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4 - Tokugawa Philosophy

A Socio-Historical Introduction

from Part I - The Character of the Early Modern State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2024

By
Federico Marcon
Edited by
David L. Howell
David L. Howell
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

This chapter situates in the social context of Tokugawa Japan the emergence of a class of scholars who engaged in the production of texts and in practices that aimed at developing authoritative inquiries on the nature of reality and the laws that govern it (metaphysics); the motivations, norms, and aims of moral life (ethics); the function and rules of language (philology and linguistics); the principles of good government (politics); and the legitimation of cognitive claims (epistemology), among others. Operating within different institutional frameworks and through texts circulating in a variety of formats (manuscript and printed commentaries, treatises, glossaries, dictionaries, collected lecture notes, etc.), these scholars (generically known as jusha) developed a philosophical archive that should be regarded as a qualitatively and quantitatively unprecedented event in Japanese history outside Buddhist institutions.

Keywords

ConfucianismJapanese philosophysocial history of intellectualsjushaShōheizaka AcademyHayashi RazanYamazaki AnsaitetsugakuZhu XiKumazawa BanzanOgyū SoraiKaibara Ekiken
Type
Chapter
Information
The New Cambridge History of Japan , pp. 128 - 158
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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