outspoken critic of the ultra-nationalist establishment, a staunch liberal thinker, whose political allegiance has never been questioned by international scholars in the postwar period.6 Even his decision to take up Confucianism as a subject of inquiry for his Studies was made only half-heartedly, on account of its “proximity” to the official prewar ideology.7 Unlike Maruyama, however, Watsuji was an older-generation liberal, whose anti-establishment attitudes were not always obvious, and oftentimes doubted by postwar intellectuals both in Japan and abroad. And if during the prewar years he had often been the target of ultra-nationalist attacks for his lack of active support for the establishment, in the early postwar period he came under heavy criticism from the other side of the political spectrum. From 1945, Watsuji was often condemned for his support of the imperial system (天皇制 tennōsei), the Pacific War, or his perceived acquiescence to the prewar totalitarian 154

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state apparatus.8 As a result, it seems that he was largely ignored by academic philosophers between his death in 1960 until the early 1980s, when Yuasa Yasuo—his last major disciple—published his Watsuji Tetsurō—The Fate of Modern Japanese Philosophy (和辻哲郎―近 代日本哲学の運命 Watsuji Tetsurō—kindai Nihon tetsugaku no unmei) and sparked a renewed interest in his work.9 Yet even if nowadays his Ethics and Climate and Culture are the object of numerous philosophical investigations among international scholars, his work on “hot button topics” like the imperial system, bushidō or Confucianism does not seem to generate as much interest beyond a summary indictment of the philosopher’s cultural particularism and possible support for Japan’s prewar militaristic government. A second possible reason for the overall lack of engagement with the Confucian elements of Watsuji’s philosophical system might be of a more general nature, albeit more elusive. To some extent, it might also have to do with the rather common view among international Japan historians that Confucianism’s contribution to postwar Japanese intellectual life has somehow been nullified, tabooed or simply reduced to the status of an unassuming cultural heritage, following its prewar association with the totalitarian state. In this view, which seems to be inspired by Maruyama, Confucianism’s nefarious prewar destiny went beyond a matter of rhetorical manipulation; furthermore, it stemmed mainly from its innate feudal nature, and its overall incompatibility with democracy.10 Following this logic and considering Watsuji’s rather controversial status within the field of Japanese philosophy, one might not be too wrong in assuming that—at least to a certain extent—his later-career interest in Confucianism was interpreted as ideologically motivated and directly linked to his apparent acquiescence to (or support of) the prewar militaristic government, in a manner reminiscent of Inoue Tetsujirō’s. While a definitive answer to this issue might not be possible, and is beyond the scope of this paper, it is not unthinkable that these two factors could have affected Watsuji’s credibility as a scholar of Confucianism in international research.11 It must be noted, however, that more recent scholarship—in Japan and abroad—has started to re-evaluate Watsuji’s work and add more nuance to the controversies surrounding his work, as well as his political allegiance; Yuasa12 and Tsuda,13 for example, argue against a political reading of Watsuji’s concept of sonnōron (尊皇論), the notion that reverence for the emperor is central to the cultural, historical and political identity of the Japanese nation. Their reading emphasizes its purely cultural dimension, “as a unifying force between Japan’s ethnic culture and its intellectual history for the 2000 years prior to the modern period,” as a way to protect and preserve the value of Japan’s long history and culture.14 On the point of Watsuji’s support for the Pacific War, so often brought as an argument against him, Yuasa explains the struggle faced by most (prewar) modern liberals, who—for all their support for democracy and individualism—also felt “resentment toward the racial discrimination that the West held against Asians” and tended to perceive the Pacific War as a racial conflict between the white and the colored races, oftentimes staying quiet on Japan’s control of Korea and China.15 However, in spite of his initial support for the war, LaFleur suggests that Watsuji—even if he “might have found himself in agreement with what he perceived to be the war’s purposes [as the war began]”—also seems to have become disillusioned very early on, and his early 1940s lectures should be approached with more attention to rhetoric and the basic human psychology in risky contexts.16 LaFleur and Maraldo17 even put forth the possibility of Watsuji’s veiled criticism of his contemporaries and the authorities during the late prewar period, and more recent studies have started bringing more proof to this effect.18

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As mentioned earlier, recent philosophical investigations into Watsuji’s Ethics rarely delve too deeply into the Confucian aspects of his thought system—especially surrounding the categories of ethics (倫理 rinri), human being (人間 ningen), and betweenness (間柄 aidagara)—whereas Buddhist perspectives abound.19 And while pinpointing the causes for this lack of focus on the Confucian dimension of Watsuji’s ethics might prove difficult, the effects are easier to identify. On the one hand, such a lack of focus leads to a fragmentary understanding of Watsuji’s ethical system and, on the other hand, it lends unwarranted support to the artificially created illusion of the so-called guilt-driven tabooization of Confucianism following WWII. In both these issues, History might offer an interesting path forward. The History of Ethical Thought in Japan: why now? The previously discussed context seems to make History all the more valuable to our endeavor now. Firstly, the 1952 volume points to an intellectual maturation on the philosopher’s part, irrespective of how one chooses to judge his prewar positioning. For this volume, Wa­ tsuji compiled and edited many of his earlier essays in an attempt to offer a more coherent overview of ethical thinking in Japan, and in doing so, he completed the second essential pillar of his work on ethics.20 In the “Preface” and two chapters on “The Meiji Restoration” and “Meiji Period’s Ethical Thought” he wrote for History, Watsuji offered a new key for interpreting his philosophy of ethics and attempted to make sense of what he viewed as the grave errors of Japan’s recent intellectual past.21 Thus, unlike Maruyama’s more seminal Studies, Watsuji’s History continues its exploration into the Meiji period and addresses the intellectual and ideological intricacies surrounding Confucianism, the emergence of the modern Japanese state, and the weaknesses that ultimately allowed for the rise of ultra-nationalism.22 Therefore, his account of this period’s legacy seems all the more valuable now, coming as it does from a philosopher who had a raw experience of that period’s immediate aftermath and who, in turn, seems to have walked a very fine line between criticizing and being compliant with the prewar establishment. Thus, he offers an alternative approach to Maruyama’s more clearly progressive approach. Moreover, History occupies an essential place not only within Watsuji’s thought system but also within the larger field of Japanese intellectual history. As mentioned earlier, although largely overshadowed by Maruyama’s Studies in the specific field of Edo historiography— both domestically and internationally—History is currently recognized as the first scholarly intellectual history23 and as having set the basis for the study of ethics and culture in Japan.24 Lastly, an examination of History also seems meaningful from the broader perspective of addressing Confucianism’s legacy in postwar Japanese philosophy, although not in a direct manner. Firstly, by examining History, one can easily identify some of the Confucian ideas that had shaped his core definition and interpretation of ethics, concepts he has passed on to newer generations of ethicists and which still engage philosophers’ minds today—albeit insufficiently contextualized at times. As mentioned earlier, History and Ethics represent, in a way, the two essential pillars of Watsuji’s philosophical system,25 and are intricately woven together; while Ethics is a purely philosophical investigation of ethical principles, History attempts to uncover the particular expression of those ethical principles in Japan. As such, examining the latter within the larger framework of Watsuji’s ethical system unveils important nuances about his philosophical “debt” to Confucianism and can offer further context to contemporary debates surrounding his ethics. Secondly, History might offer a much-needed

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alternative framework for approaching the very idea of a Confucian legacy in modern and contemporary Japan. In this sense, Watsuji’s interpretation of the historical process could help us move past the aforementioned trope of a total disengagement with Confucian philosophy after WWII.

Confucianism and modernity in Watsuji’s History To explore Watsuji’s take on the relationship between Confucianism and modernity in his History, I will mainly refer to the following chapters, all of which bring into question different but essential aspects of this relationship: 1) the Preface, 2) the Edo chapters and, 3) the Meiji chapters (Book VI). In the Preface, where he sets out to build a theoretical framework that encompasses not only History, but also his own philosophy of ethics, Rinrigaku, Watsuji also elaborates on the main categories of ethical thinking and explains the role Confucianism has played in the history of Japanese ethical thought. In the Edo chapters, where he explores the changes in the ethical thinking of the late feudal age (or early modern age), he also makes important observations regarding Confucianism’s role in the emergence of a national consciousness. In the Meiji chapters, where he sets out to make sense of the recent past’s “heavy sin,” and explore the intellectual resources that have defined the period, he also explores the question of Confucianism’s role in the process. Overall, these chapters will offer some important insights into Watsuji’s approach to Confucianism. Confucianism in the history of Japanese ethical thought: Ethics before Ethics With its publication in 1952, History became one of Watsuji’s two essential writings on ethics, in which he explored the relationship between intellectual history and philosophy. In the newly added Preface, Watsuji reiterates two principles essential not only to the understanding of any historical process, but also to the understanding of his entire philosophical system: universality (普遍性 fuhensei) and particularity (特殊性 tokushusei). Any universal phenomenon, Watsuji posits, can only manifest itself by taking a particular form, a form which will necessarily be limited by the time (時 toki) and place (処 tokoro) of its manifestation.26 Any attempted definition of ethics must also follow this principle; therefore, one must differentiate between two types of ethics: first of all, there is one, universal ethics (倫理 rinri), which applies to humanity in its entirety. However, when this universal ethics manifests itself in any given historical context, it cannot escape its own historicity; therefore, it can only manifest itself as an ethical thought (倫理思想 rinri shisō), which takes the specific form of the socio-historical context it appeared in.27 Consequently, studying ethics also needs to have two separate categories: a history of ethical thought (倫理思想史 rinrishisōshi) and an ethics (倫 理学 rinrigaku). This last category, rinrigaku, is something that originates in the skepticism towards the (ethical) teachings of the sages; this skepticism is only the starting point of an endless effort to reach the core (origin) of the sages’ teachings and to grasp the principles of rinri, the universal ethics. In any given historical period, an ethics (rinrigaku) can be defined as the understanding of ethics (rinri), which transcends the particular limitations (特殊的限 定 tokushuteki gentei) of ethical thought (rinrishisō).28 It is in this last category that Watsuji carves an important role for Edo-period Confucianism: in Japan, where an ethics did not—strictly speaking—exist until the modern period, Watsuji credits Confucianism with being the closest thing to such an endeavor. In other words, he credits the Confucians of the Edo period with attempting to grasp the principles of Chapter 11: Thinking about Confucianism and Modernity in the Early Postwar Period

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universal ethics (rinri). This is an idea he will pursue further in the Edo chapters discussed below. Confucianism in the Edo period and the Janus-faced forces of history: tradition and creativity It is in the Edo chapters (Book V: Ethical Thinking during the Later Bushi Age),29 where he discusses Confucianism’s role in the emergence of a national consciousness, that Watsuji offers a valuable alternative to Maruyama’s view of Tokugawa Confucianism. Written as an intellectual history of Confucianism in Tokugawa Japan, Maruyama’s Studies focuses on the dissolution of the Zhu Xi mode of thought in Tokugawa Japan and the sinuous emergence of a modern, national conscience, closely dependent on the convoluted evolution from a natural to an invented order within the Confucian mode of thought. Following this dissolution of the Zhu Xi mode of thought throughout the Edo period, he finally points to Confucianism’s inherent incapacity to break down the deeply ingrained feudalism and its ultimate role in intrinsically supporting the feudal status quo and impeding socio-political evolution. There are a few aspects on which Watsuji’s and Maruyama’s accounts of Confucianism and modernity are similar. For example, with regard to the emergence of a modern national consciousness, they both suggest that Confucianism’s interest in history functioned as an intellectual germinator of sorts, ultimately leading to the establishment of the Mito Learning (水戸学 Mitogaku) and National Learning (国学 Kokugaku) Schools. Moreover, they both point to the fact that the perception of an external menace functioned as a strong ideological coagulator towards the end of the Edo period, especially coupled with already existing social issues, and ultimately leading to the emergence of the “Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians” movement (尊王攘夷 sonnō jōi) as a factor in the closing phase of premodern nationalism. Similarly, they both decry the lack of maturation of this emerging modern consciousness. However, that is where the parallel stops,30 mainly because Maruyama, not having finished his essay, did not get to delve into the next historical stage, the Meiji period. Regardless of the few similarities between the two philosophers’ views, there are some major differences separating them. One important aspect is Watsuji’s less trenchant approach regarding the evolution of Edo Confucianism. For him, as we have seen, all historical processes—philosophy and ethical thought included—are affected by these essential elements: the spatio-temporal limitations on the one hand, and the creative and traditional forces of each epoch on the other.31 In this sense, his approach to Confucianism seems markedly different from Maruyama’s, who analyzed it more as a unitary philosophical system, which ultimately proved to be inherently regressive (or at least stagnant). In Watsuji’s History, on the other hand, the underlying currents of tradition and creativity are also at play in Confucianism’s evolution during the late Edo period, manifesting themselves in the form of two opposing directions: orthodox (官学 kangaku) and popular (民衆 minshū) Confucianism, which found themselves in constant tension towards the end of the period. It is this latter popular Confucianism that Watsuji dedicates the most attention to in the Edo chapters, focusing on its particularly creative and universalistic potential. Quite unlike Maruyama, who stresses Confucianism’s intrinsic support for the feudal status quo and the deeply ingrained feudal social structures, Watsuji credits the minshū strand of Confucianism with the emergence of a new, modern type of conscience. He notes the rapidly growing social and intellectual mobility in the Edo period, which he exemplifies with the spread of

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minshū Confucianism throughout society: trickling down from the top layers of the military class into the urban townspeople (町人 chōnin) classes, only to return later amidst the military class, transformed. Watsuji’s Edo chapters describe in detail how, in the various stages of the Edo period, Confucianism functioned as a spearhead of intellectual creativity and social evolution, outward-oriented and responsive to changes in the social fabric. He thus credits Confucianism with the appearance of townspeople-class intellectuals and notes its increasing orientation towards the population at large and beyond the realm of political and military elites, as well as its constant interest in intellectual exchange and curiosity about the outside world. Furthermore, he emphasizes the role Confucianism played in the interhierarchical cohesion achieved during the Bakumatsu period between lower-birth samurai and well-off members of the townspeople class, which ultimately gave birth to the mixed forces leading the Meiji Restoration.32 In Watsuji’s view, this porous nature of (Confucian) intellectual ideas, against the backdrop of an ever-relaxing social structure, prepared Japan for the further import of foreign philosophy in the modern period, and for the emergence of an entirely new mode of thought. In this way, he partially credits Confucianism with society’s relatively quick adaptation to the egalitarian policies of the Meiji period, due to the earlier dissociation between the policy and the de facto state of social hierarchy and status. Confucianism and the clash of (ethical) giants: the Meiji chapters The Meiji chapters (Book VI: Ethical Thinking in the Meiji Period) reflect on the shifts and rifts in ethical thinking that followed Japan’s contact with the ethical traditions of the West. Shifting his focus away from the specific developments within the Confucian mode of thought, Watsuji instead focuses here on the major intellectual debates and historical factors that came to define the emergent nation-state and ultimately lead to what he calls the “heavy sin” of the 1930s, in the form of the national polity discourse (国体論 kokutairon). In this context, he also explores Confucianism’s role in the negotiation of new ethical categories, as well as its connection with the crafting of the modern nation-state. I noted earlier that there is an essential difference between Watsuji’s and Maruyama’s accounts of Tokugawa Confucianism. If Maruyama perceived its evolution along the lines of a progressive disintegration of its entire mode of thought, Watsuji identifies two divergent directions in the evolution of Edo Confucianism, largely abiding by the same two elements he identifies in any historical process—a traditionalist and a creative force. Within this framework, orthodox Confucianism represents the traditionalist direction—inward-looking, stagnant, and focused on maintaining the status quo—while minshū Confucianism represents the creative direction, founded on its search for universality and openness to inter-tradition dialogue. Following the Meiji Restoration, the variety and volume of intellectual traditions that became available to Japanese intellectuals almost overnight changed dramatically. Against the political backdrop of Japan’s hasty search for a “national identity,” this catalyst was bound to usher in a fast renegotiation of the intellectual space, and Confucianism could not have escaped this process. The arrival of Perry’s Black Ships, Watsuji notes, worked as a catalyst for all the intellectual powers around the country, who started focusing on the idea of nation (国民 kokumin) in the final years of the Tokugawa period. This further led to the emergence of a previously uncrystallized popular opinion (世論 yoron).33 For this newly formed intellectual force behind the Meiji Restoration, mainly made up of members of the lower strata

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of the military class and higher-positioned commoners, finding a symbol of national unity proved to be a difficult feat, in the absence of a realistically unifying bushi tradition. For the military class, the only accessible history was that of civil wars, and they had no chronicles to celebrate their feats.34 Consequently, as an alternative, Confucian moral precepts and the sonnō tradition were ultimately forcefully assimilated into an anachronistic, fanatical, madeup ideology. After all, Ise Jingū pilgrimages, poetry, The Tale of Ise (伊勢物語 Ise Monogatari) or The Tale of Genji (源氏物語 Genji Monogatari), as well as the Confucian ideas which had influenced the cultural and social mobility of the preceding epoch, represented a more familiar image for the population than bushi traditions. For Watsuji, the crux of Japan’s modern issue was the extremely poor understanding of the idea of nationhood and the relationships that define a modern nation, either among members or between leaders and citizens; its vagueness and lack of coherence at a crucial time in modern history was what ultimately allowed for its manipulation by ultranationalist intellectual factions and the militaristic government. Another important element of this “heavy sin” he identifies (somewhat ambiguously, it must be noted) was the new intellectuals’ error to uncritically use a fundamentally anachronistic moral value—“loyalty and filial piety” (忠孝 chūkō)—to define a radically different type of human relationship, in a radically different spatio-temporal context. For Watsuji, the dimension of this mismatch was two-fold: on the one hand, the displacement of a moral value belonging to the communal space of the (feudal) family to that of the (modern) state, and from the past to the present. In its original Mito Learning School conceptualization, the virtue of “loyalty and filial piety” was a deeply personal relationship developed within the framework of a feudal system difficult to paste on to the relationship pertaining to the modern state, between a political leadership and its citizens. The theoreticians of the national polity discourse had used the same value uncritically and forcefully implemented it. These aspects, Watsuji notes, together with the forceful implementation of loyalty and filial piety as a “keeper of feudalism” under Inoue Tetsujirō’s nefarious influence, all stemmed from one and the same fundamental issue—the previously mentioned failure to understand the logic of modern nationhood. On the background of this weak ideological grasp of nationhood and the growing influence of Mito Learning and Hirata-style Kokugaku ultra-nationalism, to which increasingly restrictive policies were added, Watsuji seems to suggest that Confucianism ended up at the center of this muddled process mostly on a historical whim. This was firstly due to it being a source of inspiration for the new “national morality,” and secondly to its focus on both governance (政 sei) and morality (修 shū), which put it at the center of the Meiji debate between Nishi Amane and Nishimura Shigeki on the issue of politics and morality.35 On the issue of the 1889 Constitution and the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education (教育勅 語 Kyōiku chokugo), Watsuji notes that these ideological tracts reflected all the contradictory tendencies in the epoch. However, by the time of their compilation, Mito Learning and National Learning School ultra-nationalists, who had lost significant power before the import of Western civilization, had persevered, and ultimately managed to influence significantly the compilation of the two documents, and especially the Rescript. Due to their influence, Watsuji notes, the emperor in the Rescript is no longer the head of state represented in the Constitution, but instead becomes a symbol of the totality of the people (国民の全体性 kokumin no zentaisei) and a recipient of popular adulation, the “Child of the Sun.” According to his account, it was at the time of the Rescript’s publication that Inoue Te­ tsu­jirō—one of the young intellectuals of the time—had just started garnering vast support 160

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among the ultra-nationalist circles which, on the back of the increasingly restrictive political policies, started imposing a made-up national polity which uncritically and anachronistically inflated the tradition of the reverence for the emperor with the “tradition” of a Confucianesque personal loyalty. Watsuji’s dislike for Inoue Tetsujirō is very thinly veiled throughout this entire chapter. He goes on to say that Inoue’s success in certain circles, his unscholarly and undependable scholarship on Tokugawa intellectual history—which amounted to nothing more than a blatant disregard for history—his putting the emperor at the center of bushidō (武士道) and his ignoring Confucianism’s openness to foreign philosophies, were what made him extremely popular among the conservatives. Together with the misguided merging of loyalty (忠 chū) and discourses on reverence for the emperor (sonnōron) under the influence of Mito and National Learning ultra-nationalism, these are the main factors (and actors) that Watsuji sees as responsible for the “heavy sin” of the Meiji period. By comparison, he sees the use of “loyalty” in the Rescript as less pernicious than the subsequent wave of ultranationalist interpretations and enforcements of the document, as well as Inoue Tetsujirō’s campaign in the name of the national polity, which turned it into a “keeper of feudal loyalty.” Watsuji emphasizes, however, that the ultra-nationalist factions inspired by Mito and Kokugaku Learning—although bearing the heaviest responsibility for the chūkō-sonnō amalgamation—did not hold too much sway with the population, and they did not lack opposition. To this effect, he notes the existence of some critics who continued to engage with Western culture under the influence of Western individualism, such as Nitobe Inazō, Mori Ōgai, Natsume Sōseki, Uchimura Kanzō or Nishida Kitarō, a few liberal intellectuals he had always held in high regard. From Watsuji’s account of the period, one gets the distinct feeling that Meiji’s renegotiated intellectual space is no longer dominated by any of the previous strands of Confucianism, but by the single-minded quest for a national morality, as opposed to Westernization. In this new milieu, where the major poles of tradition and creativity are represented by “national morality” (国民道徳 kokumin dōtoku) on the one hand and by “civilization and enlightenment” (文明開化 bunmei kaika) on the other, Confucianism is reduced to an adjacent position—in a historical period oversaturated with new strands of thought, it becomes only one of several available intellectual resources, for use either by traditionalists or individualists. It, too, is subject to the diverging forces of history. As such, its exploration does not take the subject of Watsuji’s Book VI beyond its relation to the major developments of the period. Yet this lack of independent focus of Confucian ethics in the Meiji period does not equal the dismissal of Confucian ethical thinking in all its aspects, as that would contravene the logic of the historical process: Every epoch generates an ethical thought which is both founded on and takes as its framework the mold of that special social structure, yet it does not throw away the things previously acknowledged [自覚したものを捨て去りはしない jikaku shita mono wo sutesari wa shinai]. Therefore, each epoch has a multi-layered aspect, consisting of that epoch’s creative side and its traditionalist side.36 But if Watsuji does not specifically address the internal evolution of Confucian ethical thought in the Meiji period, what can be inferred about it from these chapters, then? Firstly, we must presume that the Confucian strands of ethics continued to be affected by the same basic principles of the historical process, exhibiting both creative (universalistic) and Chapter 11: Thinking about Confucianism and Modernity in the Early Postwar Period

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traditionalistic tendencies, albeit re-disposed. And while Watsuji does not touch upon the evolution of these diverging tendencies, his references to the Meiji strand of Mito thought suggests a shift in its orientation. While it had originated from the creative strand of Confucianism during the Edo period, the Mito-inspired scholars of the Meiji period exhibit a clear shift from its originally creative tendency towards an increasingly traditionalistic one. Following its association with the Meiji political authority, Mito Learning seems to exhibit the same type of stagnation and intellectual obtuseness encountered earlier in the orthodox strand of Edo Confucianism, this time amalgamated with a very modern brand of ultra-nationalism. It is difficult to make further assumptions on the modern destiny of Confucian ethics’ creative force only from the information available in the last essay of Book VI. Overall, this last essay in the book seems to be unevenly oriented towards laying the bulk of the intellectual blame for the recent past’s “heavy sin” on Inoue Tetsujirō and his incapacity to differentiate between scholarly practice and political activism. Furthermore, for all its overall comprehensiveness and insight, History also leaves open another important question about the relationship between Confucianism and modernity: how should postwar Japanese ethics grapple with and overcome the legacy of this deep politicization of intellectual and cultural resources in the interwar period? On this point, Watsuji does not explicitly pronounce himself. Yet the distinction he makes between the creative force of universalistic Confucian ideas and the limiting force of authority-sanctioned ones throughout recent history (starting with the mid-Edo period and continuing into the late Meiji period) suggests a path forward.

Concluding remarks: Is there (Confucian) life after national polity discourse? Some clues from Watsuji’s philosophy of ethics What does Watsuji’s understanding of the historical process suggest about Confucian ethics’ evolution into the modern and the early postwar period? If each epoch “has a multi-layered aspect, consisting of that epoch’s creative side and its traditionalist side,” which never gets discarded but constantly evolves under the specific limitations imposed by the spatiotemporal context, what does that say about Confucianism? The implications seem to be two-fold: on the one hand, once Confucian ethics has penetrated the fabric of an epoch, it will necessarily continue to exist and be active in that society, both as a traditionalist and a creative force. As mentioned earlier, until the Meiji period, the schools or philosophers who stressed the universal aspects of Confucian ethics (like the minshū Confucians) had constantly functioned as a creative force in society.37 On the other hand, the Confucian philosophies which ended up subordinated to political authority seem to have functioned rather as a limiting, inward-looking force in the same society (like orthodox Confucianism during the Edo period, or the Confucianesque moral vocabulary adopted by the Meiji government). Although Confucian ethical thought will continue to exist throughout subsequent historical periods, it will necessarily evolve under the specific limitations of each epoch’s historical context. Consequently, our manner of defining it must also be flexible enough to allow for these irregularities. One example of such a relevant historical limitation is the specific character of Meiji intellectual history. Following the sudden exposure to a multitude of alternative philosophical schools in the Meiji period, local philosophical traditions had

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entered a new stage of development, where a certain renegotiation and fragmentation became inevitable. The same was true for Confucianism. Therefore, if we stay within Watsuji’s framework, we must look for new ways to define and describe post-Edo occurrences of Confucian ethics. “Purist” views which seek to define today’s Confucianism in the same way they defined the Confucianism of the Edo or the Meiji periods will no longer hold. With each passing period, ethical ideas change irreversibly under the weight of an inevitable historical process, constantly redefined by time and place, as well as by the divergent energies of tradition and creativity. Since the very moment of its spread into society in the Edo period, Confucian ethics has been constantly shaped by this logic of the universal historical process, constantly exhibiting both traditionalistic and creative tendencies. In the Edo period, it both upheld tradition—under the form of orthodox Confucianism, for example—and simultaneously adapted to new social and cultural realms. Similarly, with the entry into the Meiji period and the intellectual and political fervor of a new age, it again metamorphosed into divergent and fragmentary strands of thought and served both traditionalists and individualists. Throughout, its universalistic (creative) flavor seems to have endured, even if temporarily overshadowed during the more turbid periods of modern history. One such example of Confucianism’s universalistic values engaging new milieus beyond the Edo period comes from Watsuji’s own philosophy of ethics, as exposed in Rinrigaku and the theoretical framework of his 1952 History. If examined independently from History, it is, of course, possible to read Watsuji’s Ethics as an example of his cultural particularism, and consequently, interpret the totality of his nation-state as a politically totalitarian entity. In such a reading, his use of Confucian ethical categories could be interpreted as an enforcement of that view. Such a reading is made possible by the doubly controversial legacy discussed earlier on in the chapter: Watsuji’s acquiescence with the prewar authorities, on the one hand, and Confucianism’s appropriation by the interwar state ideologues on the other. Yet if we read History, his commitment to the universalistic aspects of Confucian ethics (as opposed to the traditionalist ones) becomes evident. Furthermore, if we accept the distinction Watsuji makes between the two diverging forces acting on historical processes and ethical philosophies alike, and if we do read the Ethics within the framework he proposed in History, it is possible to offer an alternate reading of his ethical system. I noted earlier that Watsuji clearly differentiated between ethics (rinri) as representing the principle of universality—fuhensei—and ethical thought (rinrishisōshi) as representing the principle of particularity—tokushusei. By applying these categories to his own writings on ethics, we might conclude that an ethics (rinrigaku) represents his search for the principles of the universal ethics (rinri), while his History represents his search for the particularity of that rinri within the Japanese milieu.38 As such, his adoption of Confucian elements in his Ethics book could be understood as stemming from their universalistic value. This is an important premise, as it affects the interpretation of Ethics in subtle, but essential ways. Reading his Ethics in a Confucian key, the totality of the nation-state is to be taken not as a politically totalitarian structure, but as the highest possible form of communal experience of the individual in society. The mantra of ethics (rinri) as the basis of human sociality, of the individual in a mutually defining relationship with their community, and of the underlying values of trust and trustworthiness 39 exists independently of the very specific historical idea of a totalitarian nation-state. In this sense, it is then possible to even read Watsuji’s Ethics as a veiled criticism of the violent and trust-breaking policies of the prewar military Chapter 11: Thinking about Confucianism and Modernity in the Early Postwar Period

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government, as Maraldo40 suggests. The relationship between the individual and the state, then, is not the relationship between a subdued individual and a totalitarian state, but an organic one between an individual and the highest possible sum of their communal spaces.41 The source of that relationship is the communal space, the immediate and necessary bonds of any individual.42 Watsuji’s definition of ethics in History seems clear on this point, and it is essentially identical to the one he gives in his Ethics, further suggesting that his commitment to the universalistic values of Confucian ethics had remained constant throughout his later career: “The individual can only become an individual (with)in society, and society can only become society via the individual. Thus, the principle of this structure is nothing more and nothing less than rinri.” 43 Read in a Confucian key, then, Watsuji’s Ethics seems steeped in universalistic Confucian ideas. In his attempt to grasp the universality of ethics, Watsuji himself seems to have engaged the creative power of Confucianism, the same creative power he had identified in the popular (minshū) Confucianism of the late Tokugawa period. Overall, History suggests that Watsuji’s philosophical debt to Confucian ethics is significant, thus adding more nuance to contemporary investigations of his ethics. But, perhaps even more importantly, it helps reframe and give nuance to the issue of Confucianism’s modern destiny in important ways. Its central concept—the divergent forces of tradition and creativity which simultaneously shape all historical processes—seems to open a path forward in the conversation regarding Confucianism’s legacy in postwar (contemporary) Japan, beyond the simplistic and oft-repeated trope of its irrelevance or incompatibility with modernity. To a certain extent, it even offers a glimpse of hope regarding the possibility of a renewed engagement with Japanese Confucianism even now, in the contemporary milieu, in the era of environmentalism and post-individualism.44

Notes 1

Henceforth referred to as Studies. Henceforth referred to as History. 3 Watsuji himself is regarded—alongside Nishida Kitarō—as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, who more or less set the basis for ethics in Japan. Piovesana (1962) notes: “If Nishida was considered the thinker who tried to express Oriental metaphysico-logical problems in Western categories, Watsuji may be called his counterpart in the field of ethics.” (p. 131). For more details on Watsuji’s ethical philosophy, as well as the two titles introduced here, see (in chronological order): Gino K. Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought 1862–1996. A Survey (London: Routledge, 1962, reprinted 1997), 123–58; Yuasa Yasuo, Watsuji Tetsurō—kindai Nihon tetsugaku no unmei [和辻哲郎——近代日本哲学の運命 Watsuji Tetsurō—the destiny of philosophy in modern Japan] (Tokyo: Minerva Shobō, 1981); Tsuda Masao, Watsuji Tetsurō kenkyū—kaishakugaku, kokumin dōtoku, shakai shugi [和辻哲郎研究——解釈学、国民道徳、社会主義 Watsuji Tetsurō studies—hermeneutics, national morality, socialism] (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 2014); Anton Luis Sevilla, Watsuji Tetsurō’s Global Ethics of Emptiness—A Contemporary Look at a Modern Japanese Philosopher (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), 129–74; Fujita Masakatsu “Nihon tetsugakushi ni okeru Watsuji te­tsu­ gaku—Rinrigaku no ichi” [日本哲学史における和辻哲学——倫理学の位置 Watsuji’s philosophy in the history of Japanese philosophy—the status of Rinrigaku], Rinrigaku nenpō [倫理学年報 The annual bulletin of ethics] 69 (2020): 8–18; Erin McCarthy, “Watsuji Tetsurō—The Mutuality of Climate and Culture and an Ethics of Betweenness,” in Brett W. Davis, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 503–22. 2

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See, for example, Tawara Tsuguo, “Nihon shisōshi kenkyū no rekishi to kadai” [日本思想史研究の歴史と課 Studies in Japanese intellectual history—history and problems], Keiwa Gakuen Daigaku kenkyū kiyō, 8 (1999): 35–47; or Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought 1862–1996. A Survey, 123–58. 5 For a more detailed account of History’s place in the field of Japanese intellectual history, see Tawara “Nihon shisōshi kenkyū no rekishi to kadai,” 35–47. 6 Barshay calls him “the preeminent imaginer of democracy in postwar Japan.” (Andrew Barshay, “Imagining Democracy in Postwar Japan: Reflections on Maruyama Masao and Modernism,” The Journal of Japanese Studies 18, no. 2 (Summer, 1992): 365–406) 7 According to Karube, he apparently had decided on it at the insistence of his mentor, Nanbara Shigeru (Tadashi Karube “Maruyama Masao and the Fate of Liberalism in Twentieth Century Japan,” David Noble, trans., (Tokyo: International House of Japan, 2008)). 8 Some of the more critical accounts of Watsuji’s prewar complicity with the militaristic government focus on biographic details—like his temporary membership in the first committee appointed with drafting the Kokutai no hongi, or his speeches to the Japanese Navy in the late prewar period (for more details, see Robert N. Bellah, “Japan’s Cultural Identity: Some Reflections on the Work of Watsuji Tetsurō,” in The Journal of Asian Studies 24, no. 4, (1965): 573–94; and Christopher Goto-Jones, “The Way of Revering the Emperor: Imperial Philosophy and Bushidō in Modern Japan,” in The Emperors of Modern Japan, ed. Ben-Ami Shillony (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 23–52 for more details). Bellah is among his more tempered critics, and separates Watsuji from the “fanatic traditionalists,” yet he also suggests that the philosopher’s view on tennōsei as “the highest form of human cultural expression,” and his overall aloofness and lack of resistance to the “tendencies leading Japan to disaster were proof of his wholehearted commitment to Japanese particularism, a ‘tacit assumption that Japan itself provides a standard for all values,’ ” which has never seriously been menaced by other strands of thought. Bellah is also among the first international scholars to address Watsuji’s History, if only to note the philosopher’s more nuanced approach after the war, when he recanted some of his earlier positions and, without changing his view on the emperor-centered national identity (kokutai), he tried to reconcile Japanese particularism with Western universality and individuality. See Yuasa, Watsuji Tetsurō—kindai Nihon tetsugaku no unmei; William LaFleur, “Watsuji Tetsurō” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Winter 2019 edition, eds. Robert E. Carter, and Cathy McCarthy, available at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives​/ wint2019/entries/watsuji-tetsuro/); Graham Parkes, “The Putative Fascism of the Kyoto School and the Political Correctness of the Modern Academy,” Philosophy East and West 47, no. 3 (1997): 305–36 or Tsuda, Watsuji Tetsurō kenkyū—kaishakugaku, kokumin dōtoku, shakai shugi for more details. 9 LaFleur, “Watsuji Tetsurō,” viii. This might also be one reason why Watsuji’s History failed to leave a consistent mark on philosophy or Edo intellectual history produced during those decades. As LaFleur points out in the same paragraph, “During that period, these philosophers were almost totally absorbed in discussing the West’s philosophical trends—logical positivism and the philosophy of language, for instance. Watsuji seemed irrelevant.” 10 Among the most recent accounts, Paramore specifically reiterates this stance, suggesting that in the postwar period Confucianism has become nothing short of a taboo, a largely shameful moral heritage to be discarded by a newly democratic-minded Japan (Kiri Paramore, Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016.)) 11 While Bellah’s indictment of Watsuji is not intransigent, it does seem to have been largely accepted and exacerbated in much of postwar English-language research. Parkes suggests that Watsuji came under a sort of blanket indictment of all Kyoto School philosophers and acolytes, oftentimes branded as “mere fascist or imperialist ideologues” by postwar liberal research (Graham Parkes, “The Putative Fascism of the Kyoto School and the Political Correctness of the Modern Academy,” Philosophy East and West 47, no. 3 (1997): 305–36). This would indeed account for Watsuji’s History garnering less attention in international academic circles compared to Maruyama’s Studies, at least to a certain extent. 12 Yuasa Yasuo, “Interpretive Essay: Strands of Influence,” in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan, trans. Yamamoto Seisaku and Robert E. Carter (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 313. 13 Tsuda, Watsuji Tetsurō kenkyū—kaishakugaku, kokumin dōtoku, shakai shugi. 14 Yuasa, “Interpretive Essay: Strands of Influence,” 313. 15 Yuasa, “Interpretive Essay: Strands of Influence,” 314. Yuasa never attempted to absolve Watsuji. Instead, starting with his 1981 study, he gives a much-needed historical context to Watsuji’s prewar “cultural nationalism,” referring to the drama of the entire intellectual world at the time, inescapable for either openly critical 4

題

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intellectuals like Maruyama or more complacent figures like Watsuji. He sees Watsuji’s prewar cultural nationalism as a somewhat natural reaction in a political environment that allowed for no intellectual balance, where the only form of fanaticism allowed was ultra-nationalism, and where Marxism—as well as any other form of open criticism—were heavily censored. All this in the larger international context of European powers encroaching on Asian territories. 16 William LaFleur, “Reasons for the Rubble: Watsuji Tetsurō’s Position in Japan’s Postwar Debate about Rationality,” Philosophy East and West 51, no. 1 (2001): 1–25. LaFleur thus suggests that Watsuji was no different from other intellectuals who—as Japan was taking the path of war—entertained the hope of exerting some influence on the authorities, and walked a fine line, “always adopting language just careful enough to avoid serious trouble with the authorities” (p. 5). 17 John C. Maraldo, “The Perils of Watsuji’s Ethics: An Attempt at Balanced Critique,” in Japanese Philosophy in the Making (2), Borderline Interrogations, (2019): 78–96. 18 See MacCarthy, “Watsuji Tetsurō—The Mutuality of Climate and Culture and an Ethics of Betweenness,” 515, for more details. 19 It must be said, however, that this trend is slowly, yet consistently, being reversed now. To give only a few recent examples, Maraldo focuses on the Confucian dimension of Watsuji’s trust and trustworthiness to offer an alternative interpretation of Watsuji’s conceptualization of the state in Rinrigaku; Shuttleworth (2021, in this volume) discusses the same Rinrigaku from the perspective of the Five Confucian relationships; I also suggested the possibility of a Confucian reading of Watsuji’s concept of aidagara elsewhere (Mustățea, 2018), although the latter did not materialize into a stand-alone investigation of the topic. See Alexandra Mustățea, “On the Convolutions of Modernity and Confucianism in Japan—Loyalty from Yamaga Sokō’s Shidō to Prewar Kokutai Ideology,” European Journal of Japanese Philosophy, no. 4: 131–56. 20 Syntagm used by LaFleur “Reasons for the Rubble: Watsuji Tetsurō’s Position in Japan’s Postwar Debate about Rationality.” 21 Yuasa, “Watsuji Tetsurō—kindai Nihon tetsugaku no unmei.” Yuasa interprets this shift as an atonement of sorts, as a postwar attempt to reassess “Japanese tradition” and grapple with both good and bad. For Watsuji, this took the form of re-establishing Japanese ethics and culture among the universal, pluralist “cultural nations” Of course, it is also possible to view this volume as a result of Watsuji’s postwar rationalization, as Bellah (“Japan’s Cultural Identity: Some Reflections on the Work of Watsuji Tetsurō,”) suggests, but the theoretical consistencies with his earlier Rinrigaku make me think this is not necessarily the case. 22 Maruyama had also intended to continue his Studies into the modern period, but he had to give up on the idea. In the preface to the English translation of the Studies, he explains that his essay was in fact intended as an exploration of “The Emergence of the Theory of Nationalism,” of which Tokugawa Japan was only a prelude. However, as he was writing this introductory part in 1944, he was drafted into the army, and he left this essay behind “as something of the last testament.” (“Studies,” xxxiv). 23 Tawara makes a clear distinction between the (technically first) intellectual history written by Inoue Tetsu­ jirō, who had taken significant liberties with historical truth in order to advance a political agenda, and Watsuji’s History as the first apolitical approach. As will be mentioned later, Watsuji himself brought the same criticism against Inoue’s writings, suggesting that his decision to write History was an assumed one. 24 Fujita, “Nihon tetsugakushi ni okeru Watsuji tetsugaku—Rinrigaku no ichi.” 25 Yuasa, Watsuji Tetsurō—kindai Nihon tetsugaku no unmei; LaFleur, “Reasons for the Rubble: Watsuji Te­ tsu­rō’s Position in Japan’s Postwar Debate about Rationality.” 26 Watsuji Tetsurō, “Nihon rinri shisōshi ichi” [ 日本倫理思想史一 The history of ethical thought in Japan, Vol. 1] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2015), 27–28. 27 This idea mirrors his earlier stance from Rinrigaku (the concept of “ningen sonzai” 人間存在), there defined from the perspective of the individual’s dialectic relationship with society: “Ningen sonzai is essentially spatio-temporal. It forms a system of social ethics in some place, and at some period of time. Apart from land and a specific time period, a system of social ethics would turn out to be a mere abstraction. […] family ties occur in the ‘home,’ connections of neighbors in the ‘village,’ and links of friendship in their ‘town.’ And the home, the village, and the town are all burdened with historical tradition and recreate their history day by day” (Watsuji, Nihon rinri shisōshi, Vol. I, 25–26). 28 Watsuji, Nihon rinri shisōshi, Vol. I, 21–22. Rinrigaku is also bound by its historicity to some extent, but this only becomes evident in subsequent epochs. 29 Largely written before the war and partially edited for this volume (Watsuji, Rinrigaku, Vol. IV, 385–92).

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30 There are a few other points on which Watsuji’s and Maruyama’s accounts of Confucianism and modernity are similar: the view on the Chu Hsi School as closed-minded, for example. However, for Maruyama, this was due to the ingrained weakness stemming from the continuity between norm and human nature, whereas for Watsuji, the cause was of a purely historical nature—mainly the person of Hayashi Razan, who functioned as a gatekeeper to intellectual life in Tokugawa Japan. 31 Watsuji, Nihon rinri shisōshi, Vol. I, 13. 32 Watsuji also delves into Confucianism’s increased contact with and attraction towards Christianity, as well as the chōnin’s proto-capitalistic thinking engaging and ultimately merging with old-type morality via popular culture (e.g., the Akō Incident—Chūshingura). Maruyama overall gives less credit to the chōnin for their role in the evolution of Confucianism and the emergence of a modern consciousness. However, both Watsuji and Maruyama agree on the point that in Japan, the commercial class, although holding a major cultural role during the Edo period, they did not play a major role in politics. Watsuji focuses on their role in the inter-class intellectual exchange, whereas Maruyama gives their (parasitic) dependence on the feudal system as a reason for their inability to overcome it. 33 Watsuji does not attempt a definition or contextualization of the term yoron here, but he most probably opposes it to the traditionalist binary of public (or the “official”) versus private space. 34 Watsuji, Nihon rinri shisōshi, Vol. IV, 229. 35 While Nishi Amane advocated for the separation of politics and morality and criticized Confucianism’s tendency to mix the two, Nishimura Shigeki advocated for a moral revitalization which centered around Confucianism and spearheaded the movement for about ten years. 36 Watsuji, Nihon rinri shisōshi, Vol. I, 13. 37 After all, Watsuji sees in pre-Meiji Confucianism the only local attempt at grasping the principles of universal ethics, before the discipline (学問 gakumon) was introduced as such in the Meiji period. 38 Watsuji, Nihon rinri shisōshi, Vol. I, 35. 39 These latter ones discussed in more detail by Maraldo, “The Perils of Watsuji’s Ethics: An Attempt at Balanced Critique.” 40 Maraldo, “The Perils of Watsuji’s Ethics: An Attempt at Balanced Critique.” 41 This interpretation is in tone with his sonnōron, also, in which the emperor functions as a symbol of cultural unity, and not as a political force. 42 His ningen sonzai argument clarifies this position (see note 27). 43 Watsuji, Nihon rinri shisōshi, Vol. I, 18. 44 By post-individualism I mean here the reconnection with the environment, natural and social, and avoiding the excesses of individualism.

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Chapter 12 Yasuoka Masahiro and the Survival of Confucianism in Postwar Japan, 1945–1983 Eddy Dufourmont

Introduction: The roots of postwar Confucianism in Japan, the “Spiritual Asianism” of Yasuoka Masahiro and his role in wartime politics In 1945, Japanese Confucianism appeared to be clinically dead, its status collapsing with the fall of Japan’s wartime regime. As an invented tradition promoted by Inoue Tetsujirō under the name Nihon jukyō (日本儒教) to create the fiction of a Japanese Confucian school as a philosophical equal of European philosophy, Confucianism had become part of the official ideology as early as 1890.1 The need to renew Confucian ideology after 1918 became vital for the regime due to the growing attraction of Marxism and the development of the so-called Taishō Democracy. During this era the philosopher Yasuoka Masahiro played an essential role in giving a new expression to Confucianism as a tool for the imperial regime. Yet after 1945 his thought became one of the roots of postwar conservatism and Liberal Democratic Party ideology. This central role of Yasuoka in the formation of postwar conservatism can be explained partly by his participation in the writing of the imperial declaration of surrender, which ended the war on August 15, 1945, but this participation itself was largely the result of his intellectual trajectory in the previous decades. I would like here to introduce briefly this trajectory in the prewar period, in terms of Yasuoka’s thought and his networking with influential government officials. Then I will discuss how he made use of his intellectual status and prewar networks to put his thought at the service of the new, postwar dispensation forged by conservative Japanese politicians and business leaders. Yasuoka is an interesting case for a global history of modern Confucianism as he was the only one of the few examples in Japan of the so-called “New Confucians” (新儒家 shinruxia), who in China opposed the May Fourth (1919) Movement—which itself had called for radical modernization against Confucianism. Yasuoka can be compared to Liang Shuming and he often praised Liang for his defense of Confucianism.2 Yasuoka was originally a Pan-Asianist

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just like Kita Ikki and Ōkawa Shūmei, the leading figures of Pan-Asianism, and joined their organizations, the Yūzonsha (猶存社) and the Kōchisha (行地社).3 But, contrary to them, he conceived the liberation of Asia not through a coup d’état but through a pure spiritual movement based on an interpretation of Wang Yangming Confucianism as personalism (人格主義 jinkakushugi). Yasuoka expressed this interpretation in 1922 Researches on Wang Yangming (王陽明研究 Ō Yōmei kenkyū) and repeated it in his books and articles throughout all his life. Without any substantial arguments, Yasuoka simply used the philosophy of German philosopher Max Scheler, Nishida Kitarō’s Inquiry into the Good (善の研究 Zen no kenkyū, 1911) and the concept of “moral persona” (jinkaku), to develop his discussion of Wang Yangming Confucianism, conceived as the summum of the “oriental culture.” 4 The goal of such “Confucian personalism” was conservative and nationalistic: Yasuoka defined it as an answer to the problems of modern times, which he described as a general “decadence” (退廃 taihai). In fact, Yasuoka waged an ideological struggle, at the same time, against the West, Taishō Democracy, Marxism and the May Fourth Movement in China. Yasuoka conferred on Japan the status of being the new land of Confucianism and the starting point of a spiritual “liberation” of Japan and Asia. Through his articles and his books, especially Outlines on Eastern Ethics (東洋倫理概論 Tōyō rinri gairon, 1929) and Political Philosophy of the East (東洋政治哲学 Tōyō seiji tetsugaku, 1932), Yasuoka transformed his Confucian personalism as a pure ideology for the imperial regime and quickly moved away from the pure revolutionary ambitions of Kita Ikki and Ōkawa Shūmei. Yasuoka developed his Confucian personalism as an everyday life ethos for the middle class, justifying the ideology of Japan as family (家族国家 kazoku kokka) centered on man and emperor. He also called on the political elites to become the Confucian shepherds of the State. Wang Yangming Confucianism interpreted by Yasuoka became thus the core of a specific “Kingly Way” that attracted nationalist young bureaucrats, since Yasuoka used the word kan (官 bureaucrat) to define the political elites of the State (which included the emperor, whose existence in Yasuoka’s vision was mystical and symbolic). Yasuoka wrote many books and articles in the prewar period but he tried also to establish a network around him to promote his ideas. This network was mainly constituted by the group of the so-called New Bureaucrats (新官僚 shinkanryō), the disciples recruited in his private school the Academy of the Golden Pheasant (金鶏学院 Kinkei Gakuin) and the agrarianist school in Gunma prefecture established in 1930s, the Japan Farmers’ School (日本農士学校 Nihon nōshi gakkō). The mix of personalism and nationalism formulated by Yasuoka emphasized moralsuasion and self-discipline over revolution, and he was one of the few proponents of an Imperial Confucian ideology alongside Inoue Tetsujirō. Since the government was keen to recruit intellectual allies for ideological counter-attacks against the growing influence of Liberalism and Marxism, it is not surprising that the young Yasuoka soon came to the attention of the intellectual and political elites. As a graduate of the Faculty of Law at Tokyō Imperial University (the most prestigious institution of the country), he early on attracted the friendship of another University of Tokyo graduate, the noted Pan-Asianist and philosopher Ōkawa Shūmei. Through Ōkawa, Yasuoka met Makino Nobuaki and Count Sakai Tadamasa. These two men became Yasuoka’s chief patrons, among others.5 Makino was a liberal, son of Ōkubo Toshimichi (an eminent politician of the early Meiji era) and received frequent ministerial appointments in the government. After being plenipotentiary ambassador for the Versailles treaties, he was Imperial household minister at the time Yasuoka was introduced

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to him, and Yasuoka would eventually marry his daughter. Count Sakai, slightly older than Yasuoka, was in 1923 a member of the House of Peers. The Saitō and Okada cabinets between 1932 and 1936 have the reputation of being influenced by Yasuoka and by the group of young bureaucrats called the “New Bureaucrats.” Since the so-called “New Bureaucrats” seemed to have their own personal ambitions, the homogeneity of the National Mainstay Society (国維会 Kokuikai) can be put into question, and it would be relatively exaggerated to define the relations of Yasuoka with the so-called “New Bureaucrats” as relations of master and disciples. I rather think it is quite possible to see in Yasuoka one of the main examples of a new generation of scholars of the state (御用学者 goyōgakusha), whose existence was devoted to the defense of the imperial regime, like Inoue Tetsujirō and others in the Meiji era. Indeed, in the continuity of the 1925 Peace Preservation Law, emphasizing the protection of the “national polity” (国体 kokutai) and a first wave of repression against Marxist movements, the government in the first half of the 1930s devoted more and more attention to the “question of thought” (思想問題 shisō mondai).6 In this process, which culminated with the publishing in 1937 of the pamphlet Principles of the National Polity (国体の本義 Kokutai no hongi), personal liberties came under attack in the name of the imperial regime and a second wave of arrests crushed the Marxists. As with most of the intellectuals of Chinese studies in Japan, Yasuoka cooperated with the imperialist policy of the Japanese government. Actually, even after the collapse of the Okada cabinet in 1936, Yasuoka continued to serve as an official scholar and seemed to establish special links with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Indeed it is with the support of this ministry that Yasuoka published in 1938 7 a translation of The Book in Three Parts on Government (為政三部書 Yizheng sanbushu) by Zhang Yangzao, a public officer of the Mongol dynasty (1271–1368). The ministry also sponsored a trip by Yasuoka to Manchuria and China from October 9 to November 1, 1938, in order to meet Chinese scholars such as Xia Lianji, whom he probably convinced to collaborate.8 Yasuoka also probably received decisive financial support for the trips he made to Europe and United States in 1939.9 But this collaboration seems to have been quite reduced thereafter, until Yasuoka was promoted to Councilor of the Greater Asia Ministry at the end of 1944. Yasuoka spent most of the years between 1939 and 1944 in his agrarian school in Saitama prefecture. Yasuoka’s engagement with Japanese foreign policy was in strong tension with his critical position on that same foreign policy. Indeed, throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Yasuoka sided with critics who were against invading Asia and against the alliance with the Axis. Of course, Yasuoka did not make this criticism in the name of peace or democracy, but from a conservative point of view: he was obsessed by Japanese particularism and independence from the “West” and to him this meant that any policy needed to be made from a pure Japanese point of view. Yasuoka’s conservativism can be compared with that of António de Oliveira Salazar (whom Yasuoka admired), who protected the neutrality of Portugal while establishing an authoritarian and conservative regime. I agree with Roger Brown, who writes that Yasuoka and other conservatives saw with anxiety the “threat posed to their prerogatives by advocates of state socialist-style renovation in the form of a new political structure (新政治体制 shinseiji taisei)” and the New Order for East Asia (東亜新秩序 Tōa shinchitsujo) “which necessitated a military alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.” 10 It is thanks to this very particular position that Yasuoka became close to the pre-1941 “Pro Anglo-American Faction,” whose best-known example is the postwar Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru.11 These men were, like Yasuoka, pure products of the imperial regime. Although they were not partisans of 170

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democracy, they were pragmatically opposed to the alliance with the Axis powers. They were also involved in later wartime discussions to overthrow the Tōjō cabinet, and are precisely the same people belonging to what Amamiya Shōichi called the “anti-Tōjō” group, made up of prewar-liberals, conservative elites and fascists.12 The only common elements to these very different people were their opposition to the Army on politics, and their anticommunism. Yasuoka was appointed as adviser of the Ministry of Greater Asia in the Koiso cabinet at the end of 1944. Unfortunately, there are to date few details on this appointment and on Yasuoka’s contribution as Counselor to the Ministry (whose activity may have been symbolic since Japan lost control of this occupied territory at the end of that year).13 Thanks to his connection with the political elites and his reputation as a Confucian scholar, Yasuoka was one of the two men who wrote the imperial declaration of 15 August 1945, which the emperor read by radio to order the end of the conflict. It was the first time Japanese people heard the voice of their sovereign, and that is why this declaration was much more than the official call ending the war. Behind the recognition of the defeat, there was also a hidden message in the words written by Yasuoka and read by the emperor, which communicated symbolic meaning concerning the fate of Confucianism in Japan after the war. These words are: “However, it is according to the dictates of time and fate that We have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable.” This sentence was a quotation of Zhang Huangliang, a Song poet,14 and was one of Yasuoka’s favorite classical quotations. We find it as it is in the foundations of politics described by Yasuoka in his book Political Philosophy of the East, as well as in Outlines on Eastern Ethics. He also cited it during a conference held in 1932 when he criticized the assassinations which brought down the Inukai cabinet.15 With the defeat, all the imperial ideology and institutions to which Confucianism was inextricably linked appeared set to fall, bringing Confucianism down with them. But in the words read by the emperor, Yasuoka hinted at his hope to resuscitate Confucianism’s prewar position as soon as possible. Yasuoka successfully did so to some degree, at least up until the time of his death, and the question is how he did it. For the historian, this question is much more a matter of investigating Yasuoka’s elite networks than a philosophical question.

Recycling Confucianism for postwar conservatism: Confucianism as a resource for anti-communism and Japanese nationalism Confucianism and the recycling of prewar political networks as LDP conservatism There is little to say about the post-1945 Yasuoka discourse on Confucianism and his ideas, since they are completely a republishing of prewar books and articles, though sometimes under different titles.16 The only real original work on the scholarly level was the edition by the sinologist Morohashi Tetsuji of the Panorama of Wang Yangming Learning (陽明学体系 Yōmei gaku taikei, 15 volumes) from 1971 to 1974, as well as a Panorama of Zhu Xi Learning (朱子学体系 Shushi gaku taikei, 15 volumes), from 1974 to 1978. A certain number of the socalled “New Confucians” joined this project from abroad.17 Yasuoka saw no difficulty in repeating his prewar ideas for the new Japan and from the beginning of the postwar era, he rejected the new democracy and proposed instead a “Japanese democracy” based on his Confucian personalism.18 But because Yasuoka was purged

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until 1954, he lost most of his networks and institutional affiliations and had to rebuild them almost from scratch. Since most of the prewar bureaucrats and political officials with whom Yasuoka had previously been affiliated survived politically after 1945, Yasuoka found in them the means to recreate his networks, beginning with his old students and former fellow bureaucrats. This network developed mainly during the 1960s, when Yasuoka had very close contacts with Prime Ministers Ikeda Hayato (1960–1964) and Satō Eisaku (1964–1972), who were originally bureaucrats and disciples of Yoshida Shigeru. This network also contributed to maintain a pro-Taiwan direction inside the LDP. 19 The nucleus of this network was the Council on New Japan (新日本協議会 Shin Nihon kyōgikai) created on January 30, 1958, by Kimura Atsutarō, Abe Genki, Takasugi Shin’ichi and Yasuoka. It was financed by the head of Mitsubishi Electric, Takasugi Shin’ichi, who took part in the negotiations of the Japanese-Korean treaty. The aim of the association was to fight against the “violent communist revolutionary attempts” that were taking place, to “ensure the protection of freedom and justice, in order to guarantee happiness and peace.” It was one of the organizations federated in the Association for the Celebration of the Foundation Day of the Country (紀元節奉祝会 Kigensetsu hōshukukai), which was established on August 21, 1957 to campaign for the re-officialisation of February 11th as the national foundation day.20 Abe Genki became famous for ruthlessly hunting the communists during the 1930s as a senior police officer, under the orders of Matsumoto Gaku, one of the New Bureaucrats and a disciple of Yasuoka. Matsumoto was Minister of the Interior at the time of the 1945 surrender. Kimura Atsutarō was the head of the security bureau under the Yoshida government. As Kimura recalled, Yoshida had encouraged him to establish an academy to train the cadres of the future Japanese army, because in his view, while the present difficulties obliged the government to devote its efforts to economic reconstruction and meeting the needs of the people, in the future an independent country could not exist without an army. Thus, Kimura created the Security Academy (保安大学校 Hoan Daigakkō), which would become the Defense University (防衛大学 Bōei Daigaku).21 The Shin Nihon Kyōgikai was part of the Conference on the Japanese Nation (日本国民 会議 Nihon kokumin kaigi), a liaison body of right-wing organizations campaigning against “international communism.” Formed on March 10, 1959, it comprised 26 groups, but its aim was not to merge them into one. Among them were the Council for the Question of the Constitution (憲法問題懇談会 Kenpō mondai kondankai), Yasuoka’s Association for the Master and the Disciple (師友協会 Shiyū kyōkai) and the House of Growth (成長の家 Seichō no ie). For its 17th meeting, on July 2, 1960, within the Diet, the federation launched the Movement in Support of Hi no maru, the Japanese flag (日の丸擁護運動 Hi no maru yōgo undō), which led to the creation of a new organization, the National Federation for the Hi no Maru (全国日の 丸連合会 Zen koku hi no maru rengōkai), chaired by former Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru. It brought together over 70 organizations.22 As Abe Genki points out, it was Yasuoka who wrote the preamble for the Council on New Japan’s program.23 It can be summarized in four points: The construction of a new Japan faithful to its history and traditions, based on national awareness and correct patriotism. The moral and material progress of the people. 172

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The struggle against communist defeatism and all foreign plots threatening the freedom and peace of the nation. The establishment of a Japan capable of guaranteeing happiness and peace, linked to the free world.24 Yasuoka also relied on the Society of Public Spirit (素心会 Soshinkai) in the LDP and his personal contacts with the prime ministers and people of their cabinets to become one of the most important thinkers of postwar Japanese conservatism.25 This network of LDP politicians around Yasuoka was nothing more than a resurrection of an anti-communist policy grouping of people with backgrounds in the prewar Imperial government. This network also testified to the living importance of bureaucracy in Democratic Japan. This continuity was possible because the Japanese Communist Party—now freed from prewar bans and persecutions—was stronger than ever. Fear of communist influence helped keep alive the ideological value of Confucianism for the LDP cabinet, and this contributed largely to sustaining Yasuoka’s active role in conservative circles. Since democracy was firmly established with the 1947 Constitution, the discourse of Yasuoka and the network of LDP politicians around him also became the basis of actual revisionism, incorporating an ambition to suppress the 1947 constitution and reestablish the Imperial regime as much as possible, including the army. The Confucian network of Yasuoka At the same time Yasuoka recreated his political network he created his main association, the Association for the Master and the Disciple (Shiyū kyōkai) (henceforth referred to as “the Association”), in 1958, in which the conservative political men, the old New Bureaucrats and students of Yasuoka were the administrative staff.26 The Association set up branches throughout the country, even extending to diaspora communities in Brazil. Yasuoka himself was the primary link among them. The Association developed mainly from 1955 onwards, but it had a very small number of participants: in 1963, the Association would have had 4,200 members nationwide.27 This figure seems ridiculously small, but most of the branches were made up of local elites (prefectural governors, city mayors and businessmen). The size of the branches varied from one prefecture to another: Wakayama (March 1958) had 467 members,28 while the Kagoshima branch had only 100 (January 1959).29 The main branch of the Association was in Osaka. Created in March 1957, the Kansai branch of the Association (関西 師友協会 Kansai shiyū kyōkai) was the most active and had 226 members, most of whom were important businessmen of the city. The president was Odawara Taizō, CEO of Kubota Steel Industries, who was succeeded in this role by Arai Masaaki, CEO of Sumitomo Insurance.30 The Association launched a magazine, Kansai Master and Disciple (関西師友 Kansai shiyū) whose main editors were Yasuoka and Takada Yasuma, the father of modern Japanese sociology. His links with Yasuoka must have gone back to the beginning of the 1930s, since he was one of the people consulted by the Center for Research on Culture and National Spirit (国民精神文化研究所 Kokumin seishin bunka kenkyūjo), established in 1932, alongside Yasuoka.31 The Association also gave lectures, with the support of the city of Osaka, the Chamber of Commerce and the Asahi Shinbun. The first of these lectures, attended by 1,800 participants, brought together the Kyoto University philosopher Kōsaka Masaaki and Yasuoka around the theme of morality.32 A moral training course was organized for housewives and Yasuoka

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gave lectures on the classics, open to the public. On the whole, the corporate heads on the Association’s board of directors do not seem to have done much work themselves. Rather, their presence signified support for a discourse that furthered their goals. The Kansai branch of the Association was completed by two other organizations. An Adult Education Center (成人研修所 Seijin kenshūjo) was inaugurated on 26 January 1969. It was isolated in the countryside near Osaka. The Center was intended to accommodate people already working, including employees of Sumitomo Life Insurance, Kubota, Matsushita, and Kintetsu companies, all of whose corporate heads were members of Yasuoka’s circles. These were mainly people who were intended to manage human resources. The Confucian training provided by the Center was instrumental in their promotion to these positions. Iyoda Satoru, a former student of Yasuoka’s Golden Pheasant Academy, headed a youth section of the Kansai branch of the Association. In 1957, Iyoda was the head of a small private school in Kyōto, of which he was the founder. He recruited his students from among the students of the University of Kyoto and Dōshisha University, and they studied the classics and Zen meditation together. From 1955, he had been giving lectures on the classics at Osaka, which were called “lectures to purify the mind” (洗心講座 senshin kōza). He continued to give these lectures for the rest of his life. Iyoda attracted a large number of young people to the Association through summer camps, during which young people went camping, played sports and read the classics and works of Yasuoka. Yasuoka sometimes came to give lectures, with the writer Shiba Ryōtarō.33 Thanks to such links, Yasuoka acquired new celebrity as the greatest Confucian scholar in Japan and became famous through the modern media. In 1962 he spoke on a program for Nippon Radio entitled “Confucius’ Analects Morning” (朝の論語 Asa no rongo), that later was published as a book.

Confucianism for the business world: Yasuoka and industrial harmony Confucianism as a tool for Japanese-style management In the 1930s, Yasuoka tried to promote his Confucian personalism in the business world through the renovation of the Association for Cooperation (between businessmen and workers) (協調会 Kyōchōkai)34 with his fellow bureaucrats. He also had close relationships with working class nationalist activists like Kamino Shin'ichi. However, in the postwar era his links with the business world were much more through businessmen themselves, who wanted to imagine a “Japanese” model for the economy, which would combine “traditional values” with capitalism and vertical organization in management. Yasuoka played the main role in integrating Confucianism as a part of the “Japanese model” and was so influential that after 1970 most of the Japanese and foreign language books and scholarly literature reviewing the reasons for Japan’s rapid economic rise highlighted Confucianism as one of the cultural influences behind its success.35 This influence was largely due to Yasuoka’s networking: businessmen and journalists played a central role in his networks, and those who joined his circles often developed their own circles, inviting Yasuoka to give conferences. Sometimes they invited him to talk in their companies and would publish a book based on these talks.36

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The businessmen linked to Yasuoka are quite numerous and can be found first in the Shiyū Kyōkai itself. In the Ōsaka branch, Otagaki Shirō, CEO of the electric company Kansai Denryoku, and Odawara Taizō (of Kubota Steel) left documents providing interesting reasons why they supported Yasuoka and Confucianism. Mainly, they believed, like Yasuoka, in the role of morality in economics. Okahashi Shigeru, a managing director in the Sumitomo Corporation himself gave moral training lectures to his employees, concerning both work ethics and personal culture.37 Hirose Gen, president of Nippon Life Insurance Company, claimed to be inspired by the thought of Kawakami Hajime, Kawai Eijirō, and Amano Teiyū, and also by nationalist philosophers such as Kihira Tadayoshi.38 Odawara was a Christian, who believed that workers and management were equal before God, and throughout his career he tried to resolve labor conflicts through dialogue, especially in reaction against communism.39 Their interest in Yasuoka is the same as that which motivated other corporate leaders who supported Yasuoka, such as Itō Yasujirō, Ikeda Kamesaburō or Okumura Tsunao. Okumura Tsunao was one of Japan’s greatest postwar business leaders: in 1948 he became director of the brokerage firm Nomura, vice-chairman of the Keidanren Advisors Committee and the head of other specialized committees within this organization. He was on close terms with writers such as Mishima Yukio and Ishihara Shintarō and also read Kōsaka Masaaki.40 But it was with Yasuoka that he maintained the closest links: he regularly attended the conferences organized by the Association (it is not established that he was part of it but it is very possible), and he was part of the Wooden Chicken Society (木鶏会 Mokkeikai) (another study circle that Yasuoka created at the request of the sumo wrestler Futabayama).41 An examination of Okumura’s autobiography shows that it contains a very large number of themes developed by Yasuoka: the fear of “totalitarian communism,” the notion that democracy was largely a loan from America dating back to the years of the occupation and the need for a “Japanese democracy.” 42 Okumura also refers to Yasuoka on the subject of moral culture: concerned about the individual, Okumura wanted to preserve the human character of society. But he also subscribed to elitism. He took up a quotation from the 19th-century Italian nationalist Giuseppi Mazzini that Yasuoka used at his leisure: “Democracy is the progress of all, under the guidance of the wisest and best.” 43 Itō Yasujirō, another Japanese industrial baron, was also interested in the moral cultivation of the individual, believing that the reconstruction and development of Tōhoku, his native region, rested on it. Together with Yasuoka, he had formed a circle called Fumikai (不味会) for this purpose, and he supported Sugahara Heiji and his Training Center for the Development of the North-East (東北振興研修所 Tōhoku shinkō kenshūjo).44 Among other things, he helped to give important positions to the hundreds of graduates of the Center.45 More explicitly than Okumura, Itō distrusted trade unions and was opposed to strikes.46 Ikeda Kamesaburō was one of the main leaders of the petrochemical industry. Together with Ishikawa Ichirō, the first head of the Keidanren from 1946 to 1956, he formed the League of Chemical Industries of Japan (日本科学工業協会 Nihon kagaku kōgyō kyōkai) in 1946. Like Okumura and Itō, he wanted to avoid conflicts in his industry, which is why he insisted on mutual trust and cooperation between workers and employers.47 These businessmen joined the Society of the Nothing Above [Virtue] (無以会 Muikai), created in 1966.48 It was a monthly circle of reading of Chinese classics, under the leadership of Yasuoka. Some members invited Yasuoka to create other circles. For example, Iwazawa Masaji, a consultant at Mazda invited Yasuoka to create a study circle of executives from Sumitomo Bank, where he had been vice-president. This circle had no particular name, but Chapter 12: Yasuoka Masahiro and the Survival of Confucianism in Postwar Japan, 1945–1983

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it lasted five years from 1970. Some of the lectures Yasuoka gave there were gathered in a volume entitled Ten Lectures on Oriental Thought, Characters and Moral Culture (東洋思想十 講、人物と教養 Tōyōshisō jūkō, jinbutsu to kyōyō) in 1977. While personal moral culture is not surprising, the central theme of the lectures was in fact Yasuoka’s thought as a whole, including its political aspects. Iwazawa Masaji, for his part, felt indebted to Yasuoka for keeping Confucian thought alive. At the same time, Kataoka Yūzō, of the Kintetsu Railway company, formed a working circle for executives around Yasuoka at the request of the head of the human resources office. Yasuoka came to give a series of lectures starting in 1966, which were published under the title The Great Dialogue (偉大なる対話 Idai naru taiwa). These lectures constitute a distillation of his moral and political thought. The CEO of the company himself, Kanamori Shigeichirō, regularly attended Kansai shiyū kyōkai meetings with Iwasa Masaji and other prominent Kansai business leaders in the postwar era such as Kobayashi Shōchirō, Sakata Katsurō, and Uno Osamu.49 The Society of the Nothing Above was the main group of business leaders close to Yasuoka in Western Japan, but as for the East, there was the Kantō Club Society (クラブ関東の 会 Kurabu kantō no kai). This circle took this name only later, and it continued to function well after Yasuoka’s death. Takada Tsuneo, president of the steel company Takada, started it in March 1970.50 In the 1970s Itō Hajime was one of the main vectors of Yasuoka’s influence with business owners. Itō came from the University of Manchuria (建国大学 Kenkoku Daigaku), where he read Sekai no Tabi, the book in which Yasuoka asserts his wartime anti-Axis position. It was only much later, after Ishibashi Tanzan had helped him to start his career in journalism that Itō met Yasuoka in the late 1960s.51 At the time, he was one of the main executives of the newspaper Business World (財界 Zaikai). He decided to become an economic critic and Yasuoka welcomed him in the magazine Master and Disciple (師友 Shiyū). Itō Hajime contributed in two ways to increase Yasuoka’s influence: firstly, the books Itō began to publish in the 1970s assured him an ever-growing fame, even after his death. His books, which all aimed to promote an oriental, especially Confucian entrepreneurial ethic, were inspired by Yasuoka: Itō referred to Yasuoka as his master.52 Compared with Yasuoka, Itō’s originality lay in his popularizing the Confucian message in the everyday language of daily life. This characteristic explains its success, and there were even patrons who preferred Itō to Yasuoka for this reason. Itō also introduced Yasuoka to business leaders and other circles. For example, he introduced the radio program Asa no rongo to Ogitani Shōzō, chief editor of the weekly Shūkan Asahi (週刊朝日).53 Itō himself appreciated Yasuoka’s interpretation of the Analects: for example, concerning the ninth verse of chapter eight, whose usual translation is “to the people we must show the way, without seeking to give them explanations,” Itō preferred to see in it, like Yasuoka, an invitation to the leaders to enlighten the people, without mocking them. This interpretation seemed more democratic to him. Yasuoka and the New Life Movement: recycling the prewar Moral Suasion movement The association of Yasuoka’s interpretation of Confucianism with economics was not just of interest to people of the business world. Confucianism was enrolled in the new postwar version of the prewar Moral Suasion Movement (full title: the Moral Suasion Total Mobilization

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Movement 教化総動員運動 Kyōka sōdōin undō): the New Life Movement (“the Movement”), sponsored by the state and the business leaders to mobilize the entire population for economic growth. In September 1951, the friendly economic association, the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (経済同友会 Keizai dōyūkai) launched the New Life Movement (新生活運動 Shin seikatsu undō), whose aim was to begin the restoration (維新 ishin) of a peaceful Japan. Yamagiwa Masamichi, governor of the Bank of Japan, was part of the committee that started the Movement.54 In February 1952, the employers’ organizations Keidanren and Nikkeiren (日経 連 Japan Federation of Employers’ Associations) joined the Japan Association of Corporate Executives. They made a joint declaration in which they called for a return to an entrepreneurial ethic. They noted the disorder and moral decadence among the Japanese following their defeat in WWII. The Japanese had forgotten their simple national character, they said.55 That speech was word for word the same speech as Yasuoka's. Under pressure from employers’ organizations and sympathizers, already widely supported by the Ministry of Education, Hatoyama Ichirō’s government gave its sponsorship to the creation of a national organization to truly launch the Movement, which led in August 1956 to the formation of the New Life Movement Association (新生活協会 Shin seikatsu undō kyōkai). From the beginning, the New Life Movement Association was closely linked to the state: among its main members were the former ministers of education Amano Teiyū, Morito Tatsuo, Maeda Tamon (president of the association until 1958) and Koizumi Shinzō. The presidents of the two parliamentary assemblies were also part of the steering committee in the 1960s. In addition, it was agreed that the Movement would be cross-party (each party being represented) and that the chief of staff would also be part of the steering committee.56 Although Yasuoka was a member of the organization, his title was “counsellor” (評議 員 hyōgiin)—a title not found in the articles of association of the organization—rather than “advisor” (顧問 komon). However, his writings were presented as constituting the “philosophy of the new life” (新生活の哲学 shin seikatsu no tetsugaku).57 The Movement was thus not meant to be limited to the economy but had to extend to the whole of society, following the principle of the Confucian classic The Great Learning (大学 Daxue), which taught that the education of the individual would benefit the family and then the country. For the guiding principle of the Movement, Yasuoka simply repeated the prewar National Mainstay Society (Kokuikai) principle, inspired by the classic Warring States Guanzi (管子) text: pulling the four strings of government.58 For him, these values, that is, the Confucian values, were to be instilled in the Japanese through the Movement.59 Sheldon Garn has shown that the Movement was, as noted above, nothing more than a renewing of the prewar Moral Suasion Movement originally developed in the context of the growing middle class in the Taishō period, mixing the Confucian idea of moral suasion and imperial ideology to modernize the ideological control of the society.60 Respect for work, punctuality, alcohol-free life and the affirmation of “wise mother and good wife” (良妻賢母 ryōsai kenbo) gender ideology constituted the main themes of the ideology provided by this kyōka movement, which were repeated by the New Life Movement after 1945. The influence Yasuoka acquired through his link with the New Life Movement reminds us again of how Confucianism continued to be seen as useful by leading conservative politicians and employers’ associations in the postwar era. In parallel with the ties that Yasuoka had forged with Taiwan and Korea, we can note his particular interest in the spiritual mobilization movements that were being organized there Chapter 12: Yasuoka Masahiro and the Survival of Confucianism in Postwar Japan, 1945–1983

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at the same time as in Japan. We saw that Yasuoka openly supported such a movement in Taiwan. Master and Disciple magazine also approved the Movement for the Restoration of Chinese Culture (中華文化復興運動 Zhonghua munhua puxing undong) launched in reaction to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which was intended, among other things, to combat the consumption of alcohol and dancing.61 The magazine also praised the “moral revolution” launched by the Park Chunghee government in South Korea, which was aimed at cracking down on smoking among young people, ensuring that old people and children were given their rightful places on public transport, and promoting public morality.62 Yasuoka’s colleagues in the New Life Movement Association included on its board Gotō Fumio, Dogi Akira and Machida Tatsujirō—that is to say the so-called “new bureaucrats” of the 1930s. They were promoted to advisors in the 1960s, when Dogi became vice-president.63 They did not hold honorary positions: Gotō and Machida were the architects of the redesign of the association’s program, led by a special committee in the early 1960s. The objective of this redefinition of the activity of the New Life Movement Association was to adapt to the high economic growth and its effects on Japanese society: to fight against dehumanization threatening the individual, and against moral and psychological decadence. Even when economic prosperity was great, the spirit was threatened, they believed.64 The Association (Shiyū Kyōkai) worked closely with the New Life Movement. The first reason for this close collaboration is that one of the main leaders of the New Life Movement Association (and chief secretary of the Ikeda cabinet), Hosotani Yoshikazu, was himself a member of the Association. The lectures that Yasuoka and his companions usually gave in the country were part of the activities of the New Life Movement. Starting in January 1959, Yasuoka and Hosotani also organized a radio program broadcast every Sunday at 5 a.m. called “The Dawn Awakening” (暁の鐘 Akatsuki no kane). Yasuoka usually took over on the first Sunday of the month. In July of the same year, Yasuoka organized with the New Life Movement Association some youth training meetings (青年研修会 Seinen kenshūkai), which continued to be held until 1975. They consisted of him giving a series of lectures over three days in July to a group of about 100 young people as a means of moral and political training. Yasuoka gave a lesson on “Oriental philosophy” (東洋哲学 Tōyō tetsugaku), and he was usually accompanied by a university professor, a university president, a journalist, a high-ranking civil servant or a leader of the New Life Movement Association.65

Conclusion The success of Yasuoka as Confucian intellectual in postwar Japan was, in part, the success of a personal strategy of self-promotion, and more exactly of a strategy for surviving and adapting to the radical political changes following the fall of the imperial regime. Ultimately, however, his success owed less to his personal efforts than to the will of business leaders and political conservatives to maintain an ideological role for Confucianism as a bulwark against communism and against rapid social change in Japan in the postwar era, which they perceived as being unduly influenced by Americanized democratization and moral decadence. From this point of view, the role of Confucianism in postwar Japan was not so different from its role in the prewar era: Confucianism was above all a tool for political elites to forge national identity. Even so, the place of Confucianism in Japanese society nowadays is less and less apparent. The postwar prime ministers from bureaucratic backgrounds such as Ikeda

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Hayato and Satō Eisaku could feel the same attraction to Yasuoka as did the 1930 New Bureaucrats. But after 1970 the new generation of LDP leaders had a very different profile and Confucianism seems to have lost prestige as a referent in conservative discourse.66 In any case, no one came to replace Yasuoka as the representative scholar of Japanese Confucianism after his death in 1983.67 The modernized, Confucian-inspired ideology of the paternalistic family imposed on Japanese society after 1890 belongs more and more to the past. Yasuoka’s books are still the main representative texts of contemporary Confucianism in Japanese libraries, but we must wonder how much longer their shelf life will be.

Notes 1

For a synthesis of the question see Eddy Dufourmont, “Wang Yangming au Japon, l’invention d’une école confucéenne (XVII–XXe siècles)” [Wang Yangming in Japan, the invention of a Confucian school (17th–20th centuries)], in Grandes Heures de la Pensée Chinoise. De la Dynastie Song au XXe Siècle [Great times of Chinese thought: From the Song dynasty to the 20th century], ed. Jean-Claude Pastor (Paris: Les Indes Savantes, 2019), 267–92. 2 See Eddy Dufourmont, Confucianisme et Conservatisme au Japon: La Trajectoire Intellectuelle de Yasuoka Masahiro (1898–1983) [Confucianism and conservatism in Japan: the intellectual trajectory of Yasuoka Masahiro (1898–1983)] (Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2014), 148–51. 3 See Sven Saaler and Christopher W.A. Szpilman, eds., Pan-Asianism, A Documentary History: Volume 2, 1920–Present, (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011). 4 As for the “philosophy” of Yasuoka see Eddy Dufourmont, “Yasuoka Masahiro to tennō kikansetsu jiken: 1932 nen–1935 nen no seijishi wo saikō suru tame ni” [安岡正篤と天皇機関説事件・1932年–1935年の政治史を再考 するために Yasuoka Masahiro and the incident of the theory of the emperor as organ of the state: rethinking the political history of 1932–1935] Kokusai kankeiron kenkyū [国際関係論研究 International relations research] 24 (September 2005): 81–110. See also Roger Brown, “Visions of a Virtuous Manifest Destiny: Yasuoka Masahiro and Japan’s Kingly Way,” in Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History, eds. Sven Saaler and J. Victor Koschmann (London: Routledge, 2007), 133–50. 5 Among them, we should mention the admiral Yashiro Rokurō, who retired from the Navy at the end of the 1910s and was in 1923 president of the Greater Japan Martial Virtue Society (大日本武徳会 Dai nippon butoku kai). Yashiro was certainly interested in the discourse of Yasuoka on bushidō and he sponsored other nationalists in social activities such as Hasunuma Monzō and Obi Katsutoshi. It is thanks to Yashiro that Yasuoka gave classes at the Navy School, where he met young officers such as Yamamoto Isoroku and developed his links with the Navy (more than the Army). See Karita Tōru, “Taishōki Yūzonsha kei kokkashugi undō ni kan­ suru ichi kōsatsu” [大正期猶存社系国家主義運動に関する一考察 One inquiry on the statist movement Yūzonsha in the Taishō era] Takushoku Daigaku ronshū [拓殖大学論集 Review of Takushoku University] 170 (December 1987): 1–32. 6 Among the New Bureaucrats Matsumoto Gaku played an important role on this topic. See the translation and presentation by Roger Brown and Christopher W. A. Szpilman, “Matsumoto Gaku and the Japan Culture League, 1933,” in Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, Vol. 2, eds. Sven Saaler and Christopher W.A. Szpilman (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 129–36. 7 This work was republished in 1957 and in 2003 by Yasuoka’s son, Yasuoka Masayasu, who introduced the book as a tool for the “study of man” (人間学 ningengaku), like all the other works of his father. 8 The Home Ministry Police Affairs Bureau, Shōwa jūsannen ni okeru shakai undō no jōkyō [ 昭和十三年 中に於ける社会運動の状況 The situation of social movements in year 13 of Shōwa] (Tokyo: Home Ministry Police Affairs Bureau, 1940), 437. See also Yasuoka Masahiro, Isei sanbusho [為政三部書 Book in three parts on government] (Tokyo: Genkōsha, 1938). 9 Yasuoka met very different people during his trip, including the Nazi leader Rudolf Hess in Germany and the liberal journalist Walter Lippmann in the United States. From this trip Yasuoka published in 1942 a book entitled Sekai no tabi [世界の旅 The trip around the world] (Tokyo: Daiichi Shobō, 1942), republished in 1943 and 1994.

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10 Roger Brown, “Desiring to Inaugurate Great Peace: Yasuoka Masahiro, Kokutai Preservation and Japan’s Imperial Rescript of Surrender,” Saitama Daigaku kiyō [埼玉大学紀要 Saitama University review] 50, no. 2 (2015): 218. 11 Yasuoka’s closeness to his father-in-law and patron Makino Nobuaki certainly helped him to become closer to this human network. 12 See Amamiya Shōichi, “Senkyūhyaku yonjū nendai no shakai to seiji taisei: han Tōjō rengō wo chūshin toshite [一九四〇年代の社会と政治体制・反東条連合を中心として The society of the 1940s and the political system: around the anti-Tōjō group] in Meiji kenpō taisei, tenbō Nihon rekishi 19 [明治憲法体制展望日本歴史19 The system of the Meiji Constitution, panorama on Japanese history, Vol. 19], eds. Yasuda Hiroshi and Minagawa Masaki (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 2002), 368–79. 13 The nomination of Count Sakai Tamada as vice-president of the Upper House in October 1944 is certainly linked with the promotion of Yasuoka (and vice-versa). Further studies should focus on Sakai’s case as many other sponsors of Yasuoka. 14 See Sakai Keisuke, “Yasuoka Masahiro shi ga kataru shūsen chōsho hiwa” [ 安岡正篤氏が語る終戦詔書秘話 The secret history of the Rescript of Capitulation as told by Yasuoka Masahiro], Sande Mainichi [サンデー 毎 Sunday Mainichi] 27 December 1981, 167–69; and, Chaen Yoshio, Misshitsu no shūsen shōchoku [密室の終 戦詔勅 The imperial edict ending the war behind closed doors] (Tokyo: Omatsudo Shuppan, 1989), 70–80. The original manuscript with the corrections by Yasuoka can be found at the national library for official documents (国立公文書館 Kokuritsu kōbunshokan). 15 Yasuoka Masahiro, “Seinen dōshi ni tsugu” [ 青年同士に告ぐ Declaration to our young fellows], Kinkei kaihō [金鶏会報] 30 (June 1932): 1. 16 As for some examples, the book on Daoism Rōsō no shisō [ 老荘の思想 The thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi (1946, 1979)] is a repetition of 1921 Shina shisō to jinbutsu kōwa [支那思想と人物講話 Conferences on Chinese thought and its figures]; the 1955 essay Sokoku to seinen [祖国と青年 Our ancestral country and her youth] and the cycle on Kyōgaku [郷学 Hometown studies (1959, 1967)] published in Ningengaku no susume [人間 学の薦め Invitation to the study of man] (Tokyo: Fukumura Shuppan, 1987) are a repetition of 1930s texts on agrarianism; Masurao no michi [ますらをの道 The way of man] (Tokyo: D.C.S., 2003) was partly written with material from 1924 Nihon seishin no kenkyū [日本精神の研究 Research on Japanese spirit] and other articles from the 1920s; and the essay Kono kuni wo omou: Nihon no unmei [この国を思う・日本の運命 Thinking on my country: the destiny of Japan] (Tokyo: Meitoku Shuppan, 1954) is a repetition of a 1945 essay (which also is a repetition of 1920–1930 writings). 17 Qian Mu and Song Xi from the University of Chinese Culture ( 中国文化大学 Zhongguo wenhua daxue), Tang Junyi, from the New Asia College (新亜書院大学 Xinya xueyuan daxue) of Hong Kong; and Chen Longjie and Qin Jiayi (Julia) from Columbia University. 18 See Eddy Dufourmont, “Yasuoka Masahiro: a Conservative Vision of the Postwar,” in Japan’s Post War, eds. Michael Lucken, Anne Bayard-Sakai and Emmanuel Lozerand (London: Routledge, 2011), 98–111. 19 See Eddy Dufourmont, “Satō Eisaku, Yasuoka Masahiro and the Re-Establishment of February 11th as National Day: the Political Use of National Memory in Postwar Japan,” in The Power of Memory in Japan, eds. Sven Saaler and Wolfgang Schwentker (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 204–21. 20 Arahara Bokusui, Dai uyokushi [ 大右翼史 History of the right-wing] (Tokyo: Dai Nihon Isseikai, 1974), 796. 21 Kimura Atsutarō, Sotsuo hyakuwa [ 卒翁百話 Hundred stories of an old man] (Nagoya: Shimazu shobō, 1989), 56. 22 Arahara Bokusui, Dai uyokushi, 810. 23 Arima Masanori, “Shōwa no genryū, Yasuoka Masahiro” [ 昭和の源流・安岡正篤 The origin of Shōwa, Yasuoka Masahiro] Hito to Nihon [人と日本] 5, no. 2 (February 1972): 235. 24 Yasuoka Masahiro, “Program” [ 綱領 Kōryō], Shin nichikyō [新日協], (February 1959): 1. 25 See Dufourmont, Confucianisme et Conservatisme au Japon, and “Satō Eisaku, Yasuoka Masahiro and the Re-Establishment of February 11th as National Day.” 26 “Shin kaichō, Yakunin” [ 新会長、役人 New chairman of the Association, new board], Shi to tomo [師と友 Master and disciple] 106 (August 1958): 43. 27 Arahara Bokusui, Dai uyokushi, 796. 28 “Wakayama ken shiyū kyōkai hakkai” [ 和歌山県師友協会発会 First meeting of the Wakayama Prefecture Association for the Master and the Disciple] Shi to tomo [師と友 Master and disciple] 102 (April 1958): 53.

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“Yasuoka kaichō Kyūshū junkō” [安岡会長九州巡講 Chairman Yasuoka’s Kyushu tour], Shi to tomo [師と友 Master and disciple] 125 ( February 1960): 44. 30 “Shiyū dōjin dayori” [ 師友同人便り News from our fellows of the Association], Shi to tomo [師と友 Master and disciple] 91 (May 1957): 52. 31 Imai Ryūta, “Kokumin seishin bunka kenkyūjo ni okeru kiki no gakumon teki yōsei to ōtō no kokoromi” [国民精神文化研究所に於ける危機の学問的要請と応答の試み An academic appeal and attempted response to the crisis in the center for research on culture and national spirit], Soshio saiensu [ソシオサイエンス Social science] 7 (March 2001): 165–84. At this time, Yasuoka, Takada or also Koizumi Shinzō (educator of Heisei emperor) belonged to the authors recommended by the Ministry of Education for their good books against the “thought problem.” See Ministry of Education, Shisō mondai ni kansuru ryōsho senshō [思想問題に関する良書 選奨 Recommended good books in relation to the thought problem], (Tokyo: Ministry of Education Student Department, 1933). 32 “Kyōkai no ayumi” [ 協会の歩み Progress of the Association], Kansai shiyū [関西師友 Kansai master and disciple] 4 (December 1958): 24. 33 “Kakubu no ugoki” [ 各部の動き Activities of our branches], Kansai shiyū [関西師友 Kansai master and disciple], 1 (October 1958): 16; “Kyōkai no ayumi” [協会の歩み Progress of the Association], Kansai shiyū [関 西師友 Kansai master and disciple] 6 (April 1959): 22; and “Kyōkai no ayumi” [協会の歩み Progress of the Association], Kansai shiyū [関西師友 Kansai master and disciple] 7 (May 1959): 14. 34 The same people who sponsored the creation in 1918 of the Confucian society Shibunkai ( 斯文会), Shibusawa Eiichi and Takenomi Takejirō, also supported, the same year, the creation of the Association for Cooperation (Kyōchōkai). Their goal was to create a social policy for the Japanese State and to react against the wave of labour conflicts and the growing influence of Marxism by emphasizing industrial harmony. 35 For some examples, see Marc Dollinger, “Confucian Ethics and Japanese Management Practices,” Journal of Business Ethics 7, no. 8 (1988): 575–84; Tu Weiming, “The Rise of Industrial East Asia: The Role of Confucian Values,” Copenhagen Papers in East and Southeast Asian Studies 4, (1989): 81–97; George K. Ornatowski, “Confucian ethics and economic development: A study of the adaptation of Confucian values to Modern Japanese economic ideology and institutions,” The Journal of Socio-Economics 25, no. 5 (1996): 571–90. As for a synthesis of Japanese works see Taniguchi Noriko, Nihon no keizai shakai shisutemu to jugaku: kisō shinri kara no hikaku to saikō [日本の経済社会システムと儒学 : 基層心理からの比較と再考 Japan’s economic and political system and Confucianism: a comparison and reconsideration from its underlying psychology] (Tokyo: Jichōsha, 2012). This kind of “Confucian cultural” explanation, originally applied to Japan, acquired new appeal with the rise of the Korean and Chinese economies in the 1980s and 1990s. 36 For example, Yasuoka gave a talk in front of the new employees of Mitsubishi Kasei. Yasuoka Masahiro, “Jidai wo tsukuru hitobito” [次代を作る人々 The people who create the next generation], Shiyū [師友 Master and disciple] 14 (December 1950): 2–20. Later on, Suzuki Atsushi, from Mitsubishi, sponsored the compilation of an essays collection titled Kyōshō. 37 Committee for the Compilation of the Collection in Honor of Okahashi Shigeru, Okahashi Shigeru shi tsuikai roku [岡橋林氏追懐録 Collection in honor of Okahashi Shigeru] (Osaka: Okahashi Shigeru shi tsuikai roku hensan iinkai, 1964), 467. 38 Hirose Gen, Watashi no rirekisho (jūnana) [ 私の履歴書 (17) My curriculum vitae (17)] (Tokyo: Keizai Shinbunsha, 1981), 373, 378. 39 Odawara Taizō, Watashi no rirekisho (jūroku) [ 私の履歴書 (16) My curriculum vitae (16)] (Tokyo: Keizai Shinbunsha, 1962), 97–100. 40 Okumura Tsunao, Waga hanshōgai [ わが半生涯 The half of my life], (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 1971), 158, 174. 41 Okumura, Waga hanshōgai, 18. 42 Okumura, Waga hanshōgai, 18, 34–36, 97, 182. 43 Okumura, Waga hanshōgai, 43, 103–4. 44 Itō Yasuhiko and Fukui Junichi, Itō Yasujirō tsuisōroku [ 伊藤保次郎追想録 Collection in memory of Itō Yasujirō] (Tokyo: Fujiki Shuppansha, 1973), 122, 260. This school was an antenna of the Japan Farmers School (日本農士学校 Nihon nōhi gakkō), which changed its name and survived as a private school. 45 Itō, Itō Yasujirō tsuisōroku, 488. 46 Itō, Itō Yasujirō tsuisōroku, 193. 29

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Editorial Committee in Honor of Ishida Kamesaburō, Ishida Kamesaburō [石田亀三郎 Ishida Kame­saburō] (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1978), 6, 128. 48 The list of known members is as follows: Arai Masaaki (CEO of Sumitomo Insurance) Akaji Toshio (consultant at Miwa Bank) Akai Kōji (consultant at Sumitomo Bank) Furukawa Susumu (consultant at Yamato Bank) Hino Shōji (Vice-president of Matsushita Electrical Goods) Hiro Keitarō (Kubota) Inamori Kazuo (CEO of Miyako Sera) Inui Noboru (consultant at Sumitomo Steel) Iwasawa Masaji (consultant at Mazda) Iyoda Satoru (former student of Yasuoka at Golden Pheasant Academy) Kamei Masao (consultant at Sumitomo Electronics). Kanamori Shigeichirō (CEO of Kintetsu Railways) Kawakami Tetsurō (CEO of Sumitomo Electronics) Kawano Sadao (CEO of Mūnbatto) Kobayashi Shōichirō (CEO of Kansai Electronics). Mizoguchi Yoshio (Vice-president of Itō Trading Company) Nishiyama Iwao (executive of Ōsaka Gas Company) Okamoto Michio (former President of the University of Kyōto) Ōnishi Masafumi (CEO of Ōsaka Gas Company) Takaneka Ren’ichi (CEO of Takenaka Building Company) Toyota Ryōhei (Vice-president of Kosumo Finance) Ueyama Yasuhiko (CEO of Sumitomo Life Insurance). Uno Osamu (CEO of Tōyō Spinning) 49 Kamiwatari Ryōhei, Yasuoka Masahiro no sekai—senken no kaze wo shitau [ 安岡正篤の世界―先賢の風を慕う The world of Yasuoka Masahiro—following the wind of the ancient wisdom] (Tokyo: Dōbunkan, 1991), 287. 50 Committee for the Records of Master Yasuoka Masahiro, Yasuoka Masahiro sensei ryūhōrokui [ 安岡正篤先 生流芳録 Records of Master Yasuoka Masahiro] (Osaka: Zenkoku shiyū kyōkai zanmu iinkai, 1984) 2: 212. 51 Miyamoto Atsuo, Yasuoka to Itō Hajime, shi to deshi [ 安岡正篤と伊藤肇、師と弟子 Yasuoka Masahiro and Itō Hajime, master and disciple] (Tokyo: Chichi Shuppansha, 1998), 113. 52 Itō Hajime, Gendai no teiōgaku [ 現代の帝王学 The modern study of royalty] (Tokyo: Purejidentosha, 1979), 3, 90 . 53 Miyamoto, Yasuoka to Itō Hajime, shi to deshi, 228. 54 Committee for the Publication of Yamagiwa Masamichi’s Biography, Yamagiwa Masamichi [ 山際正道] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Jigyō Shuppan, 1979), 457. 55 Committee, Yamagiwa Masamichi, 458. 56 The New Life Movement Association, ed., Shin seikatsu undō kyōkai nijūgo nen no ayumi [ 新生活運動協会 25年の歩み Twenty-five years of the Association for a New Life] (Tokyo: Shin Seikatsu Undō Kyōkai, 1983), 171–82. 57 The New Life Movement, Shin seikatsu undō kyōkai nijūgo nen no ayumi, 1. 58 Yasuoka Masahiro, “Seiji to wa nanika” [ 政治とは何か What is politics?], Shi to tomo [師と友 Master and disciple] 42 (April 1953): 3. 59 Yasuoka Masahiro, “Mazu kokoro no irekae” [ まず心の入れ換え First, change the hearts], Shin seikatsu tsūshin [新生活通信 New Life news] (January 1960): 1. 60 Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Minds: the State in Everyday Life (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1997). 61 “Sekai no me” [ 世界の眼 Eyes of the world], Shi to tomo [師と友 Master and disciple] 224 (June 1968): 24. 62 “Sekai no me,” 12. 63 “Sekai no me,” 171–82. 64 “Shin seikatsu undō no kongo no hōkō ni kansuru tōshin” [ 新生活運動の今後の方向に関する答申 Questions and answers concerning the future of the New Life Movement], in Shin seikatsu undō kyōkai nijūgo nen no ayumi, 236–40. 47

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“Kyōkai dōjin dayori” [協会同人便り News of our fellows from the Association], Shi to tomo [師と友 Master and disciple] 119 (September 1959): 48–51. 66 See Dufourmont, Confucianisme et Conservatisme au Japon, 280–95. 67 Some scholars like Okada Takehiko tried to maintain interest in Confucianism, mainly from a scholarly perspective (but with a conservative slant). See Eddy Dufourmont, “The Great Learning in Modern Japan (1868–present): an Ideological Weapon for Conservatism,” in Uses and Abuses of the Great Learning, eds. Anne Cheng and Guillaume Dutournier (Paris: Collège de France, 2015), 447–65. 65

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Chapter 13 Universalizing “Kingly Way” Confucianism: A Japanese Legacy and Chinese Future? Jiang Dongxian and Shaun O’Dwyer

Introduction In April 1935, a now forgotten international conference took place which turned out to be the high-water mark of Japanese Confucianism’s national influence. It was organized by the Shibunkai (斯文会), the national organization dedicated to the study of Chinese Learning and Confucianism. The Conference on the Confucian Way in Honor of the Restoration of the Yushima Sage Hall (湯島聖堂復興記念儒道大会 Yushima Seido fukkō kinen judō taikai) was held following the reconstruction of the Confucian Yushima Sage Hall in Tokyo, which had been damaged in the 1923 Kanto Earthquake and rebuilt with funds raised by the Shibunkai. Its organizing committee comprised a glittering cross-section of Japan’s political and scholarly world. It included Prince Tokugawa Iesato, head of the Tokugawa clan, former President of the House of Peers, chairman of the Shibunkai and a noted internationalist; Hattori Unokichi, distinguished Sinologist, philosopher, director of the Japan-China Educational Association, and the moving force behind the formal establishment of the Shibunkai as a corporate organization in 1918; Prince Tokugawa Kuniyuki, historian, scion of the Mito branch of the Tokugawa clan, President of the House of Peers and future chairman of the Shibunkai; and Baron Sakatani Yoshiro, a former Meiji-era finance minister and House of Peers member, and former vice-chairman of the Shibunkai. The conference gathered together over sixty scholars from Japan, China, Germany, colonial Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria. Attendees and speakers at its preliminary ceremonies also included Minister of the Imperial Household Yuasa Kurahei, Education Minister Matsuda Genji and Puyi, Emperor of the Japanese puppet-state “Empire of Manchuria” and former emperor of the Qing Dynasty. The presence of representatives of the ancient Kong (孔) and Yan (顏) Confucian lineages at the conference itself also lent tremendous legitimacy to the image of Pan-Asian spiritual and cultural unity its organizers hoped to cultivate.

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The organizers’ hopes were clearly expressed in the prefatory “record” for the conference’s proceedings: “We believe this conference will not only play a part in the promotion of Confucianism; it will also fortify the solidarity of East Asian peoples (民族 minzoku) and, furthermore, contribute to world civilization and serve the cause of world peace.” Yet even as the organizers wrote of the importance of “shared culture” in advancing harmony between peoples, it was clear that Japan was to be the leader of East Asian peoples in this endeavor, for “our nation has recently made great cultural advances coupled with the development of its national strength, making it one of the world’s top three nations and earning for itself the title of the Orient’s leading power.” 1 In the ceremonial pageantry of this conference, and in the Pan-Asian solidarity and cosmopolitan ideals of its leading lights, we can discern a national self-confidence that eschewed both a slavish imitation of the European models many deemed essential for Japan’s “catchup development,” and a “resentful isolation” sought in illusory, nativistic reaction against modernization. And Confucianism, in the form it had taken intermixed with Japan’s unique national polity or kokutai (国体), was a key constituent in the “great cultural advances” that were “coupled with the development of its national strength.” Yet we know that these claims to Pan-Asian solidarity, and the lofty ambitions to contribute to global civilization and peace were hemmed in by growing imperialist ambitions in Japan’s leadership, and by febrile ideological currents that were already locking national polity ideals into ultra-nationalism and militarism. And we should not forget one latter-day evaluation of the conference’s aims: that it was intended to help secure international recognition for Japanese control over Manchuria, which had been proclaimed an “empire” almost a year earlier.2 In this chapter we inquire into the “exemplary nationalism” expressed by attendees at this conference, and also by leading scholars of Confucianism in today’s rising great power of China, at a time when its national self-confidence and aspirations for global influence are growing. This is a nationalism which arises out of a desire for redemption from a humiliating confrontation with a militarily and technologically superior external power. Yet it also appears to steer a third way between the extremes of slavish “catch-up developmentalism” with that power and “resentful isolation” against it. Such a nationalism proceeds from assumptions that catch-up development has either been achieved or is achievable, and also that indigenous, national values (like Confucianism) are superior to those of foreign nations. Aware of what appears to be evidence of moral and civilizational stagnation in foreign powers whose superiority had once been so threatening, its advocates assert what they deem to be the nation’s particularistic spiritual and moral values as also, at the same time, universal values. Those values are worthy of global emulation and therefore of active dissemination by the now regnant nation where they originated, for their role in attaining universal goods such as moral rejuvenation and world peace. A strong state is usually required to uphold national spirit domestically and promote cultural values internationally. However, what distinguishes exemplary nationalism from genuine universalism is that advocates of the former pay more attention to the justification of the superiority of their own nation in a hierarchy of civilizations. Exemplary nationalism in latecomer nations, therefore, is the reverse side of orientalism in certain Western European countries. We will investigate some of the common characteristics in this exemplary nationalism as a variety of “modular nationalism;” capable, as Benedict Anderson put it, “of being transplanted” to very different social and cultural terrains3—and modified to fit with local conditions and needs. As we conceive it, it was first articulated by the early 19th-century German Chapter 13: Universalizing “Kingly Way” Confucianism

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thinker Johann Gottlieb Fichte, then elaborated by “Kingly Way” (王道 ōdō) Japanese Confucian scholars of the 1930s, and, most recently, by leading Chinese Confucian scholars today, in a new era of aggressive nationalism, authoritarian resurgence and seeming Western decline. We examine the profound, potentially disabling tensions between its particularistic assertions of national uniqueness and its universalizing mission, and the risks of the universalizing impulse leaving the door open to the co-optation of such values for militarism and expansionism. In the last section of this chapter, we outline a “conscientious Confucianism” committed to the intercultural dissemination of Confucian virtues, but, 1) uncoupled from and critical of projects for state-centric national redemption and global self-assertion, and, 2) determined to stake out for itself a protected domain for moral cultivation and criticism in civil society life, beyond the statist preoccupations of those modern scholars trying to repurpose traditional Confucian theorizations of statecraft in the service of the modern nation.

Particularism and universalism in exemplary nationalisms Our investigation into the common characteristics of exemplary nationalism begins with a brief consideration of those characteristics in Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s 1808 book Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation). Based on lectures Fichte gave in Berlin in 1807–1808, this book testifies to a sense of national threat, humiliation and ambition for national redemption with which early Japanese and especially Chinese nationalists would ultimately sympathize a century later. Prussia’s crushing military defeats and occupation by Napoleon’s armies in 1806, and the painful fact of other German states’ alliances with Napoleon were the immediate motivation for Fichte’s message of redemptive nationalism for the German people. This redemptive ideal was revealed in his seemingly paradoxical proclamation, at a time when the Germans appeared bereft of any shared national consciousness, that the original, unbowed “German man…alone is capable of real and rational love for his nation.”4 Among the national characteristics unique to the German people Fichte claimed a divine originality and freedom of will, transcending mere choice acted out within, and conditioned by, the realm of appearances. In doing so he transposed Kant’s conception of freedom in practical reason to the particularistic cognitive life of the German people. It is this true freedom, along with conviction in “endless improvement, in the eternal progress of our race” which Fichte inferred as a collective property of the German people in their greatest historical epochs.5 The roots for this freedom lie in the German language itself, vital and continuous with the original speech of the ancient Germanic tribes and underivative of any dead language, unlike the Romance-based languages of other European nations. Yet for the reinvigoration of these particularistic national traits Fichte proposed a program of state-directed mass education that was “universal and cosmopolitan,” which partook of the same universal spirit of the ancient Greek “art of the state,” founding “citizenship on education.” 6 Moreover, this program of national redemption from the humiliated, fallen state of the present was no retreat into “resentful isolation,” even as Fichte repeated his longstanding statist arguments for a self-sufficient command economy. It would also be exemplary; it would have universal benefits for the rest of Europe and the world. The full realization of freedom for the human race, “the freedom to make itself what it is originally” would be birthed first of all in the German system of mass civic education. “(T)he Germans…are called upon to begin the new era as pioneers and models for the rest of mankind,” and they

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alone would be the nation who could lead other nations to the full realization of “human perfection.” 7 A reunified Germany would also, like the unified Germany of old, be the source of peace and prosperity for Europe.8 Of course, we now know how the particularistic dimensions of Fichte’s exemplary nationalism, and his statism, would be co-opted for later campaigns of national unification and militaristic expansionism. More profoundly, as some Fichte scholars argue, Fichte’s particularistic conception of Germanness, based on attributions of linguistically and historically contingent, unique national traits, seemed also to make Germany unfit for the universalist, exemplary mission he had in mind.9 The original, underivative language the Germans supposedly speak, and which for Fichte was the wellspring of their divine freedom, was unlike the derivative languages Fichte attributed to other European peoples. The “universal and cosmopolitan” civic education in freedom Fichte envisaged for the German people was something, he admitted, that could not easily be exported to other nations, whose historic and linguistic development had been so different from the Germans. It would, in fact, be very difficult to translate this educational program for use in any nation outside Germany so that it is not experienced “as an alien, transplanted thing,” but rather as “a native product, arising from the very life of its language.” 10 Even love of nation, and the national “organic unity in which no member regards the fate of another as the fate of a stranger” is something that only Germans are capable of in “real and rational” form.11 This is exactly the underlying, dissonant tone in exemplary nationalism. Fichte wanted to celebrate the superiority of German culture in the hierarchy of national values, and to affirm the superior ability of the German people to be the global standard-bearers for those values. Yet this underlying message could not help but interfere with the universalizing mission that exemplary nationalism claims for itself; and that, we argue, is the characteristic predicament of this modular nationalism in its Japanese and Chinese forms.

Exemplifying Japan’s Confucian Imperial Way: the Confucian Way Conference of 1935 The scholars and officials who gathered for the Conference on the Confucian Way at Tokyo’s Yushima Sage Hall in April, 1935 would have identified to some degree with the redemptive dimension of Fichte’s nationalism.12 Of course, in many respects Japan was already “redeemed.” In 1807 Fichte presented his lectures in the capital city of a defeated, occupied state, and the unified Germany for which he spoke existed only in his imagination. Japan in 1935 was a successfully modernized nation state, seemingly recovered from the shocking arrival of Commodore Perry’s Black Ships in 1853 and the subsequent “unequal treaties” with technologically and militarily superior western powers. It is true, however, that there was an enduring sense of humiliation in Japan’s political and intellectual classes over the lack of recognition of its territorial claims and status among the First World War’s victor nations at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Resentments against a seemingly western-dominated international order deepened with the League of Nations’ refusal in 1933 to recognize Japan’s annexation of Manchuria. Yet leading Japanese intellectuals looking out on to the world in 1935 could easily convince themselves that the Western democracies’ spiritual vitality was weakened by the devastation of the First World War, and their morality sapped by materialism and individualism. As fascism, Nazism and communism were rising in Europe and Japan’s geopolitical influence

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expanded in the East, they saw an opportunity for Japan to contest an unfair, westerndominated order and exercise a universal moral leadership in Asia and in the world. Their exemplary nationalism tapped into a deep “political-cultural solipsism” 13 inherited from Edo-period Confucianism that envisaged Japan rather than China as the authentic center of the Confucian Way. In a 20th-century era of global nation state competition, they urged the universal adoption of the Confucian Kingly Way, the way of non-coercive, morally upright governance, which they believed had been brought to perfection within Japan’s unique national polity. Japan’s version of the Kingly Way, the Imperial Way, would exemplify renewed moral cultivation, virtuous governance and peace to the world. Armed with the benefit of hindsight, we should not rush to judge the participants in this Confucian conference, Japanese and foreign alike, as mere scholarly pawns for Japanese ultranationalism and fascism. Early in 1935 the legal scholar and House of Peers member Minobe Tatsukichi had suffered ferocious censure for advocating a constitutional interpretation of the emperor as “organ of the state” which deviated from a nativist, ultranationalist conception of the national polity.14 Scholars at this conference also courted the ire of xenophobic nativists in their high valuation of Confucianism as a common spiritual and moral heritage of East Asia, including Japan. In his opening speech to the conference, “The Way of Human Beings” Hattori Unokichi insisted on the full debt that Japan’s spirit and national polity owed to Confucianism: “The teachings of Confucius (孔子の教 Kōshi no kyō), introduced to our nation 1,600 years ago, which purified our national polity, cultivated the foundations of our national spirit and contributed to the development of our national culture; they truly are a magnificent thing.” 15 The German Buddhist scholar Bruno Petzold also spoke for the conference’s higher, universalistic ideals. Pondering the thesis “Europe needs Confucianism!” amidst evidence of rising anti-humanist ideologies in Europe, Petzold called for an enlarged, universal humanism and “new world civilization” drawing on Eastern and Western traditions, which Confucianism “can help the world to get.” 16 All the same, we must ask ourselves whether the Japanese scholars at this conference— and the Shibunkai—set themselves up for a similar predicament to the one Fichte confronted: between affirmation of a Volk-centric, moral and cultural particularism that solidifies, and indeed, constitutes an imagined national community, and affirmation of a national mission in the universal propagation of the values that a successfully cultivated national particularism makes manifest. Would the culturally and historically specific national foundation for their manifestation vitiate such a mission for their universal propagation? To answer these questions, we will consider how two presenters at the conference conceptualized that particularism in relation to the respective universalizing and regional missions they envisaged for Japan’s Confucian Kingly Way: Shionoya On and Inoue Tetsujirō.

Shionoya On and Inoue Tetsujirō on the Kingly Way and Japan’s world mission Shionoya On was a typically cosmopolitan intellectual for his time, but he was also the descendant of a distinguished family of Chinese studies scholars in the Edo period. He studied at Leipzig University prior to becoming a professor at the University of Tokyo. In 1918 he had published a pioneering study, Lectures on the History of Chinese Literature (支那文學槪論講話 Shina bungaku gairon kōwa) which was one of the first scholarly works to apply European

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literary criticism to the analysis of classical Chinese novels and drama.17 He was also, at this time, a core member of the Shibunkai.18 Shionoya’s presentation to the conference, “The Way of Confucius and World Peace,” aimed to justify his contention that “world peace can be maintained by none other than the Confucian Way;” and that, in the final analysis it was the Japanese people who would be the agents of this good: “There is nothing else for Japanese people to do but improve the world through Confucius’ teaching, and to promote world peace. This is our divine nation’s great task and its great mission (大使命 dai shimei).” 19 Yet how to proceed to the conclusion that it was Japan’s mission alone to propagate Confucian Learning and the Kingly Way globally and to promote world peace, using a learning of Chinese origin, in a manner that would persuade peoples with very different cultures and morals? Shionoya testified forthrightly to the ultimately Chinese philosophical basis of the Kingly Way, in ancient texts such as the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋 Chunqiu), in the way of the sage kings, in the Confucian and Mencian doctrine of “Holding the Mean” (執中 zhizhong), in the ancient Confucian classic the Great Learning (大学 Daxue) and in Zhu Xi’s 12th-century commentary on that text. As Shionoya paraphrased Zhu Xi, the Kingly Way is “The sequential order for advancing perfect knowledge of natural things, for sincerity and the rectifying of mind, for the ordering of one’s life, for the governing of the family and for the governing of the state, of all under heaven (天下 tenka).” 20 From his statements of the ancient Chinese precedents of these ideals of virtuous conduct and governance, Shionoya shifted to a highly particularized assertion of exemplary nationalism. As he put it, modern Japan’s Showa-era political order (昭和の御政治 Shōwa no goseiji) is an exemplar (模範 mohan) for the Kingly Way, that within it Confucian ideals are best realized, and that it is the duty of Japan’s imperial subjects to accept reverentially the imperial command to convey to the world that political order, as well as to promote world peace.21 Yet Japan’s particular variety of the Kingly Way as the Imperial Way needed to be specified further, Shionoya believed. The Imperial Way is embodied in the eternal, unbroken imperial line of Japan’s national polity and in this respect is “one notch higher” than even the Kingly Way of the Manchurian Empire.22 The assertion of this universalizing thesis required a delicate balancing act from Shionoya. He had to demonstrate that a Confucian-based concept of the Imperial Way was not mired in certain Chinese Confucian doctrines (or stereotypes of them) that nativist advocates of Japan’s national polity and Imperial Way vehemently rejected. These included the doctrine of righteous rebellion (革命 kakumei) originally put forward by Mencius which seemingly sanctioned the overthrow of tyrannical rulers by their ministers, and of the Mandate of Heaven (天命 tenmei). Both of these doctrines would threaten the eternal continuity of the Japanese imperial line. Shionoya also had to show that Kingly Way discourse had sufficient parallels in Western thought to ease its adoption in the West. Regarding the Chinese doctrines of righteous rebellion and the Mandate of Heaven, Shionoya reassured his audience that he believed they had no place in Japan’s national polity. Japan had naturally absorbed and assimilated “the best aspects of Chinese Learning, Indian Buddhism and Western Enlightenment” but had never become slavishly devoted to any of them.23 In saying this, Shionoya believed it safe enough to appropriate a nativist slogan used during the campaign against Minobe Tatsukichi in the preceding months: the notion that the entire Japanese nation “must clarify awareness of the national polity” (国体意識を明徴にしな ければならない Kokutai ishiki wo meichō ni shinakereba naranai). But they must also “foster Chapter 13: Universalizing “Kingly Way” Confucianism

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Japan’s national spirit” (日本精神 Nihon seishin) and “study Chinese Learning (漢学 Kangaku) more.” 24 Still, he conceded that the doctrines of righteous rebellion and of the Mandate of Heaven were natural developments within the specificity of China’s history. “From its establishment (成立 seiritsu) in the distant past China was developed through conflict (闘争 tōsō) between various ethnicities; and revolutions were repeated again and again. That is China’s national polity” and the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was developed in recognition of the fact that such revolutions and dynasty changes inevitably occur in China’s polity.25 As for parallels for the Kingly Way in Western thought, Shionoya recounted an enthusiastic, if speculative philological discussion he once had in Helsinki with the Finnish linguist and diplomat Gustaf Ramstedt. Ramstedt noted that the English word “King” derived from the Germanic König which itself came from the verb können, “to be able to do,” and this was the foundation for the verb kennen, to know; and that together these terms explained the meaning of the word regnieren, “to govern.” Through Ramstedt’s insight, Shionoya saw the potential for fusion in meaning between the Eastern, Japanese conception of “emperor” and the Western concept of “king.”26 Yet surveying the state of Europe in 1935, Shionoya found a dispiriting scene in which its nations were still very far from adopting the Kingly Way. Much like Bruno Petzold, he decried the rise of fascism, Nazism and communism. From a Confucian perspective, Mussolini’s Fascist, statist system in Italy “cannot be anything other than the Hegemonic Way” (霸道 hadō) and Italian threats against Abyssinia were an “outrage.” Shionoya bore witness to the boycotts and persecutions of Jews in Nazi Germany, while Nazi revanchism and rearmament ambitions were evidence of a policy of “retaliating against violence with violence” which violated Confucian principles of righteousness. Meanwhile the Soviet Union was practicing a communism that upended the Five Human Relationships (五倫 gorin) that are the social basis for the Kingly Way, so that even “faith between friends” had become impossible in its expansive system of surveillance and spying. From the point of view of Confucianism, fascism, Nazism and communism were utter “heresies” (異端 itan) and against world peace.27 The moral state of the Western democracies suggested they too were much in need for Japan’s Kingly Way. France was still haunted by the slaughter at Verdun, the flower of its manhood gone, shrinking fearfully before the rise of Nazi Germany. The United Kingdom’s government had until recently been controlled by a Labour Party intent on welfare and proworking-class policies ruinous to its economy, while suffragettes and feminists “running wild” were damaging the basis for moral life in the British family. Meanwhile, the United States represented for Shionoya “the impasse of materialistic civilization, and the lowest depth of individualism.” During a Prohibition-era visit to the country, Shionoya had seen evidence of worsening youth delinquency and crime. But he also saw a glimmer of hope in the Christian familialist morality and Ten-Commandment advocacy of the recently established Parent-Teacher Associations, just at a time when Japan’s own “teachings of loyalty and filial piety” were rising to prominence. So the boastful Americans “who possess a materialistic civilization in its full maturation, still in the end plaintively cry ‘honor thy father and mother’; and that is their submission to Eastern morality.” 28 Finally, in Shionoya’s international moral survey, the Chinese were very far from realizing the Kingly Way. And this raises the question of how much Japan’s Confucian Kingly Way, adapted to its unique national polity with its ancient unbroken imperial line, could also be universalized and recommended for adoption even by China, with its own distinct, historically conditioned national polity. There was no denying that China’s civilization was 190

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the cradle of Confucian Learning and the Kingly Way, and Shionoya must have known of the Confucian-inspired “New Life Movement” (新生活運動 xinshenghuo yundong) for national moral reform launched by Chiang Kai-shek in China the previous year. Yet it is clear that for Shionoya, and for many other Japanese Confucian scholars, China was in no state to share Japan’s mission to educate the rest of the world in the Kingly Way. It was to be a beneficiary of that mission. That was because the “Three Principles of the People” (三民主義 sanmin zhuyi), Sun Yat-sen’s founding principles for the Kuomintang Party and the Republic of China, had amounted to a nationally disastrous departure from the teachings of Confucius. For Shionoya and other Japanese Confucians, one of the strengths of Japan’s national polity was its ability to assimilate and “Japanize” the best aspects of foreign teachings and ideas, including Confucianism. Yet no concession was made to any corresponding Chinese ability to successfully assimilate and catalyze foreign ideas in its national polity. Shionoya accused the “Three Principles of the People, of Nationalism, Democracy and the People’s Welfare” of being a farrago of imported American republicanism (“not in any way the foundation of Chinese culture”), anti-Manchu chauvinism and an imported “Communist politics.” These principles would ruin China; China’s salvation lay only in the Kingly Way and in the teachings of the Five Classics.29 Shionoya was not alone in disparaging the Chinese Republic’s ability to practice the Kingly Way meaningfully without Japanese guidance. In his “Impressions on the Confucian Way Conference” given at the closing of the conference, the pre-eminent Japanese Confucian scholar Inoue Tetsujirō acknowledged more than Shionoya that the Chinese Republic had been making some efforts to promote Confucian morality. These efforts included a Confucian Festival in August 1934, and a Confucian-based “proclamation of National Salvation” by the city government of Nanjing, which had also honored the representatives of the Kong and Yan family lineages. Yet for Inoue it was also clear that adoption of the “Three Principles of the People” had had ruinous effects on China’s intellectual and moral life, and that “Confucian teaching has withered away.” So the spirit of Confucian teaching had passed to Japan.30 However, we have seen that for Shionoya, China’s national polity was an outgrowth of the historical struggles of its different ethnic groups and of its frequent revolutions and dynastic changes, which the doctrine of the “Mandate of Heaven” had developed to explain. A reasonable inference to take from Shionoya’s thesis is that the 1911 Chinese Revolution and the establishment of the Republican government were also in keeping with the natural development of China’s national polity, since the Manchu Dynasty had clearly forfeited the Mandate of Heaven. Moreover, it would also be a reasonable inference to argue that just like Japan, China’s national polity was now also synthesizing ancient traditions such as Confucianism with newly imported and assimilated foreign doctrines. If this was so, there was not much Japan could offer China from its own specific iteration of the Kingly Way as “The Imperial Way”—which had developed in such different historical circumstances to those of China—beyond broad inspiration as a model for the modernization of China’s society and political system. But for Shionoya and for Inoue, any concession to the particularistic claims of China’s national polity to re-found its Confucian Kingly Way in a manner its people deemed appropriate to their particular historical-political circumstances would impede the regional and universal mission they envisaged for Japan’s Kingly Way. Shionoya did not address the issue of how other nations who had not and could not replicate Japan’s unique moral-political order in their own National Polities could follow Japan’s example and institute the Kingly Chapter 13: Universalizing “Kingly Way” Confucianism

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Way (and maintain world peace). It is arguable that his national polity particularism ultimately vitiated the universalizing mission he envisaged for Japan’s Confucian teaching. But this is precisely the key feature of exemplary nationalism. The concern for justifying Japan’s superiority in the hierarchy of nations went so far as to depreciate the ability of other nations to improve their collective moral and political life at the expense of the universal mission that this nationalism claims for itself. In Inoue’s regional leadership ambitions for Japan’s Imperial Way, however, there was a way in which China could follow Japan. Per his judgement, Sun Yat-sen’s “Three Principles of the People” had erred gravely in its exhortation for the Chinese to “learn from the Japanese,” since (in Inoue’s opinion) Sun assumed that this merely involved following Japan in importing and adopting Western ideas. For as Inoue saw it, Japan had done much more than this; it had also secured the continuity of its imperial institutions and its Confucian teachings. In his other presentation to the Confucian Way Conference, “Confucius’ Character and Faith,” Inoue concluded that the way forward for China was that, like Manchuria, it should “imitate Japan’s Imperial Way as its policy.” One means by which he suggested that could be done was for China to appoint the descendants of Confucius (孔子の子孫 Kōshi no shison) in the Kong family as its hereditary rulers.31 How could such a revolutionary innovation in China’s national polity be persuasively recommended by Japan to a recalcitrant China? It seemed that the morally persuasive force of the Kingly Way exemplified by Japan could in the end incorporate the “persuasive” use of military force. Ultimately, the Shibunkai Confucians fell in with the ultranationalism and militarism that prevailed in the late 1930s. In October 1937, with war underway and the Japanese army poised to defeat Chinese nationalist forces in the Battle of Shanghai, Shionoya wrote of the need to raise Japanese understanding of Chinese history, classical learning and language through educational reforms. Yet he also recycled his previous complaints that the “Three Principles of the People” was composed out of alien American and Communist elements, and stated his proposed solution to the “China Incident” in this way: It was the Chinese Nationalist Party and communism that led the way to the disturbance of peace in East Asia and the ruination of China…to rescue China from the horrors of war, neighborly diplomatic relations must be restored, and to maintain peace, the savage Chinese army—which has been unable to grasp the Empire’s true intent—must be thoroughly punished and republicanism eradicated.32 Meanwhile, Inoue’s 1939 book Oriental Culture and the Future of China (東洋文化と支 Tōyō bunka to Shina no shōrai) persisted with arguments like those paraphrased above on the need for China to restore its national Confucian morality, by following Japan and Manchuria in adopting the Imperial Way. These arguments were now being restated two years into the Second Sino-Japanese War.33 For a national polity ideology within which the emperor and his unbroken ancestral line was the ultimate repository of infallible virtue, militarist policy carried out in his name could itself be moralized as an expression of the Imperial Way. 那の将来

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Confucianism in contemporary China: envisioning a Confucian polity Despite the disastrous political consequences of exemplary nationalism in Germany and Japan, a revival of Confucianism in contemporary China coincides with a heightened enthusiasm of statist nationalism since the 1990s. Encouraged by China’s rapid rise and irritated by the domination of Western political and cultural values, a number of intellectuals have been arguing that Confucianism should once again become the center of China’s political, moral and cultural life, and that a regime based on Confucian teachings is superior to so-called “universal values” exemplified by Western civilization. Similar to their Japanese predecessors before the Second Sino-Japanese War, these contemporary Confucians in Mainland China also pin their hope on the extant political structure to realize their visions—an authoritarian regime ruled by the Communist Party (CCP). Their calculation is by no means unreasonable: Desperately seeking for non-Marxist ideologies to boost its legitimacy, the CCP has also been incorporating “traditional Chinese values” into its official political discourse. The mission of redeeming Chinese civilization from the shadow of “the century of humiliation” (百年耻辱 bainian chiru) suffered at the hands of the Western powers and Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries has replaced the utopian ideal of universal Communism as the ideological basis for one-party regime in the post-Mao period.34 The interactions between Confucian intellectuals and the CCP party-state, therefore, merit special attention for the purpose of contemplating the future of Confucianism in East Asia, and its potential role in a state-centered promotion of Confucian values as “universal values” for the rest of the world. The brutal crackdown on the Tiananmen Square Protest in 1989 led to the sudden end of a short-lived liberal decade in post-Maoist China. Intellectuals in the 1990s started to rethink the desirability of liberal democratic values in the Chinese context, and the rapid economic growth since 1992 gradually gave more Chinese people, primarily the new middle class, a confidence that Chinese values and traditions should be revived alongside the rise of China as an economic and political power in the post-Cold War world. It is in this historical context that a new school of thought has emerged in Mainland China, and its adherents believe that its time has come as proof grows of a seeming economic decline and moral decadence in western democracies. Their central conviction is that the future of China lies not in the realization of liberalism or liberal democracy, nor in the revival of socialism or Communism, but in the comprehensive renaissance of Confucianism as a national way of life, which manifests itself on the political level as an exemplary Confucian polity in the 21st century. The thinker who crafted the first systematic theory of a Confucian polity is Jiang Qing. According to Daniel A. Bell, who introduced Jiang’s work to Anglophone political theory circles, “[i]t may not be an exaggeration to say that Jiang Qing has almost single-handedly succeeded in enriching debates about China’s political future.” When mainstream, liberalminded intellectuals presumed the normative desirability of liberal democracy and merely debated about the ways of its implementation in China, “Jiang’s modern-day adaptation of Confucian constitutionalism is the most detailed systematic alternative to both the current regime and Western-style liberal democracy.” 35 Originally a follower of Marxism and then more liberal schools of Confucianism, Jiang from 1989 started to argue that Confucianism and liberal democratic institutions were not compatible, as the latter was imposed by Western forces which had no respect for China’s particular culture and history. Regarding the preservation of the Confucian tradition as the most important affair in contemporary China, Jiang argued that only a Confucian polity, rather than a liberal democracy, was able

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to “secure a Confucian way of life.” 36 Thus he labels himself as a “political Confucian” who designs political institutions based purely upon Confucian resources. By drawing on insights from The Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals (公羊傳 Gongyang zhuan), Jiang is famous for his promotion of the “tricameral system” that reflects the idea of Confucian triple legitimacy that he draws from the Gongyang text— the Heavenly Mandate, historical and cultural continuity and the will of the people.37 In his proposal, the House of Ru (通儒院 Tongruyuan), composed by Confucian scholars selected by nomination, examination and recommendation, shall represent the sacred Mandate. The House of the Nation (国体院 Guotiyuan), composed by descendants of Confucius and ancient sages, representatives from different religions, and other contemporary worthy people, shall represent historical and cultural legitimacy. Finally, the House of the People (庶民院 Shuminyuan) shall resemble Western democratic parliaments and represent popular will. As the Heavenly Mandate enjoys unconditional supremacy in Confucianism, the House of Ru possesses a “permanent power of veto” to ensure that legislations never violate “the Way of Heaven.” 38 In order to further guarantee the Confucian pedigree of this regime, Jiang also proposes to set up a supervisory Confucian Academy composed of renowned Confucian scholars that is akin to the Guardian Council in Iran. This Academy is empowered as the sovereign of the polity and ultimate guardian of Confucianism as an established state religion.39 In addition to the legislature and the Academy, there is also a “symbolic monarch” in the Confucian polity, who is designed by Jiang as a ceremonial figurehead representing the nation’s cultural and historical identity. Echoing Inoue Tetsujirō (which by no means indicates that Jiang has read Inoue’s works), Jiang thinks the role would best fall to a direct descendent of Confucius.40 In sum, a political system that embodies the triple legitimacy and realizes all the above institutions, according to Jiang, should be called a government of the Kingly Way (王道 wangdao).41 This Confucian polity, Jiang envisions, is not just a regime most suitable for China’s national character, but also the political system most competent in resolving serious challenges that the whole of humanity is facing. In his answer to the question why China should be re-Confucianized, Jiang argues that democracy is responsible for countless contemporary “political diseases” such as selfishness, egoism, hedonism, consumerism, short-sightedness and a negligence of common challenges for the whole world, most notably climate change.42 For Jiang, only by restricting popular participation and rebuilding “sacredness” and hierarchy in the political realm can these issues be resolved. Therefore, as David Elstein correctly points out, there is a universalist dimension in Jiang’s political Confucianism. “The Kingly Way is not just the solution to China’s political problems; it is the universal solution for every nation.” 43 China’s return to its own political tradition, according to Jiang, provides an example for other nations to see that liberal democracy can actually be replaced by more desirable alternatives following Kingly Way exemplars. Although Jiang could easily be labeled a Confucian nationalist, he himself openly denounces nationalism as a thought and ideology. In his view, nationalism, with its underlying social Darwinism, originated in the modern West and should be regarded from the Confucian perspective as a manifestation of the Hegemonic Way. A Kingly Way polity, in contrast, is the most peace-loving regime in the world, and according to Jiang’s interpretation of 20th-century history, Japan contracted the virus of militarism before the Second SinoJapanese War precisely because it “abandoned Confucian moral thought and wholeheartedly embraced Western nationalism.” 44 This total ignorance of the role Confucian Kingly Way 194

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ideology played in the justification for Japanese imperialism, as we have discussed in the previous section, shows how unaware Jiang is that he is merely repeating the ideological maneuvers of his Japanese predecessors. It is difficult to comprehend how Jiang’s proposed Confucian polity, rooted in what he believes are the highly particular traditions and institutions of Chinese statecraft can function as an exemplar of the Kingly Way in nations with very different political traditions and institutions. His theory serves to justify the superiority of Confucianism to modern values such as human rights, political freedom, and democracy, but he undercuts the universalistic thrust of his Kingly Way arguments by presuming that liberal regimes, because of their ignorance of the Confucian Kingly Way, are doomed to fail to adopt it on their own initiative. It is therefore not an exaggeration to say that Jiang is promoting a similar exemplary nationalism to that advanced by Shionoya On and Inoue Tetsujirō in early 20th-century Japan. As with his Japanese predecessors, Jiang is also counting on an existing political power for his great vision to come true. He argues that the best way from the status quo to the ideal Confucian polity is an “upper route,” i.e., a government-led reform to Confucianize China’s current authoritarian structure. Critical steps include writing Confucianism into the constitution and replacing Marxist ideology with Confucian doctrines. Party schools, universities and secondary education should establish civil education programs centered upon Confucian canons, and candidates for civil service examinations should be tested on their familiarity with and understanding of the Four Books and Five Classics.45 With regard to the worry that the current CCP government is merely using Confucianism as an ideological instrument, rather than treating Confucian scholars with sincere respect, Jiang argues that the mutual instrumentalization of the government and Confucian scholars is a necessary phase for reviving Confucianism in the future. He is confident that the government’s repeated reference to Confucianism will ultimately play into the hands of Confucian scholars. In other words, for Jiang, the CCP’s opportunistic use of Confucianism would unwittingly enable Confucians to use the government as a powerful instrument to realize their political dreams.46 This radical challenge to liberal democratic norms and institutions initiated by Jiang Qing was concurred and strengthened by Chinese Straussians, whose popularity has been noticed and studied in recent years.47 Enlightened by Leo Strauss, the American conservative thinker, Chinese Straussians believe that liberalism and liberal democracy entail value relativism, debasement of virtues and collective mediocrity. To resist this “nihilistic” tendency of modernity, they urge Chinese intellectuals to pay attention to ancient Greek philosophy, in which Platonic philosophers use an exoteric teaching to endorse extant political and religious authorities, legal and moral codes, and social conventions, while concealing their radical teachings in their esoteric writings for the educated few. This is because these existing nomoi are instrumental in upholding civic virtues and cultivating ethical behaviors, while a radical enlightenment, pursued by philosophers who aim to destroy traditions that people are habituated to, may have the effect of disintegrating the political community. Strauss is obviously a Western thinker, and his works help to stimulate a strong interest in Greek philosophy among Chinese scholars and students. However, the political effect of the “Strauss fever” is actually a thorough reevaluation of China’s indigenous Confucian tradition. For example, almost immediately after his conversion to Strauss’s political thought ca. 2000, Liu Xiaofeng, the intellectual guru of Chinese Straussianism, abandoned his negative attitude toward Confucianism in the 1990s and started to regard Confucianism, especially Chapter 13: Universalizing “Kingly Way” Confucianism

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classical Confucianism in ancient times, as a Chinese counterpart of Platonic philosophy. He asks intellectuals to stop spreading liberal values and democratic sentiments and study Confucian rituals and ethical teachings, because it is these “noble” ideas that are instrumental in resisting the degenerate force of modernity and liberal democracy.48 Since 2014, Liu has started to glorify the CCP polity as a modern reincarnation of Confucian literati-bureaucrats, whose superior moral and intellectual capacity entitles them to rule and edify the ordinary people in a hierarchical political society.49 He and his fellow Straussians have no interest in defending equal rights, political equality and pluralism, as they regard them as the very source of relativism and nihilism in modern societies, which must be rectified by an authoritarian state promoting Confucian and quasi-Confucian values. In a reactivated “quarrel between the ancients and moderns,” as Liu puts it in his book Strauss’s Pathmarks (施特劳斯的路标 Shitelaosi de lubiao the Chinese regime, itself the representative of the “ancient” surrounded by modern liberal democracies, should be honored by the entire world as a noble force that can resist the degenerate influence of modernity and break the myth of “the end of history.” 50 The Chinese regime, therefore, acquires an exemplary, worldhistorical significance in the eternal battle between the noble and the base. Though he is not a Confucian philosopher as such, it would be remiss not to include some mention of Jiang Shigong. Jiang is a law professor at Peking University who is sympathetic to the thought of Leo Strauss, and to the work of the 20th-century German legal scholar Carl Schmitt. Jiang also interprets the contemporary Chinese regime through a world-historical lens, but rejects Jiang Qing’s idea that China’s current political structure should be Confucianized. In his widely read 2018 article “Philosophy and History: Interpreting ‘the Time of Xi Jinping’ from the Report at the 19th CCP National Congress,” (哲学与历史：从党的十九大 报告解读“习近平时代” Zhexue yu lishi: cong dangde shijiuda baogao jiedu ‘Xi Jinping shidai’) Jiang argues that the ultimate task for Xi Jinping and the CCP is to syncretize Marxism and Confucianism in order to advance a set of core values resonating with “the spiritual characteristics of the Chinese people and the requirements of the modern society.” This value system, Jiang suggests, is radically different from “the liberal democracy of Western capitalism.” Compared with the “core value system” advanced in the 18th CCP National Congress (the Congress that marked the end of the Hu Jintao period), Jiang also points out that Xi’s ideology is further removed from Western liberalism and more wholeheartedly embraces traditional Confucianism. This new value system, Jiang envisions, will be expanded to the entire world along with China’s great national revival, under the leadership of Xi Jinping.51 These attempts to use Confucianism, or traditional Chinese values more broadly, as an ideology to justify the superiority of the Chinese regime echo the CCP’s own political agenda. In June 2019, for example, Qiushi, the mouthpiece of the CCP Central Committee, posted an article asking Chinese people to be confident in “the culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” According to its definition, this culture is “an organic whole composed by outstanding Chinese traditional culture, the revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture.” 52 Many Confucian intellectuals are thrilled by the CCP’s new self-image as a leading force and guardian of China’s traditional culture. In 2017 at a Harvard University conference on contemporary Chinese thought, Ge Zhaoguang, a leading intellectual historian at Fudan University, has already pointed out the political ambitions behind certain Confucian scholars: their attempt to ingratiate themselves with the authoritarian regime.53 For example, Chen Ming, who has been promoting the idea of establishing Confucianism as a civil religion in China, regards Xi Jinping’s slogan of “the Chinese Dream” as an ideological innovation 196

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very friendly toward the basic tenets of Confucianism, so he defines his academic task as reinterpreting the China Dream through the Confucian lens. According to his interpretation, this Dream is to rebuild the continuity of Chinese history and to revive the greatness of the Chinese nation, two ideals that Chinese Confucians should pursue alongside with the CCP, whom he identifies as the irreplaceable force of national rejuvenation.54 This survey of China’s most recent intellectual development is not meant to be comprehensive, but it is no understatement to say that a new Zeitgeist has taken root in contemporary China. This Zeitgeist is nonetheless an old wine in new bottles, and readers can easily see the return of the specter that used to haunt 20th-century Japan—the idea that Confucianism, which has long been regarded by Western liberals as a cultural residue particular to East Asia, should actively compete with Western discourses of human rights and democracy and recast itself as a universal value. While this ambition is not by nature unpromising or dangerous, its current manifestation in the form of exemplary nationalism sits easily with the CCP’s agenda in legitimizing authoritarian rule domestically and justifying the superiority of the Chinese regime internationally. Exemplary nationalism is not a desirable form of universalism precisely because its glorification of coercive state power serves to maintain or claim domination and repression within and without China’s national boundaries. Criticizing this false universalism does not mean abandoning the universalizing potential of Confucianism in the contemporary world. There are other ways of realizing this potential that would avoid these dangerous political pitfalls. With this in mind, we are now turning to a different possibility for Confucianism to universalize itself, one that aims to disconnect Confucianism from nationalist and statist ambitions.

Universalizing Confucianism beyond nationalism and statist morality The Japanese and Chinese Confucian scholars we have discussed in this chapter can be fairly characterized as willing servants to a state-centric understanding of Confucian morality, sometimes at a tragic cost to their cosmopolitan and humanistic impulses. If Confucians do not want to see Confucianism once again coopted for state aggrandizement of national values, they must do normative work to stake out a space for Confucian values reconfigured within a protected domain of conscience, belief and associational life, guaranteed by basic liberties and freedoms of association. Such a potential domain for this conscientious Confucianism is provided by liberal societies, and to some extent by what John Rawls described as the non-liberal societies of “decent hierarchical peoples,” which while favoring a “common good conception of justice” (such as a religious faith) as their guiding political ideology, recognize basic human rights and liberties and grant equality for all before the law.55 Finally, we could imagine such a protected domain in the hypothetical, quasi-liberal polities theorized by contemporary Confucian political theorists such as Stephen Angle, Joseph Chan and Sungmoon Kim, in which the state moderately promotes Confucian values while providing constitutional protections for civil and political rights.56 Within this domain, we can imagine conscientious Confucians exercising a complex but necessary maneuver. They will concede the contingent, particular cultural origins of different Confucian practices and doctrines in East Asian nations, with the claims of popular belonging, national pride and identity that attach to them. But they will also deny to the state—including the state in a possible quasi-liberal Confucian polity—any exclusive

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authority to define those practices and doctrines, and assert proprietorial claims over them. They will also, without contradiction, assert the potential universality of Confucian values as civilizational values, to be taken up, adapted and indigenized in the spiritual, intellectual and associational life of other societies in a manner fitting with their particular cultural mores and needs. This is an argument that, ultimately, is influenced by the cultural nationalism and universalism of Johann Gottfried Herder rather than by the state-centered nationalism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte.57 What would it mean to reclaim Confucian values and practices for a protected domain of civic and spiritual life? In part, it would mean to reclaim them for an axial civilizational understanding of Confucianism, with its ultimate appeal to a nomos that transcends the particular allegiances to, and claims to authority by the prince or the nation: a nomos that can be appealed to in judging transgressions by authority. If for some modern Confucians “The Mandate of Heaven” will no longer persuade as the ultimate transcendental guarantor of that nomos, that guarantor could instead be located in the rites and virtues exemplified by past sages and humane persons. Reclaiming those values and practices also requires wresting them away from the paternalistic state loyalism that defined their extension in the institutional Confucianisms of pre-modern East Asia, and away from the more totalizing grasp of ultra-nationalisms which have laid claim to Confucian values like filial piety and loyalty as national values into the 21st century. Filial piety could then be claimed for a sphere of affiliation and care in family life protected from the unreasonably coercive demands of loyalty from the state, and loyalty to rulers or other authorities would itself be deemed conditional upon them conforming to norms of good, virtuous governance. Ritual propriety, meanwhile, would be both a practice and a standard for restraint in authority holders to rein in brute displays of coercive power, and for restraint in public servants, political activists and elected political representatives, who “might remonstrate, but not speak ill” of rulers, “withdraw (from service) but not hate” them but who, faced with a government going bad, may well also “sweep it away, and institute a new one” 58—by democratic means, in a representative democracy. The realization of such values and practices in protected family and civic domains also lies in accommodating those self-identified Confucians who do not see their telos in being a minister or even remonstrator with the prince or the state. The precedents for such a life lie in the many scholars and literati in dynastic China frustrated in their ambitions for state service—or disinterested in it—who found alternative avenues for moral and spiritual self-cultivation in family, literary, intellectual, ritual and artistic life.59 So our conscientious Confucians may legitimately find many vocations for moral and spiritual self-cultivation and even “sagedom” in today’s far more protected private and civil society spheres. They may do so as parents, children, educators, scholars, writers, artists, community volunteers and spiritual practitioners, living in accordance with what they understand to be Confucian norms and rituals, but in separation from and even indifference to the affairs of state. The conscientious, universalizing and anti-statist Confucianism outlined here will certainly appear heretical to advocates of a Confucianism subordinated to an exemplary nationalism or to ultra-nationalism, with its exclusive claims to moral values as national values. It is also potentially heretical to the teleological vision of ancient ur-texts for the Kingly Way such as the Great Learning, which traced the trajectory for the humane person’s Bildung from “the investigation of things,” “the extension of knowledge,” “the cultivation of the self ” through to the “regulation of families” and “the ordering of states.” Lastly, the pluralism a 198

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conscientious Confucian would assent to in a liberal society is alien both to Warring States -era Confucians such as Mencius, intolerant of the “heresies” of Yang Zhu and Mozi,60 and to the statist Confucians of the 20th and 21st centuries. But the very Bildung of self- and other-oriented moral cultivation urged by the Great Learning and other canonical Confucian texts also points towards a moral autonomy that contemporary Confucian scholars like Joseph Chan argue can be found in classical Confucianism.61 The effective practice of such autonomy in a modern context arguably requires a protected domain of family and associated life sealed off from the unreasonable encroachments of the modern state. That is to say, through the exegetical traditions of Confucian thought, and through the (still) living traditions of its practices, Confucian moral and intellectual values and practices can best be imparted and cultivated in family, fraternal and associational life through dispositions to “voluntary endorsement” and “reflective engagement” which are characteristics of moral autonomy. Voluntarily endorsed, they are not received simply as unreflective habits, nor imposed by a state education system, but are cultivated for internally motivated reasons. Moreover, to be autonomous a person must reflectively and competently engage with and “own” those values and practices and not merely parrot them. Such a person must be able, in accordance with Confucian conceptions of humaneness and righteousness, to observe ritual norms appropriately and with due consideration of others, and appropriately and justly to manifest virtuous conduct in context-sensitive ways.62 Where does this leave the question of the universality of Confucianism and the “mission” to propagate it to the world? If philosophers and other practitioners can demonstrate that Confucian values and practices speak to fundamental human moral and spiritual needs, and can address fundamental problems of the good life anywhere, then let it be acknowledged that they are potentially universal, civilizational values and practices. Perhaps the Confucianisms they advocate for will in the end be only minority practices, philosophies or faiths, coexisting with many other belief systems and ways of life. But at least a commitment to the voluntary, reflective cultivation of Confucian values gives conscientious Confucians the means to repudiate any national mission for the universal propagation of Confucianism, with all the contradictions and political dangers that mission reveals, in Japan’s past and possibly in China’s future. For them such propagation must take place organically through the educational mediums of family and civic associational life, transmitted across seeming cultural divides and across the boundaries of imagined national communities.

Notes

“Judō Taikai no Ki” [儒道大会の記 Record of the Confucian Way Conference], in Yushima Seidō fukkō kinen Judō Taikai shi [湯島聖堂復興記念 儒道大会誌 Proceedings of the Conference on the Confucian Way in honor of the restoration of the Yushima Sage Hall], ed. Fukushima Kashizō (Tokyo: Shibunkai, 1936), 23. 2 See Nakajima Takahiro, “The Restoration of Confucianism in China and Japan: A New Source of Morality and Religion,” in Facing the 21st Century, eds. W. Lam and C. Cheng (Nagoya: Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, 2009), 47. 3 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso 2006), 3. 4 Johann Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation. Jones, R. F. and G.H Turnbull, trans., (London: Open Court, 1922), 131. 5 Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, 125. 6 Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, 117. 1

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7

Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, 268. Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, 227–28. 9 See Rainer Schafer, “The Ontological and Epistemological Background of German Nationalism in Fichte’s Addresses,” in Fichte’s Addresses to the Nation Reconsidered, eds. D. Breazeale and T. Rockmore (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016), 156–57. 10 Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, 197. 11 Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, 4, 131. 12 Fichte’s thought was well known in Japan at this time. A collection of Fichte’s political works was translated into Japanese by Sugitani Taizan in 1906, and during the 1930s and 1940s Nanbaru Shigeru at the University of Tokyo was Japan’s leading Fichte scholar. 13 We take this term from Huang Chun-chieh, East Asian Confucianisms: Texts in Context (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Rupprecht, 2015), 13–14. 14 For a discussion of the Minobe Affair, see Walter Skya, Japan’s Holy War: the Ideology of Radical Shinto Nationalism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2009), 82–112. 15 Hattori Unokichi, “Hito no dō” [ 人の道 The way of human beings] in Fukushima, Yushima Seidō fukkō kinen Judō Taikai shi, 168. 16 Bruno Petzold, “Record of the Confucian Way Conference” in Fukushima, Yushima Seidō fukkō kinen Judō Taikai shi, 60–61. 17 Jaroslav Průšek, Chinese History and Literature (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing, 1970), 230. 18 See Taguchi Nobuo, “Kunishiseki Yushima Seidō to shibunkai no genjō” [ 国史跡湯島聖堂と斯文会の現状 The national historic landmark of Yushima Sage Hall and the present condition of the Shibunkai], Nippon chugoku gakkai hō [日本中国学会報 Newsletter of the Sinological Society of Japan] 1 (2021): 15. 19 Shionoya On, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa” [ 孔夫子の道と世界の平和 The way of Confucius and world peace) in Fukushima, Yushima Seidō fukkō kinen Judō Taikai shi, 211, 230. 20 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 213. 21 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 214–15. 22 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 215. 23 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 217. 24 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 230. The title given to the ultranationalist movement that arose early in 1935 to assert the emperor’s absolute, sacred sovereignty in opposition to Minobe’s theory of limited constitutional monarchy was “The Movement to Clarify the National Polity” (国体明徴運動 Kokutai meichō undō) 25 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 217. 26 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 216. 27 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 218–25. 28 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 225–28. 29 Shionoya, “Kōfūshi no dō to sekai no heiwa,” 228–29. 30 Inoue Tetsujirō, “Jyukyō Dai Kai ni tai suru kan sōdan” [ 儒道大会に對する感想談 Impressions on the Confucian Way Conference] in Yushima Seidō fukkō kinen Judō Taikai shi in Yushima Seidō fukkō kinen Judō Taikai shi [湯島聖堂復興記念 儒道大会誌 Proceedings of the Conference on the Confucian Way in honor of the restoration of the Yushima Sage Hall], ed. Fukushima Kashizō (Tokyo: Shibunkai, 1936), 387–90. 31 Inoue Tetsujirō, “Kōshi no Jinkaku to Shinnen” [ 孔子の人格と信念 Confucius’ character and faith] in Yushima Seidō fukkō kinen Judō Taikai shi [湯島聖堂復興記念 儒道大会誌 Proceedings of the Conference on the Confucian Way in honor of the restoration of the Yushima Sage Hall], ed. Fukushima Kashizō (Tokyo: Shibunkai, 1936), 130–32. 32 On Shionoya, “Kōkyō to sanminshugi” [ 孔教と三民主義 Confucianism and the Three Principles of the People] Shibun [斯文] 19, no. 10 (October 1937): 6, 10. 33 See Inoue Tetsujirō, Tōyō bunka to Shina no shōrai [ 東洋文化と支那の将来 Oriental culture and the future of China] (Tokyo: Rishosha, 1939), 105–6. 34 This history of national humiliation is very similar to the German experience in the early 19th century, and, as Gao Like correctly points out, this affinity of historical trajectory partially explains why Chinese nationalist thought echoes strongly with German nationalism since Fichte. In German history, according to Gao, a defensive nationalism originated from the experience of national humiliation eventually evolved into a “hegemonic nationalism” that dominated other nations. It is not hyperbole to worry that Chinese nationalist 8

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thought would replicate this intellectual development. See Gao Like, “Zhongguo xiandai guojiazhuyi sichao de deguo puxi” [中国现代国家主义思潮的德国谱系 The German genealogy of modern Chinese nationalism], Aisixiang, accessed March 21, 2021, http://www.aisixiang.com/data/124026-3.html. It is noteworthy, too, that Fichte’s thought was first introduced into Chinese by the pioneering nationalist intellectual Liang Qichao in 1915, via a free translation of selections from Sugitani Taizan’s 1906 Japanese translation of Fichte’s political works. 35 Daniel A. Bell, “Introduction,” in Jiang Qing, A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, ed. Daniel Bell and Ruiping Fan; trans. Edmund Ryden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 1. 36 Daniel A. Bell, “Introduction,” 5. 37 Jiang Qing, Daniel A. Bell, et al., A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, 28. 38 Jiang Qing, Daniel A. Bell, et al., A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, 41–42. 39 Jiang Qing, Daniel A. Bell, et al., A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, 44–70. 40 Jiang Qing, Daniel A. Bell, et al., A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, 80. 41 Jiang Qing, “Wangdao zhengzhi shi dangjin zhongguo zhengzhi de fazhan fangxiang” [ 王道政治是当今中国政 治的发展方向 Kingly Way politics is the direction of political development in contemporary China], in Jiang Qing, et al. Zhongguo bixu zairuhua [中国必须再儒化 China must be re-Confucianized] (Singapore: Xinjiapo shijie keji chubanshe, 2016), 2–8. 42 Jiang Qing, “Wangdao zhengzhi shi dangjin zhongguo zhengzhi de fazhan fangxiang,” 10. 43 David Elstein, Democracy in Contemporary Confucian Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2015), 144. 44 Jiang Qing, “Wangdao zhengzhi shi dangjin zhongguo zhengzhi de fazhan fangxiang,” 43. 45 Jiang Qing, “Wangdao zhengzhi shi dangjin zhongguo zhengzhi de fazhan fangxiang,” 28–29. 46 Jiang Qing, “Wangdao zhengzhi shi dangjin zhongguo zhengzhi de fazhan fangxiang,” 52. 47 Kai Marchal and Carl K.Y. Shaw, eds., Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss in the Chinese-Speaking World: Reorienting the Political (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016). 48 Liu Xiaofeng, Shitelaosi de lubiao [ 施特劳斯的路标 Strauss’s pathmarks] (Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 2013). 49 Liu Xiaofeng, Bainian gonghe zhiyi [ 百年共和之义 Essays on the making of the Republic in China since 1911] (Shanghai: Huadong shifandaxue chubanshe, 2015), 159–60. 50 Liu Xiaofeng, Shitelaosi de lubiao, 159–60. 51 Jiang Shigong, “Zhexue yu lishi: cong dangde shijiuda baogao jiedu ‘Xi Jinping shidai” [ 哲学与历史：从党的十 九大报告解读“习近平时代”Philosophy and history: interpreting ‘the Time of Xi Jinping’ from the report at the 19th CCP National Congress], Kaifang shidai [开放时代 Open times] 2018 (1), accessed March 21, 2021, http:// www.opentimes.cn/Abstract/8398.html. 52 “Women yinggai jianding shenmeyang de wenhua zixin?” [ 我们应该坚定什么样的文化自信？ What kind of cultural self-confidence should we uphold?], Quishi [求是 Seeking the Truth], 06/20/2019, accessed April 19, 2020, http://www​.qstheory.cn/zhuanqu/rdjj/2019-06/20/c_1124648317.htm. 53 Ge Zhaoguang, “Yixiang tiankai: jinnianlai dalu xinruxue de zhengzhi suqiu” [ 异想天开：近年来大陆新儒学的 政治诉求 Fanciful illusions: the political demands of New Confucianism in recent mainland China], Aixijiang, 07/01/2017, accessed April 19, 2020, http://www.aisixiang.com/data/104951.html. 54 Chen Ming, “Tongsantong yu xindangguo: zhongguomeng de rujia jiedu” [ 通三统与新党国：中国梦的儒家解读 Syncretizing three traditions and the new party-state: the Confucian interpretation of the Chinese dream], Sina, 03/17/2015, accessed April 19, 2020, http://history.sina.com.cn/his/zl/2015-03-17/1031117485.shtml. 55 John Rawls, The Law of Peoples with The Idea of Public Reason Revisited (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999), 64–75. 56 See Stephen Angle, Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy (Cambridge: Polity, 2012); Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014); and Sungmoon Kim, Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 57 We draw inspiration for this argument from Jilin Xu, Rethinking China’s Rise: A Liberal Critique, D. Ownby, trans., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 156–60.

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58 The Sacred Books of China. The Texts of Confucianism, Part IV. The Li Ki, XI–XLVI. ed. F. Muller; Trans. J. Legge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1885), 73. 59 An enchanting fictional recreation of this life can be found in the narratives of the Nanjing literati and independent scholars in Wu Jinzi’s Qing Dynasty novel Rulin Waishi [儒林外史 The scholars]. 60 See D.C. Lau, trans., Mencius (London: Penguin, 1970), IIIB9 (113–15). 61 Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism, 131–60. 62 Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism, 133–41.

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Tak, Yanghyun, ed. Seogye Park Sedang eui Yugachulhak bipan, sabyunrok 3, je 3 jang noneo e daehan bipan [서계박세당의 유가철학 비판: 사변록3, 제 3장 논어에 대한 비판 The critique of Confucius philosophy by Seogye Park Sedang: Chapter 3, The critique of The Critique of the Analects From Variant 3] e-Purple, 2018: Chapter 24. Taniguchi, Noriko. Nihon no keizai shakai shisutemu to jugaku: kisō shinri kara no hikaku to saikō [日本の経 済社会システムと儒学 : 基層心理からの比較と再考 Japan’s economic and political system and Confucianism: a comparison and reconsideration from its underlying psychology]. Tokyo: Jichōsha, 2012. Tan, Sor-hoon. Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Tanaka, Yukari. Yūshō reppai to meiji kokka: Katō Hiroyuki no shakai shinkaron 「 [ 優勝劣敗」と明治国家——加 藤弘之の社会進化論」“The survival of the fittest” and the Meiji state: Katō Hiroyuki’s social evolutionary theory]. Tokyo: Perikansha, 2019. Tawara, Tsuguo. “Nihon shisōshi kenkyū no rekishi to kadai” [日本思想史研究の歴史と課題 Studies in Japanese intellectual history—history and problems]. The Keiwa Gakuen University Bulletin [敬和学園大学研究紀 要Keiwa Gakuen Daigaku kenkyū kiyō] 8, (1999): 35–47. Togawa, Yoshio. “Kangaku shinagaku no enkaku to sono mondai ten: kindai akademizumu no seiritsu to chūgoku kennkyu no ‘keifu’ (2)” [漢学シナ学の沿革とその問題点——近代アカデミズムの成立と中国研究の‘系譜’ （二）(理想) The history of Chinese Classics Learning and its problems: the ‘genealogy’ of modern academicism and China research (2)] Risō [理想 Ideas], no. 397 (1966): 8–25. Tōkyō Daigaku-shi shiryō kenkyūkai, [東京大学史史料研究会 Research group studying materials concerning the University of Tokyo’s history], Tōkyō Daigaku nenpō dai ikkan [東京大学年報 第一巻 University of Tokyo annual report volume 1] Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1993. Tomizu, Hirondo. Kokusei Ronshū [国政論集 Collected essays on national government] Unpublished manuscript, 1924. Tōyama, Shigeki. Meiji ishin [明治維新 The Meiji Restoration]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2000. Tsuda, Mamichi. “Kaika wo susumuru hōhō wo ronzu” [開化ヲ進ル方法ヲ論ズ Methods for advancing enlightenment]. Meiroku Zasshi [明六雑誌 Meiroku magazine], no. 3 (1874): 7(1)–8(2); In Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, translated by William Reynold Braisted, 38–41. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976. ———. “Moto wa hitotsu ni arazaru ron” [本は一つにあらざる論 On the plurality of the origin of things]. Meiroku Zasshi [明六雑誌 Meiroku magazine], no. 8 (1874): 8(1)–9(2); In Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, translated by William Reynold Braisted, 111–13. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976. ———. “Sansei ron” [三聖論 The Three Sages]. Meiroku Zasshi [明六雑誌 Meiroku magazine], no. 21 (1874): 4(1) –5(1); In Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, translated by William Reynold Braisted, 266–67. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976. Tsuda, Masao. “Watsuji Tetsurō kenkyū—kaishakugaku, kokumin dōtoku, shakai shugi” [和辻哲郎研究—―解釈 学、国民道徳、社会主義 Watsuji Tetsurō studies—hermeneutics, national morality, socialism]. Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 2014. Tsuji, Naoto. “Nijū seki shoto ni okeru Monbushō ryūgakusei no haiken jittai to sono henka ni tsuite no kōsatsu” [二十世紀初頭における文部省留学生の派遣実態とその変化についての考察 Changes in the number of exchange students sent abroad by the Ministry of Education in the early 20th century]. Tōkyō Daigakushi kiyō [東 京大学史紀要 Journal of the History of the University of Tokyo], no. 26 (2008): 21–38 Tsuji, Tatsuya, ed. Nihon no kinsei ni tennō to shogun [日本の近世二 天皇と将軍 Early modern Japan 2, Emperor and Shogun]. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1991. Tsujimoto, Masashi. “Jugaku no bakumatsu: seiyōkindai heno shisōteki taiji” [儒学の幕末――西洋近代への思 想的対峙 Confucianism at the end of the Tokugawa period: intellectual confrontation with the modern West]. In Nihon no kinsei, dai jūsan kan: jugaku, kokugaku, yōgaku [日本の近世 第13巻 儒学・国学・洋学 The early modern times of Japan, Volume 13: Confucian learning, national learning, western learning], edited by Rai Kiichi, 333–76. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1993. Tu, Weiming. “The Rise of Industrial East Asia: The Role of Confucian Values,” Copenhagen Papers in East and Southeast Asian Studies, no. 4 (1989): 81–97 Uchida, Ryōhei. Kōdō ni tsuite [皇道に就いて Concerning the Imperial Way]. Tokyo: Black Dragon Society Publications. 1933.

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thought 54], edited by Yoshida Tsunekichi, Fujita Shōzō and Nishida Taichirō, 106–8. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1978. ———. “219: Nomura Yasushi ate” [219: 野村和作宛 219: To Nomura Yasushi, around May, 1859]. In Nihon Shisō Taikei 54 [日本思想大系54 Compendium of Japanese thought 54], edited by Yoshida Tsunekichi, Fujita Shōzō and Nishida Taichirō, 348–49. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1978. Yoshida, Tadashi (2012). “Edo jidai no kagaku shisō—kagaku chishiki no keijū” [江戸時代の科学思想——科学 知識の継受 Scientific thought in the Edo period—taking on scientific knowledge]. In Nihon shisōshi kōza kinsei 3 [日本思想史講座 近世 (3) The Perikan history of Japanese thought: early modern, Vol. 3], edited by Sueki Fumihiko, Kurozumi Makoto, Satō Hirō, Tajiri Yūichirō and Karube Tadashi, 297–329. Tokyo: Perikansha. 2012. Yu, Ying-shih. “Xiandai ruxue de kunjing” [现代儒学的困境 The dilemma of modern Confucianism]. Aisixiang, 04/06/2021. https://www.aisixiang.com/data/39809.html. Yuasa, Yasuo. “Watsuji Tetsurō—kindai Nihon tetsugaku no unmei” [和辻哲郎——近代日本哲学の運命 Watsuji Tetsurō—the destiny of philosophy in modern Japan]. Tōkyō: Minerva Shobo, 1981.

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Glossary Note: For terms and concepts in use prior to the mid-20th century, their “old form” Chinese characters (旧字体 Kyūjitai) are given first, with modern equivalents in brackets after. Aidagara 間柄 Betweenness; a Confucian-influenced ethical concept developed in Watsuji Tetsurō’s philosophy. Ansai gaku 闇斎學 (闇斎学) Ansai Learning; the syncretic Shintō-Confucian thought associated with the 17th-century scholar Yamazaki Ansai. Bakufu 幕府 Abbreviated term for the military government of the Tokugawa Shogunate between 1603 and 1868. Bakumatsu 幕末 The final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, between 1853 and the Meiji Restoration. Bukkyō 佛教 (仏教) Buddhism. Bunmei 文明 Enlightenment; a concept associated with Meiji-era modernization. Chikō gōitsu 知行合一 The unity of knowledge and action; a slogan derived from Yangming Learning. Chōsen Keigakuin 朝鮮経學院 (朝鮮経学院) A colonial-era institute in Seoul, Korea which promoted Confucian and Chinese studies; formerly the leading educational institute in Chosŏn Dynasty Korea, when it was called the Sungkyunkwan 성균관. This latter name was restored following the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945. Chū 忠 The Confucian virtue of loyalty. Chukō icchi (忠孝一致) The oneness of loyalty and filial piety; a concept associated with early 19th century Mito Learning. Daitō bunka kyōkai 大東文化協會 (大東文化協会) The Eastern Culture Society, an organization set up in 1922 to promote classical Chinese studies and Confucianism. Daotong 道統 The lineage and transmission of orthodox teachings of the Confucian Way; a concept associated particularly with 12th-century Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism. Edo jidai 江戸時代 The Edo period, between 1603 and 1867; an era in which Japanese NeoConfucianism flourished. Genbun itchi 言文一致 The unification of spoken and written language; a slogan of the Meijiera language modernization movement. Gi 義 the Confucian virtue of righteousness; a term originating in Warring States-era Confucianism. Gorin 五倫 The five human bonds or relationships; a concept originating in Mencius’ Warring States-era thought.

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Goyōgakusha 御用學者 (御用學者) “Scholar of the state.” A modern term used to denote a scholar working on behalf of the state; often used pejoratively for academics accused of acting as government propagandists. Hadō (覇道) The hegemonic way; a concept originally developed by Warring States-era Confucianism. Jin 仁 The Confucian virtue of benevolence. Jissen 実践 Practice; a term deriving from the thought of the Chinese Ming Dynasty NeoConfucian scholar Wang Yangming. Judō 儒道 The Confucian Way. Jugaku 儒學 (儒学) Confucianism defined (in modern academic terms) as philosophy. Juka shintō 儒家神道 Confucian-Shintō; syncretized Confucian-Shintoist doctrine. Jukyō 儒教 Confucianism. Kanbun 漢文 Classical Chinese learning and literacy as practiced in Japan since the seventh century CE. Kangaku 漢學 (漢学) Classical Chinese studies. Kimon gaku 崎門學 (崎門学) Kimon Learning; a term used to describe the Edo-period scholarly tradition developed by Yamazaki Ansai’s Confucian-oriented followers. Kinnō 勤王 Loyalty to the emperor; loyalism. Kō 孝 The Confucian virtue of filial piety. Kobunjigaku 古文辞學 (古文辞学) Ancient Rhetoric Learning; the Edo-period Confucian tradition chiefly associated with the 17th–18th century scholar Ogyū Sorai. Kōdō 皇道 The Imperial Way; a concept originating in the 1920s and 30s intended to conceptualize the unique Japanese version of the Kingly Way. Kogaku 古學 (古学) Ancient Learning; an Edo-period Confucian tradition noted for its criticisms of Neo-Confucianism. Kokka shintō 國家神道 (国家神道) State Shintō. Kokkashugi 國家主義 (国家主義) Nationalism or statism. Kokufū 國風 (国風) National customs. Kokugaku 國學 (国学) National Learning; a term used to describe a Shintoist intellectual tradition that originated in Edo period during the 17th century. Kokumin dōtoku 國民道徳 (国民道徳) National morality; an early 20th century hybrid Confucian-Shinto-nationalist ideology first advanced by Inoue Tetsujirō. Kokumin seishin 國民精神 National spirit; a late 19th century concept translated from the German Volksgeist. Kokutai 國體 (国体) The national polity; a term of Han Dynasty Chinese origins, which in later Edo-period Confucianism came to denote Japan’s (and sometimes other nation’s) unique national political system, identity or essence. Kōtō 皇統 Imperial lineage. Kunshi 君子 A term variously translated as “gentleman,” “superior man” or “exemplary person;” a key moral concept for Confucianism, beginning in the Warring States era. Kyokei 居敬 Paying due respect to what is being studied or done; concept derived from 12thcentury Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism. Kyūri 窮理 The close study of nature; concept derived from 12th-century Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism. Manshū teikoku 滿洲帝國 (滿洲帝国) The Manchurian Empire—a puppet state set up under Japanese control in Manchuria in 1934. 226

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Meiji jidai 明治時代 The Meiji period, extending from the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the “restoration” of imperial rule in 1868 through to 1912. Meirokusha 明六社 The Meiroku Society, a grouping of early Meiji-era reformers and modernizing scholars. Meiroku Zasshi 明六雑誌 Meiroku Magazine, the publication of the Meiroku Society. Mitogaku 水戸學 (水戸学) Mito Learning; a term used to describe an eclectic school during the 17th–19th centuries that studied Neo-Confucianism, Shintō, Buddhist and National Learning thought. Nihon no seishin 日本の精神 A modern term denoting Japanese spirit. Ōdō 王道 The Kingly Way; a concept originating in Warring States-era Confucianism, intended to conceptualize a just, virtuous and rites-governed ideal of kingship. Rei 禮 (礼) Ritual propriety; a term of Warring States-era Confucian origin. Ri 理 Principle; concept derived from 12th century Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism. Rinri 倫理 Ethics. Rinrigaku 倫理学 Ethics, as it is studied academically and philosophically. Rinrishisō 倫理思想 Ethical ideas or thought. Ryōsai kenbo 良妻賢母 “Good Wife and Wise Mother;” the modernizing gender ideology promoted in Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Seijin no michi 聖人の道 The Way of the Sages; a concept associated with Ogyū Sorai’s Confucianism. Seimei 正名 The Rectification of Names; a concept originally developed by Warring Statesera Confucianism. Seiyō 西洋 The West. Shibun 斯文 The official journal of the Shibunkai. Shibunkai 斯文會 (斯文会) A Japanese civic and educational organization formally incorporated in 1918 which promotes classical Chinese studies and Confucianism. Shina tetsugaku 支那哲學 (支那哲学) A pre-1945 modern academic term for Chinese philosophy. Shintō 神道 Shintoism. Shisō 思想 Thought, ideas or ideology. Shōwa jidai 昭和時代 The Showa period; an era in modern Japanese history between 1926 and 1989. Shushi gaku 朱子學 (朱子学) Zhu Xi Learning, a term used to describe the intellectual tradition associated with the 12th- century Chinese Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi. Soraigaku 徂徠學 (徂徠学) The Confucian thought associated with the 17th–18th- century Edo-period scholar Ogyū Sorai. Suika Shintō 垂加神道 A term used to describe the intellectual tradition developed by Yamazaki Ansai’s Shintō-oriented followers. Taigi Meibun 大義名分 The great principle of duty to the ruler; a concept developed in Edoperiod Confucianism. Taishō jidai 大正時代 The Taisho period; an era in modern Japanese history between 1912 and 1926. Tenka 天下 All under Heaven; a concept originally developed by Warring States-era Confucianism; also a euphemism for “Kingdom” or “Empire” Tenmei 天命 The Mandate of Heaven; a concept originally developed by Warring States-era Confucianism. Glossary

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Tetsugaku 哲學 (哲学) Philosophy; a term coined by Nishi Amane in the 1870s and originally meant to refer to European philosophy. Tōyō 東洋 The East, or Orient. Tōyō tetsugaku 東洋哲学 Late 19th-century Japanese academic term coined by Inoue Tetsujirō for Oriental or East Asian philosophy. Yōmeigaku 陽明學 (陽明学) Yangming Learning; a term used to describe the Neo-Confucian thought of the Ming Dynasty scholar Wang Yangming and his followers. Yushima Seidō 湯島聖堂 Yushima Sage Hall, in Tokyo, built as a center for Confucian learning and rites in the 17th century, which also became the institutional base of the Shibunkai in 1919.

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Index A Abe Genki, 172 Ahn Gyo-hwan (also Ahn Soon-hwan), 115 Ahn In-sik, xxvii, 115, 124–25; studies at Daitō Bunka Gakuin, 112, 116–17; and promotion of Imperial Way Confucianism in colonial Korea, 116–18, 120–21; postwar Confucian beliefs, 125 Aizawa Seishisai, xxii, 70, 72–73, 101 Akita Kiyoshi, 114 Amano Teiyū, 175, 177 Amaterasu Omikami (Shintō deity), xxii, 12, 65, 83–84, 95, 97–99 Ancient Learning (Kogaku), 11, 94–95 Ancient Rhetoric School, 9, 10 Ancient Text faction (Kobunji), 94–95 Anderson, Benedict, 185 Angle, Stephen, xv, 197 Arai Masaki, 173 Asami Keisai, 3 Association for Cooperation (Kyōchōkai), 174 Association for the Celebration of the Foundation Day of the Country (Kigensetsu hōshukukai), 172 Association for the Master and Disciple (Shiyū kyōkai), 172–73, 175, 178; Kansai Branch of, 173–74, 176 Authoritarianism: in 20th century Japan, xvii, xxiii–xxiv, xxvi–xxvii, 125, 170; in 21st century China, xxx, 193, 195–97 Autonomy, 14, 143; moral autonomy, 199

B Bacon, Francis, 38 Bakumatsu, xvi, xx, xxii–xxiii, 4, 21, 66–70, 73, 97–98, 101, 107, 118, 159

Index

Bell, Daniel, 193 Benevolence (jin), 9, 55, 78, 82, 84, 95–96, 101–02, 111, 133, 135 Benevolent rulers/parents, 78 Betweenness (aidagara): Watsuji Tetsurō’s theory of, 140–41, 143, 156 Black Dragon Society, 100 Brown, Roger, 170 Buddha, 38, 41, 43, 98; Great Buddha of Nara, 85 Buddhism: Buddhist influences in Kyoto School, xvii–xix; D.T. Suzuki and Zen Buddhism, xvii–xviii; Zen Buddhism boom in the United States, xviii; and Matsumiya Kanzan, xxii, 1, 4–5, 10–15; as one of the three religions, 1, 4–5, 10–11, 12–15 (see also three religions); Inoue Tetsujirō on, xxiii, 57, 65; in Meiroku magazine, 39, 41, 43; Shimoda Utako on, 80, 82; Haoshi Banri on, 96–97; Yoshida Shōin on, 98–99; as a component in Imperial Way ideology, 101, 111; Buddhist perspectives on Watsuji Tetsurō’s ethics, 156; Shionoya On on, 189 Bushidō: Inoue Tetsujirō on, xxiii, 70, 72; Joo Byung-kŏn on, 122; Watsuji Tetsurō on, 155, 161

C Century of Humiliation (bainian chiru), 193 Chan, Joseph, 197, 199 Chao Hsin–po, 114 Chastity: as women’s virtue, 82 Chen Ming, 196 Chen Wei-fen, 51 Chiang Kai-shek, 191 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 192, 195–97 Chinese Confucianism, xv–xvi, 7–8, 10, 12, 116, 186, 189–90, 192–97

229

Chinese Learning (kangaku), xix, xxv–xxvi, 27, 50, 192; taught at the University of Tokyo in the 1880’s, 53–56 Chinese Straussians, the 195–96 Christianity, 41, 82, 135, 190; Inoue Tetsujirō’s criticism of, 56, 63–65, 72–73 Civilization and enlightenment (bunmei kaika), 40, 161 Classical Chinese literacy (kanbun), xix, 54, 114–15, 122; and Shibunkai, xxv; used by Shimoda Utako 83, 85 Close study of nature (kyūri), 21–22 Communism/communists, xxix, 77, 82–83, 85, 89, 172–73, 175, 178, 187, 190–93 (see also Chinese Communist Party, and Marxism) Conference on the Japanese Nation (Nihon kokumin kaigi), 172 Confucian Shintō, 3 Confucian Way (judō), xxv, xxvii, 42, 86, 96, 117–18, 121, 188–89, 191; Conference on the Confucian Way in Honor of the Restoration of the Yushima Sage Hall, xxv–xxvi, 184–85, 187, 191–92 Confucius, 8–9, 30, 36–38, 40–44, 55, 57, 94, 96, 98–99, 111, 115–18, 120–21, 123–24, 133–36, 174, 188–89, 191–92, 194 Contextual turn, xvii, xxvii, 93–94, 98, 102, 107; in the conflation of the Kingly Way with Shintō, 95; in the subordination of the Kingly Way to the Imperial Way, 99–101; and Buddhism, 102 Correct and Admonish School (Shushō), 69 Council for the Question of the Constitution (Kenpō mondai kondankai), 172 Council on New Japan (Shin Nihon kyōgikai), 172–73 Conscientious Confucianism, 186, 197–99 Courage, as Confucian virtue, 95–96, 111, 134

D Democracy, 85, 155, 175, 191, 194, 197–98; Japanese, 175; Western, 100; constitutional, xxv; liberal, xii, 148, 193–96; compatibility of Confucianism with, xvi–xvii, xxv, xxviii, 140–41, 145; incompatibility of Confucianism with, 155; Watsuji Tetsurō’s war era criticism of democracy, 145–46; Watsuji Tetsurō’s

230

postwar views on the compatibility of Confucianism and democracy, 146; criticism of liberal democracy by modern Chinese Confucians, 195; Taishō Democracy, 85, 168–69 Divine Emperor, 97–99, 107 Divinity in human form (akitsumikami), 116 Doeff-Halma Dutch-Japanese dictionary, 21–26, 30; and Sakuma Shōzan (see Sakuma Shōzan) Dogi Akira, 178 Dong Zhongshu, 37

E Eastern Culture Society (Daitō bunka kyōkai), xxv, 113–14, 121; its role in the foundation of Daitō Bunka Gakuin, xxv, 113 Egawa Hidetatsu, 22 Egi Kazuyuki, 113 Egoism, 145–46, 194 Ehira Shigeo, 102, 104 Eight Trigrams, 96 Emperor Momozono, 3 Ethical thought (rinrishisō), xxix, 157, 163; as culturally particularistic, in Watsuji Tetsurō’s thought, xxix, 163 Ethics (rinri), xxviii–xxix, 41–42, 121, 148, 153–54, 175; Western, 42; Confucian, 52–54, 58, 153; Japanese, 116; care ethics, 147; and Imperial Way, 118, 120; and the five human bonds and relationships, 140–43, 146; complicity of Watsuji Tetsurō’s ethics with totalitarianism (see Watsuji Tetsurō); as universalistic, in Watsuji Tetsurō’s thought, xxix, 157, 163–64; studied by philosophy of ethics, 163 (see also philosophy of ethics) Exemplary nationalism, xxix, 185–86, 198; particularism and universalism of, 186–87; in Germany, 186–87; in Japan, 188–89, 192; in modern China, 192–93, 195, 197; See also nationalism, and Fichte, Johann

F Feminism, xxi, xxviii, 77, 82, 141, 146–48 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 185–88, 198

Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan

Filial piety (kō), xxii, 39, 63, 67, 82, 84, 96, 98, 101, 105, 136, 160, 190, 198 (see also Unity of filial piety and loyalty) Fujii Umon, 6 Fujita Tōko, 67, 69–70, 72, 97–98, 118, 122 Fujiwara Seika, 3 Fukuzawa Yukichi, xix; and Meiroku Magazine, xx, 36, 52 Futabayama, 175

G Gamō Kunpei, 1 Garn, Sheldon, 177 Ge Zhaoguang, 196 Gotō Fumio, 178 Governance (sei), 160 Great Kanto Earthquake, 87–89 Great principle of duty to the ruler (taigi meibun), xxi, 117, 124 Good Wife and Wise Mother (Ryōsai kenbo), xx–xxi, 147, 177; Shimoda Utako on (see Shimoda, Utako)

H Hashimoto Masukichi, 116 Hatoyama Ichirō, 114, 177 Hattori Unokichi, xviii, xxiv, 131–32, 184, 188 Hayashi Razan, xviii, xxi, 1, 3, 95–97, 131 Heaven (Ten), 133; All under Heaven (Tenka), 20, 189 Heavy Sin, 157, 160–62; and national polity discourse, 159 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, xvi, 58, 141 Hegemonic Way (Hadō), 190, 194; distinguished from the Kingly Way, 103–04 Heidegger, Martin, xxiii Herder, Johann Gottfried, 198 Hiratsuka, Raichō, 82, 147; criticism of “good wife and wise mother” ideology, 147 Hirose Gen, 175 Hoashi Banri, 96–97 Hōjō Ujinaga, 2 Hōjō Ujisuke, 2, 4 Hōreki Incident, 3, 4, 6 Hosotani Yoshikazu, 178 House of Growth (seichō no ie), 172

Index

Hu Jintao, 196 Hu Shih, 144

I Ichijō Michika, 3 Iijima Tadao, xxvii; on the Second Sino-Japanese War, xxvii Ikeda Hayato, 172, 178–79 Ikeda Kamesubarō, 175 Imperial Nation (Kōkoju), 99 Imperial Rescript on Education (Kyōiku chokugo), xxii, 15, 52–53, 56, 63–64, 67, 101–02, 105, 107, 111, 117–18, 120–21, 124, 132, 143, 160 Imperial system (tennōsei), 15, 73, 135, 154–55 Imperial Way, xvi, xix; and Shibunkai, xxiv–xxx, 111, 123–24, 188; and Chinese Confucianism, 116, 131, 189; compared and contrasted with the Kingly Way, 94, 99–107, 116–17, 132–33, 136, 189; and the national polity (see national polity); ideological development of during the 1930s, 100–01; and Mito Learning, 97–99, 107, 111, 118–19; and colonial era Korea, 111–12, 117; and pan-Asianism, xxvi, 184–85; and postwar South Korea, 125–26; researched by colonial era Korean scholars at the Chosŏn Gyunghakwon/Chōsen Keigakuin, xxvii– xxviii, 112, 116–23, 124–25 (see also Ahn Insik and Joo Byung-kŏn); promoted by Daitō Bunka Gakuin, xxv, 113–15; philosophical interpretation of, 130–31, 132–36 (see also Takada Shinji) Imperialism: In 20th century Japan, xvi, xxx, 51, 56, 136, 170, 185, 194; Western, 106 Individualism, 67, 82, 86–87, 187, 190; Western 77, 89 Inoue Tetsujirō, xxi–xxiv, 1, 131–32, 153, 160–62, 168–69, 188, 194–95; as pioneering Japanese comparative philosopher, xviii, xxiii–xiv; and complicity with authoritarianism and militarism, xxiii, 56, 155, 170; on Shintō, Yangming Learning and Mito Learning, xxiv, 65–70, 71–74; on Bushidō, 70–71; as leading Shibunkai member, xxvii; and national morality ideology, 15, 64–65, 77–78, 81–84, 145; role in systematizing and modernizing of Chinese philosophy studies at Tokyo University, 53, 56–59; attitude to Christianity

231

(see Christianity); nationalism of, 63; on the decline of Confucianism in Republican era China, 191–92; criticisms of the Three Principles of the People, 192; on the Second Sino-Japanese War, xxvii Irigaray, Luce, 147–48 Ishihara Shintarō, 175 Ishikawa Ichirō, 175 Itō Hajime, 176–77 Itō Jinsai, xviii, 1, 3 Itō Yasujirō, 175 Iwasa Masauji, 176 Iwasawa Iwao, 115 Iwazawa Masaji, 175–76 Iyoda Satoru, 174

J Japanese Bluestocking Society (Seitō-sha), 147 Japanese Enlightenment: and the Meiroku Society, 34, 36, 38, 40, 45 Jesus Christ, 38, 41, 43, 62–63 Jiang Qing, 193; on Confucian constitutionalism, 193; on the tricameral system of a Confucian polity, 193–95; on the Kingly Way, 194–95 Jiang Shigong, 196 Joo Byung-kŏn, xxvii–xxviii, 118, 121–22; studies at Daitō Bunka Gakuin 112, 115; on Japanese Neo-Confucianism and Korean Confucianism, 122–23

K Kaibara Ekken, 96 Kamino Shinichi, 174 Kanamori Shigeichirō, 176 Kang Youwei, xvi Kant, Immanuel, xvi, 61, 186 Kantō Club Society (Kurabu kantō no kai), 176 Karasumaru Mitsutane, 3 Kataoka Yuzō, 176 Katō Genchi, 100 Katō Hiroyuki, xx, 20, 58; as president of Tokyo University, 55–56 Katō Masanosuke, xxv, 114–16 Katō Toranosuke, 118–19 Katsu Kaishū, 20 Kawai Eijirō, 175

232

Kawakami Hajime, 175 Keidanren, 175, 177 Kihira Tadayoshi, 175 Kimon Learning, 8 Kim Sungmoon, 197 Kimura Atsutarō, 172 Kingly Way xxiv, xxvi–xxix; In Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianism, 94; its integration with Shintō in Edo period thought: xxvii, 93–99; 112, 115–17, 131–33, 136, 169, 186, 188–92, 194–95, 198; compared and contrasted with the Imperial Way (see Imperial Way Confucianism) Kingly Way Ideal (Ōdō shisō), 96, 99, 102, 104–05; Yasuoka Masahiro on, 103 Kingly Way Paradise (Ōdō rakudo): Manchuria as, 99 Kinoshita Shigetarō, 113 Kita Ikki, 169 Kitabatake Chikafusa, 117 Kiyōra, Keigo, xxiv Kobayashi Shōichirō, 176 Koizumi Shinzō, 177 Kong Lineage, 184 Konoe Fumimaro, 114 Korean Confucianism Federation (Chosŏnyudoyeonhabho/Chōsen judō rengōkai), 112, 115–17, 124 Kōsaka Masaaki, 173–75 Kuga Toshimichi, 3 Kumazawa Banzan, 1; and Yangming Learning, 68–70, 72, 96 Kyoto School, xvii–xviii Kyoto School philosophers, xviii–xix

L Laws for the Imperial and Court Officials, 3 League of Nations, 113, 115, 146, 187 Learned Wani, The 116 Liang Shuming, xvi, 168 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), xxix, 168, 171–73, 179 Liberalism, 56, 169, 193, 195; neo-liberalism, 145; Western, 196 (see also democracy, liberal) Liu Xiaofeng, 195–96 Loyalism, loyalists, xxii, 12; and Aizawa Seishisai, xxii; Inoue Tetsujirō on, xxiv, 66, 68, 70–71;

Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan

and Shintō, xxvii, 15–16; and Matsumiya Kanzan, 1–2, 7–8, 12, 13, 14–15; and Yamagata Daini, 4, 6–8, 15; and Bushidō, 70–71; and Mito Learning, 66; and Shimoda Utako’s family, 79; and Yoshida Shōin, xxii, 98 Loyalty (chū), xxii, xxvi, xxviii 3–5, 8, 14, 39, 63, 67, 73, 78–79, 82, 84, 86–89, 96, 98, 101, 117–19, 121–22, 124–25, 133, 135–36, 145, 147, 160–61, 190, 198 (see also Unity of loyalty and filial piety) Lu Xun, 104, 144

M Machi Senjurō, 55 Machida Tatsujirō, 178 Maebara Chikuzen no Kami, 2 Maeda Tamon, 177 Makino Nobuaki, 169 Mandate of Heaven (Tenmei), xxii, xxviii, 101, 116, 118, 189–91, 198; Takada Shinji’s research on, 131–35 Maruyama Masao: and postwar taboo on Confucianism xviii–xix, 155; and critical views of Confucianism, xxix; criticism of Watsuji Tetsurō, 143; scholarly impact of his Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, 153–54, 156; his views on Confucianism and modernity contrasted with Watsuji Tetsurō’s, 158–59 Marxism/Marxists, 168–70, 193, 195–96 (see also communism, and Chinese Communist Party) Masuho Zankō (a.k.a. Nokoguchi), 13 Materialism, 41, 145, 187; materialistic civilization, xxv, 114, 190; Western, xxv–xxvi Matsubara Chion, 105–06 Matsuda Genji, 184 Matsumiya Kanzan, xxii; on the idea of the three religions, xviii, 1–7, 10–14; on Shintō as “first among equals” of the three religions in Japan, xxii, 13–14; and the Meiwa Incident, 2, 3–6, 11–12; criticisms of Ogyū Sorai, 7–10, 12, 15; debate with Yamagata Daini, 3, 5–8; and concept of Japanese identity, xxii, 14; early 20th century studies of, 1–2, 13–15 Matsumoto Gaku, 172 May Fourth Movement, 168, 169 McCarthy, Erin, 147–48

Index

Meiji Emperor, xx, 64, 107, 109, 124 Meiji era, xvi, xx, xxii, xxiv, 45, 52–53, 62, 66, 69, 77–78, 80–81, 89, 169–70, 184 Meiroku Magazine (Meiroku-zasshi), xx, 34–35, 45–46; and women’s education, xx; and Confucianism, 36–37; mention of Confucian personages in, 37–38; mention of Confucian texts and ideas in, 38–40; assessments of Confucianism, 41–42, 45–46; use of Confucianism as a pathway of argument in, 44; use of Confucianism as source of instruments and rhetorical devices in, 44–45 Meiroku Society (Meiroku-sha), xx, xxiii, 34–35, 45–46 Meiwa Incident, 2, 3–6, 11–12; and Matsumiya Kanzan (see Matsumiya Kanzan); and Yamagata Daini (see Yamagata Daini) Mencius, xxii, 8–9, 26, 36–37, 42, 44, 55, 57–58, 81, 94–95, 99, 102–04, 116, 131, 136, 189, 199 Militarism, xvii–xviii, xxiv, xxvii, xxx, 50–51, 56, 155, 160, 185–87, 192, 194 Minobe Tatsukichi, 188 Mishima Tsuyoshi, 54 Mishima Yukio, 175 Mito Learning (Mitogaku), xxiv, 62, 65–74, 101, 119, 122, 124, 158, 160–62; and Yangming Learning (see Yangming Learning); and the subordination of the Kingly Way to Shintō, 97–99; and the Imperial Way (see Imperial Way) Modern Confucianism: as ethics xviii, xxix, 52–54, 58, 140–42, 153, 157–64; as thought or ideology (shisō), xvi–xviii, xxi–xxii, xxiv, xxx, 51, 154, 168–69, 176, 179, 199; as philosophy (tetsugaku), xvi, xix xxiii–xxiv, 55–59, 157 Moral Suasion Movement (Kyōka sōdōin undō), 176–77 Morality (shū), 160 Morito Tatsuo, 177 Motoori Norinaga, 11, 13 Mou Zongsan, xvi, 61 Movement for the Restoration of Chinese Culture (Zhongua munhua puxing undong), 178 Movement in Support of the Hi no Maru (Hi no maru yōgo undō), 172 Mozi, 199

233

N Naitō Torajirō (Konan), 104 Nakajima Takahiro, 145 Nakamura Masanao: and Meiroku Magazine, 38, 45–46; teaching at Tokyo University, 54 Nakayama Kyūshirō, 116 Nanma, Tsunanori, 54 Napoleon I, 186 National character (kokumin seishin), 14, 63, 82, 104, 124, 177, 186, 194 National Federation for the Hi no Maru (Zen koku hi no maru rengōkai), 172 National Learning (Kokugaku), xxii, xxvi, 3–4, 6, 11–14, 158, 160–61 National Mainstay Movement (kokuikai), 170, 177 National morality (kokumin dōtoku), xxi, 14–15, 119, 121, 123, 145, 160, 161; Inoue Tetsujirō on (see Inoue Tetsujirō); Shimoda Utako on (see Shimoda Utako) National polity (kokutai), xxiv, xxvi–xxvii, 8, 15, 70, 78, 81–82, 85, 122, 124, 144, 161–62, 170, 188, 192; and Shintō-Confucian thought, xxii, xxvi; and Mito Learning, xxiv, 66, 70–71, 73, 101–02; and Yangming Learning, 63, 65–66, 70–71, 73; and the Imperial Way, xxvii–xxviii, 105, 112–21, 125, 189; and ultra-nationalism, 185; national polity discourse (see national polity discourse) National polity discourse (kokutairon), 159–60, 162 Nationalism, xxiii, xxvi, 50–51, 56, 63, 73, 125, 158, 169, 171, 191, 193–94, 197; modular nationalism, 185, 187; proto-nationalism, xxii; exemplary (see exemplary nationalism); ultranationalism (see ultranationalism) Natsume Sōseki, 161 Nazism, xxiii, 170, 187, 190 Neo-Confucianism, xvi, xxiii, 3–5, 8–10, 14, 21–22, 37, 42, 45, 57, 66–67, 69–71, 94, 96, 97, 122 (see also Zhu Xi, Zhu Xi Learning, Wang Yangming and Wang Yangming Learning) New Bureaucrats (shinkanryō), 169, 170, 172–73, 178 New Confucianism, 140–41, 144–49 (see also Watsuji Tetsurō)

234

New Cultural Movement, 144; Hu Shih and Lu Xun’s connection to, 144 New Life Movement (Japanese) (Shin seikatsu undō), 176–78 New Life Movement (Republican Chinese) (Xin Shenghuo yundong), 190–91 New Life Movement Association (Shin seikatsu undō kyōkai), 177 New Order for East Asia (Tōa shinchitsujo), 170 Niijima Yae, xx Nijō Akizane, 3 Nikkeiren, 177 Nintoku, Emperor, 84–85, 96, 102 Nishi Amane, xix–xx, 160; and Meiroku Magazine, 36–37, 42–45 Nishida Kitarō, xvii–xviii, 161, 169 Nishimura Shigeki, xix–xx, 20, 160; and Meiroku Magazine, 34–35, 41–42, 45 Nishitani Keiji, xvii–xviii Nitobe Inazo, 161 Northern Court, 79

O Obata Kagenori, 2 Odawara Taizō, 173, 175 O’Dwyer, Shaun, 145 Ōgai Mori, 161 Ōgimachisanjō Kintsumu, 3 Ogitani Shōzō, 176 Ogyū Shigehiro, 62 Ogyū Sorai, viii, xxii, 1, 7–10, 12–13, 15; and “Way of Ancient Kings,” 94–95; alleged Chinese Confucianism bias of, 10 Okahashi Shigeru, 175 Okakura Tenshin (Kakuzō), 71; on the First SinoJapanese War, xxvi Okamura Rihei, 119, 122 Ōkawa Shūmei, 169 Okita Yukuji, xxiii Ōkubo Toshimichi, 169 Okumura Iwako, 83 Okumura Tsunao, 175 Ōmotokyō, 99 Orientalism, 185 Orthodox Confucianism, 57, 159, 162–63 Ōshio Heihachirō (Chūsai), 63, 65, 74, 97; and Ōshio Heihachirō Incident, 97

Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan

Otagaki Shiyō, 175

P Pan-Asianism, xxvi–xxvii, 168–69, 184–85 Paramore, Kiri, xviii 51, 145 Parent-Teacher Associations, 190 Park Chunghee, 178 Park Sedang, 131, 134 Particularism, 186, 191–92; cultural, 155, 163, 188; moral, 188; Japanese, 170 Particularity (tokushusei), 157, 163 Patriotic Women’s Association (Aikoku fujinkai): and Shimoda Utako, 77, 83, 86–87, 89 “Paying due respect” to the subject being studied (kyokei), 21–22 Perry, Matthew Calbraith, xxiii, 187; and Yoshida Shōin Stowaway Incident, 26–27 Petzold, Bruno, 188, 190 Philosophy of ethics (rinrigaku), 154, 156; as investigation of principles in universal ethics in Watsuji Tetsurō’s thought, 156–57, 163 Plato, 136 Platonic philosophy, 195–96 Popular Confucianism, 158 Practice (jissen), 67–68; and Shimoda Utako, 80, 87, 89 Principle (ri), 21, 131; Principle of Heaven, 42–43 Puyi, xxvi, 99, 184

Q Question of thought (shisō mondai), 170

R Rawls, John, 197 Rectification of Names (seimei), 8; Takada Shinji’s research on, xxviii, 133, 135–36 Return to Stillness School (Kijakuha), 69 Revolution (kakumei), 103, 123, 190–91 Righteousness (gi), 11, 26, 38, 55, 95, 98, 119, 134, 190, 199

S Saitō Eisaku, 172 Saitō Makoto, 114

Index

Sakai Tadamasa, 169 Sakai Tadaoki, 11 Sakamoto Ryōma, 20 Sakata Katsurō, 176 Sakatani Shiroshi: and Meiroku Magazine 41, 45 Sakatani Yoshiro, 184 Sakuma, Shōzan, xxii–xxiii, 30–31; and Western learning, 20, 21–26; and Zhu Xi Learning, 21– 22; and Yangming Learning, 66, 68; and the Halma Dictionary, 24–26; and the Yoshida Shōin Stowaway Incident, 26–30; relationship with Yoshida Shōin (see Yoshida Shōin) Sakuma Taika, 97 Satō Eisaku, 172, 179 Satō Keijirō, 103 Scheler, Max, 169 Schmitt, Carl, xxiii, 196 Scholar(s) of the state (goyōgakusha), 21, 170 Sevilla, Anton, 143, 148 Shao Kangjie, 37 Shiba Ryōtarō, 174 Shibunkai, xvi, 50, 100, 111, 123, 130–32; educational and political influence of, xxiv–xxviii; and the 1935 Yushima Sage Hall Conference on the Confucian Way, xxix, 184–85, 188, 192 Shibusawa Eiichi, xxiv, 100 Shimada Chōrei, 54, 58 Shimoda Utako, xx–xxi; and women’s education promotion, xx, 77, 80; on national morality, xxi, 77–78, 81–83, 87, 89; on good wife and wise mother, 78, 80–82, 89; views on Confucianism, 78–79, 81; and “putting into practice” (see practice) Shintō, Shintoism, xviii, xx, xxii–xxiii, xxvii, 1–20, 40, 65, 67, 70, 73, 77–78, 93–102, 132; and Ancient Learning, 11, 95; and relation with Confucianism in Edo era and modern Japanese thought, xxi–xxiv, xxvi, 3, 5, 10–13, 35, 94–99 (see also Three Religions Thought); State Shintō, xxii, 1–2, 13–16, 65, 107; Suika Shintō, xxii, 5, 8; and the Imperial Way, 99–102; and the Kingly Way, 94–99 Shionoya On, 188, 195; pioneering Chinese literature studies of, 188; on the Kingly Way and Imperial Way, 131, 189–91; criticisms of the Three Principles of the People, 191–92; on the Second Sino-Japanese War, xxvii, 192

235

Shōwa era, 78, 99, 189 Shun (legendary sage king), 7, 37, 135 Sima Qian, 94 Six Classics, 38, 95, 116 Smith, Warren, xxv–xxvi, 50 Social Relationism: and Watsuji Tetsurō’s thought, 142–43, 146 Socialism, xxi, 193, 196 (see also communism and Marxism) Society for Promotion of Japanese Confucianism (Nihon jukyō senyōkai), 113–15 Society of Nothing Above (Virtue) (Muikai), 175–76 Society of Public Spirit (Soshinkai), 173 Sorai Learning (Soraigaku), 8 (see also Ogyū Sorai) Southern Court, 79 Statism, xxvii, 186–87, 190, 197; statist nationalism, 192–93; statist Confucians, 186, 199 Strauss, Leo, 195–96 (see also the Chinese Straussians) Suffragettes, 190 Sugahara Heiji, 175; and the Training Center for the Development of the North-east, 175 Sun Yat-sen, 191–92 Suzuki, D.T., xvii–xviii; and Zen Buddhism, xvii–xviii

T Tachibana Shiraki, 104 Taishō era, 177 Takada Shinji, xxv, xxviii, 130–31; and Hattori Unokichi and Inoue Tetsujirō’s mentorship of, 131–32; prominent role in Shibunkai, xxv, 132; scholarship on the Imperial Way, 132–36 Takada Tsuneo, 176 Takada Yasuma, 173 Takahashi Tōru, 112, 117, 130 Takasugi Shin’ichi, 172 Takayama Hikokurō, 1 Takebe Kin’ichi, 114 Takenouchi Shikibu, 3 Tanabe Hajime, xvii–xviii Ten virtues of Japanese women, 82 Three forms of obedience, 80

236

Three guiding moral principles of Confucianism, 144–45, 148 Three Imperial Treasures, 95–96 Three Principles of the People (San min zhuyi), 191–92 (see also Shionoya On, and Inoue Tetsujirō) Three Religions, xxii; in Matsumiya Kanzan’s thought, 1–7, 10–14; and modern state Shintō and ultranationalism, 15–16 Ting Shih-yuan, 114 Togawa Yoshio, 50 Tōjō Kindai, 79 Tokudaiji Kinmura, 3 Tokugawa Confucianism, 153, 158–59 Tokugawa Hidetada, 3 Tokugawa Iesato, 184 Tokugawa Ieyasu, 3 Tokugawa Kuniyuki, 184 Tokugawa Mitsukuni, 1–2, 117 Totalitarianism, xxviii; Watsuji Tetsurō’s complicity with, see Watsuji Tetsurō Totality of the people (kokumin no zentaisei), 160 Training Center for the Development of the North-East (Tōhoku shinkō kenjushō), 175 Tsuda Mamichi, xx; and Meiroku Magazine, 40–45 Tsuda Umeko, xx

U Uchida Ryōhei, 100 Uchimura Kanzō, 62, 161; criticized by Inoue Tetsujirō, 64 Ultranationalism, xvii, xxvii, 2, 13, 156, 160–61, 185, 188, 192, 198 Unification of the spoken and written Japanese language (genbun itchi), 54 Unity of knowledge and action (chikō gōitsu), xxiv; Inoue Tetsujirō on, 68, 71–72; and Shimoda Utako, 78–79, 87–89 Unity of loyalty and filial piety (chūko icchi/ chūko ippon), xxii, 73, 78, 101, 122 (see also loyalty, and filial piety) Universalism, 185–88, 197; universalizing of Confucian Kingly Way, 188–91, 194–95; of Confucianism, xxix–xxx, 158–59, 161–64, 197–99 Universality (fuhensei), 157, 163

Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan

Uno Osamu, 176 Uno Tetsudō, 111, 123

W Wandering Soul (you hun), xv–xvi, xviii, xxiv Wang Sun Jia, 134 Wang Yangming, 37, 41, 65, 68–69, 72, 78, 169 (see also Yangming Learning) Watsuji Tetsurō, xxiv, xxviii–xxix; and the Kyoto School, xvii–xviii; engagement with Confucian thought, xxviii, 141–42, 153–64; ethics of, xxviii–xxix 140–43, 145–46, 148–49, 153–54, 156–58, 161–64; complicity with totalitarianism, xxviii, 140, 142–44; debate concerning his support for ultra-nationalism, 154–55; and New Confucianism, 144–46, 149; views on democracy, 145–46; conservative gender ideology of, 146–49; compared with Maruyama Masao (see Maruyama Masao) Way of the Warrior (see Bushidō) Wisdom: as Confucian virtue, 95–96, 111, 134 Wooden Chicken Society (Mokkekai), 175

X Xi, Jinping, 196–97 Xia Lianji, 170 Xunzi, 8–9, 14

Y

Yao (legendary sage king), 7, 37, 135 Yasuoka Masahiro, xviii, xxix; on the Imperial Way, 103, 131; and Confucian philosophy of, 168–69, 171; involvement with Japan’s war era imperialist policy, 170–71; and postwar Confucianist networks, 172–76; Involvement with New Life Movement, 176–78; fading intellectual legacy of, 179 Yoshida Shigeru, 170, 172 Yoshida Shōin, xxii–xxiii, 20–21, 68, 70–71, 98–99, 118; relationship with Sakuma Shōzan, 20, 26–31; and stowaway incident of 1854, 27–30 Yoshimi Yoshikazu, 11 Yu (legendary sage king), 37 Yu Ying-shih, xv–xvi, xxviii Yuasa Kurahei, 184

Z Zhang Yangzao, 170 Zheng Xiaoxu, 100–01 Zhu Xi, 10, 37, 41, 43, 57, 68, 189 Zhu Xi Learning (see also Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, and Neo-Confucianism), 3–5, 8–10, 21–22, 69, 70–71, 79, 131, 158, 171; and Mito Learning, 66, 71; and Yangming Learning, 68, 71; and Shintō, 95–96; Shimoda Utako’s criticisms of, 81, 89 Zi Lu, 134 Zisi, 9

Yamaga Sokō, 1–2; and Bushidō School, 70–71, 122 Yamagata Daini, 1, 9, 10, 15, 70; and debate with Matsumiya Kanzan, 3, 5–8; and the Meiwa Incident, 3–4; and loyalism (see Loyalists/ loyalism) Yamagiwa Masamichi, 177 Yamakawa Sutematsu, xx–xxi Yamazaki Ansai, xviii, xxi, 3–5, 8 Yan Lineage, 184 Yang Zhu, 199 Yangming Learning (Yōmeigaku) (see also Wang Yangming), xxiv, 62–63, 96, 97, 171; and Inoue Tetsujirō on Mito Learning , 63–70, 72–74; and Shimoda Utako, 78–79, 87, 89; and Yasuoka Masahiro, 169, 171

Index

237