Philosophy in Japan

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Like the general cultural development of Japan , the philosophy developed in the island kingdom cannot be explained without the decisive adoption of ideas initially from East Asian countries up to the 17th century, the subsequent and almost 200 years of isolation of Japan, as well as its in the 19th century incipient striving for global political influence. In addition, the philosophy developed in Japan was always closely interrelated with the domestic political power struggles of the secular and religious authorities with and with one another.

Although up until a few years ago it was controversial in the academic discourse of comparative cultural studies whether there was any Japanese philosophy or philosophy in Japan before the Meiji period , this question is currently mostly answered positively, as it has been undeniable in Japan for a long time I have had intellectual debates on classical philosophical questions and topoi for a while. In particular, due to the language barrier and the mixing of philosophical and religious concepts inherent in Buddhism in particular, the elaboration of genuinely philosophical ideas in the premodern era remains a largely unsolved task.

Up to the present day, the engagement with Japanese philosophy has also often been determined by more or less strong aspects of the Nihonjinron . Both authors from America and Europe as well as from Japan itself have mostly adopted different prejudices regarding the alleged, timeless, culture-specific "nature of Japanese thought" from the time of the Kokugaku and subsequent discourse traditions . Because of the misunderstandings and fallacies that inevitably arise from these assumptions (such as the fact that there is a “Japanese logic” in which the proposition of the excluded third party does not apply), recent authors argue for it rather than for a “Japanese philosophy” To talk about “philosophy in Japan”, whereby “Japan” can and must only be understood as a rough, geographical and only partially uniform geopolitical context.

history

One of the reasons for the late beginning of an independently developing, philosophical thinking in Japan is the late adoption of the written form or the development of one's own script. The Japanese writing system was not derived from the previously imported Chinese script until the 7th or 8th century .

Simultaneously with the introduction of the Chinese script, the Chinese scriptures written in it were received, which introduced Daoist, Confucian, Neo-Confucian and Buddhist ideas in Japan and from then on with the indigenous religious traditions (see Shinto ) in a strongly syncretistic way the philosophical thinking in Japan, each with a different focus, up to the 20th century. For many centuries, Chinese continued to have the status of a diplomatic and scholarly language, similar to Latin in Europe, and for a long time Chinese texts formed the only relevant corpus for philosophical studies (it was only late in Japan that the original Indian texts, among other things, were turned to , instead of the Chinese translations).

From the beginning, the theoretical relationship between language and philosophical truth was closely linked to the ancient mythology of Japan , in which the view prevailed , probably also due to the different pronunciation variants of the Chinese used in Japan (see On-Reading and Kun-Reading ) that naturally all components of reality were or at least were gifted with languages. Another example is the idea of kotodama , magical words endowed with transformative power, which are already mentioned in the oldest Japanese collection of poems, the Man'yōshū .

antiquity

Yayoi time

The inhabitants of Japan, which had not yet become a political and cultural unit, had their first contact with philosophical ideas in the Yayoi period through immigrants with groups of more than 1,000 people who arrived from continental East Asia on the various islands of Japan. They came largely from areas of China during the Warring States Period and the beginning of the Qin Dynasty , as well as what is now Korea . This contact was expanded and a close cultural exchange between the individual tribes or small states of Japan had existed since around 108 (the main political contact for correspondence was Queen Himiko ) with the Korean states ( Gaya , Baekje and Silla ), the Han court and the Chinese colony of Lelang in Korea.

Confucianism

The first Japanese sources that explicitly name the adoption of philosophical classics or the teaching content they contain from continental East Asia to Japan or that have been copied or modeled on their own using the Chinese (in some places literally from e.g. Han Shu , Hou Hanshu and Zuo Zhuan ), Adopting myths, are the oldest written evidence in the Japanese language that has survived: the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki . In these, u. a. also mentioned by reference to (no longer preserved) works from the Yayoi period, the importation of the Analects of Confucius and other Confucian classics of the Han period towards the end of the Yayoi period. Chinese sources, such as the Wei Zhi , date the awareness of at least the terminology of the Confucianist state philosophy (such as humanity (or humanity ), wisdom , loyalty , heavenly mandate (i.e. legitimation of rule through pacification) and filial piety ) in Japan much earlier . In doing so, however, essential classic Confucian ideas on the same topic were left out, which contradicted the ideology required for the unification of Japan. B. the duty to murder a tyrant in case of unjust rule. In this respect, the Japanese traditions of reception of Chinese Confucianism largely corresponded to legalistic ideals.

Daoism

According to historians (including Nelly Naumann ), the philosophical foundations of Daoist cosmogony were already known in the Yayoi period and also incorporated into the state-supporting, but for the first time impersonalized and thus rationalized, myths that are later also found in Kojiki and Nihonshoki. So it says in Kojiki: "When the original matter coagulated, but breath and form did not emerge, there were neither designations nor actions (ch. Wu ming wu wei )" The terms "unnamed" ( wu ming ) and "inaction" ( wu wei ) can already be found literally in the Daoist classics Daodejing and Zhuangzi . Beyond that, Taoist ideas had no further relevance for philosophy in Japan. It was only from the 7th century that they gained greater importance in this context.

Kofun and Asuka period (552–710)

Buddhism

(Chinese) Buddhism (above all Mahayana Buddhism) was and is one of the most important sources for the philosophical concepts that arose in Japan, especially in the disciplines of logic , philosophy of mind , aesthetics , ethics and ontology , whereby the Buddhist philosophy , (at least in the factual questions), especially the concepts of the independent of the pure faith three existence characteristics , the four noble truths , the eightfold path and the emergence depending devoted. The theories developed in the process were mostly determined to a large extent by an orientation towards the predominantly religiously motivated life practice. Later, from the Heian period onwards, the religious element was to dominate the discourses held within Buddhism in Japan.

The unofficial introduction of Buddhism in Japan began at the latest with the establishment at the Yamato court in the Kofun period by Korean settlers from Paekche . Buddhism, with its universal claim to validity and yet tolerant, was, like all other religious-philosophical traditions, also included in the philosophically legitimized unification of the Japanese Empire (for example, together with Confucianist ideas, in the 17-article constitution of Crown Prince Shōtoku ).

This, as well as the specific form of Buddhism practiced for the first time in Japan, a magical ritual Buddhism similar to traditional popular belief, explains the characteristic way of the ancient Japanese thinkers to place less emphasis on mutually exclusive and rival, consistent but abstract theories. rather, in the dispute, the more comprehensive and most harmonizing with already established ideas should be preferred. This also resulted in the rapid identification of local deities (the kami ) with the Buddhas in the so-called Shinbutsu-Shūgō .

Under Kimmei -tennō, Buddhism was officially introduced in Japan during the Asuka period . In this context it was consistently developed into a state-supporting religion and corresponding teachings, doctrines and philosophies were supported.

Confucianism, Legalism and Yin-Yang

In the last decades of the Asuka period the Taika reform began and with it the introduction of the Ritsuryō system , in which detailed legal norms in Japan were fixed and standardized in writing for the first time and which continued into the Nara period. The central idea of ​​these political and legal reforms was the unification of the empire under a single ruler ( Tennō ), the abolition or weakening of the old nobility with replacement by a general civil service, as well as the implementation of the principles of punishment and reward for all state-supporting virtues by means of a total rule of the law on the one hand and legitimation and efficiency of rule and administration through deliberate criticism (Japanese kan , Chinese jian ) and methodological mistrust on the other. Even though very few of these demands were actually implemented in the long term, these state-philosophical and ethical concepts , which are clearly oriented towards Confucianism and legalism , nevertheless proved relevance for further philosophical discussions in Japanese history. Until the discussion about Neo-Confucianism in the Edo period, these philosophical ideas were largely accepted uncritically, in contrast to the discourse within Buddhism.

The 17-article constitution mentioned above (traditionally dated to 604, i.e. before the Taika reform) argues for the idea of ​​a universal state supported by such ideals and uses classical Confucianist terms technici for this, e.g. B. "benevolence" or "humanity / humanity" (jap. Jin , chin. Ren ), "perfectly formed custom" (jap. Rei , chin. Li ), "legality" (jap. Gi , chin. Yi ), " Wisdom "(Japanese chi , Chinese zhi )," Trustworthiness "(Japanese shin , Chinese xin )," Loyalty "(Japanese chū , Chinese zhong ) and" Harmony "(Japanese wa , Chinese he ) . Quotations and paraphrases in the constitution u. a. the Chinese scripts Lun Yu , Li Ji , Xun Zi , Zuo Zhuan , Shu Jing , Shi Jing , Xiao Jing , Zhong Yong , Han Shu and Qian Zi Wen, which are commonly considered Confucianist . Another fundamental idea is that of the “ordinary person” (Japanese bombu or tadabito ), with which the plausibility and possibility of implementing a harmony principle are argued.

General edicts, which explained and explained the specific changes in the law of the Taika reform, as well as the Ritsuryō itself, also related in their terminology as well as in paraphrases and quotations directly to state-philosophical ideas of Confucianism and legalism. In addition to the ideals mentioned above, recurring moments were also that of a government that no longer needs to intervene in the course of events due to the perfection of laws, as well as the adoption of the Confucianist philosophy of history and historiography (following the hypothetical perspective, the course of history and dynasties are changed by moral The establishment of a Confucian university, the increased influence of Yin-Yang - natural philosophy (e.g. in the form of the ideas of harmony through the unity of heaven and earth, the unity of Ruler and subject correspond; and the unity of man and nature in the multiplicity of (ten thousand) things in the world) and the criticism of superstition and lavish cult of the dead.

Nara period (710-794)

Buddhism

One of the first important currents of classical Japanese Buddhism was the loose organization of the so-called six Nara schools in the Nara period , which under the auspices of the imperial court (initially under Shōmu ) study the classical scriptures of mainland Chinese Buddhism and the Chinese translations dedicated to the Indian originals. The six Nara schools were Kusha-shū , Jōjitsu-shū , Sanron-shū , Hossō-shū , Kegon-shū and Risshū ; In addition, there were numerous other Buddhist schools (of the philosophically relevant are inter alia : Hokke-shū (forerunner of Nichiren Buddhism ), Nehan-shū , Jiron-shū and Shōron-shū ).

Central themes of Buddhism of the Nara period were the terms kū (emptiness / insubstantiality ), engi (arising in dependence), hossō (the dharma and their properties / characteristics / manifestations), zokutai (俗諦, worldly truth), shintai (真諦, supreme truth), nehan ( nirvana ) and busshō (Buddha-nature).

Except for the Risshū there was consensus that zokutai was insubstantial and conditional. With the exception of the Kusha-shū there was also agreement that, according to the thesis of twofold insubstantiality, the dharma themselves are insubstantial and only arise to a limited extent.

Hossō-shū and Kegon-shū interpreted the entry into nirvana (ie the attainment of Buddha-nature) as the realization of a certain, true way of being, which is expressed in behavior (above all: do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not lie, none Defamation, speaking in a winning and level-headed manner; justified by the golden rule ) expressions. This corresponds to an ontologization of ethical questions.

Philosophical studies and discussions took place in the Buddhist temples, for the most part on some of the main texts of the six Nara schools ( Kusha-ron , Jōjitsu-ron , Chūron , Jōyuishiki-ron ) and two logical writings of the Sanron-shū ( Jūnimon-ron and Hyaku -ron ; basic writings of the Buddhist logic and argumentation theory practiced in Japan (Japanese immyō , skt. hetu-vidyā , Chinese yin ming )). All of these texts have shaped the philosophical discussion within Buddhism in Japan up to the present day and are still considered relevant and fundamental subjects of study.

The logic and ontology developed by the Sanron-shū remained authoritative for a long time. Until 660 their teachings dominated the philosophical discourse, in the hierarchy of the schools it was then replaced by the Hosso-shu until around 810.

Heian period (794–1185)

With the establishment of esoteric Buddhism (密 教, mikkyō ; the Japanese equivalent of Vajrayana ) in Japan by Kūkai and, in contrast to esoteric Buddhism, then also called “exoteric” (顕 教, kenkyō ), Tiantai zong Buddhism by Saichō continued in the Heian period the emergence of two new, important Buddhist schools in Japan: The Tendai-shū was particularly promoted by Kammu -tennō, who, in addition to the transfer of the court to Heian-kyō , a counterweight to the politically very powerful Buddhist schools wanted to create in Nara. Later, under Saga-tennō , the Shingon-shū received similar state support.

Both schools were distinguished by the detailed development of new metaphysics and strongly ritualized aesthetics, but at the same time the emphasis of academic interest was placed much more on religion than philosophy. Mythology and (magical) rituals also played a larger role in Tendai and Shingon Buddhism and decisively determined the further development of Buddhism in Japan.

Tendai Buddhism

The highly speculative and partly linguistically based teaching of Chinese Tiantai Buddhism was studied by Saichō at the end of the 8th century in a settlement on Mount Hiei . Between 804 and 805 he was able to deepen his studies in China as a participant in a Japanese expedition on originals. When he returned to Japan, he became a bitter competitor to Kūkai. He reformulated the Tiantai doctrine with explicitly religious and nationalist-pro-state aspects: the (religious) sutras are more important than the (philosophical) śāstra , and above all others the lotus sutra is also the expression of the highest Buddhist truth. Furthermore, “pure” Mahayana (which also decidedly Mahayanist schools like the Hossō excluded as “Hinayanist”) is the fastest and most sustainable vehicle (i.e. teaching to enlightenment), and Japan is the land of Mahayana. Another postulate of Saichō was the disposition of all beings to Buddha-nature. The Tendai-shū was not officially recognized until shortly after his death, whereupon it soon split into many different schools that competed with one another in the sharpest possible way. Significant representatives were Ennin (792–862), Enchin (814–891), Annen (841–889 or 893) and Genshin (942–1017), who all emphasized the esoteric elements of the Tendai teachings.

Although the Tendai-shū was later often characterized (especially by the Shingon-shū) as "exoteric", this designation is misleading in that Saichō explicitly adopted elements of the mikkyō (such as the Sutra Dainichi-kyō ) which he used in China had got to know, where he also received esoteric ordinations. The difference between exoteric and esoteric Buddhism lies, roughly speaking, in the emphasis on the latter on comprehensive and regular (magical) mantra and ritual systems on the one hand and sensuality-affirming theories on the other.

Many interpreters of the Tendai ontology believe that the school identifies the absolute or the noumenon with the phenomenal or relative, although the absolute would presuppose one of the threefold truth of insubstantiality, conventionality and the center of the Tiantai after the impossible, independent. Others place the so-called doctrine of unity of the Tendai school like that they have a immanence mean, but what the in the triple truth explicated notion of Soheit (Skt. Tathata ; jap真如. Shinnyo ) would make superfluous.

“The philosophical principle (sc. The Tendai school) is the idea of ​​the chūdō , the middle way, taken from the Mādhyamika-śāstra . Already the Śākyamuni the Hīnayāna - Sutta had the middle (...) taught (...), not in the by Indian philosopher set snares of eternalism and nihilism to catch (...) (This doctrine had) however still no strong metaphysical character. In the undeveloped Mahāyāna Buddhism we also find the principle of the "middle" (...) It is only formulated negatively (...), but a clearly metaphysical sense is already contained in this principle insofar as the "middle" now becomes indefinable, the neither existence nor non-existence is (...) Finally, this principle is given a positive interpretation, and that happens in the (...) Mahāyāna-śāstras, where we mean the mean with the Supreme Absolute, the Primordial Reality, (...) the “True Likeness «(Jap. Shinnyo ) equated. In the formulation given by Chih-i (Zhi Yi), according to which the emptiness, the being and the mean are identical with each other, this middle way doctrine completely clears up all opposites and makes a wonderful synthesis of everything that is seemingly incompatible. "

- Bruno Petzold : The quintessence of the T'ien-t'ai (Tendai) teaching. Wiesbaden 1982, ISBN 3447021616 .
Shingon Buddhism

Kūkai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism (of shingon , Japanese for Skt.. Mantra ; particularly important Kūkai According to the mantras A and hum to), represented a semiotic or symbol theoretical and aesthetic pantheism , for him was the reality as Dharmakaya ( Jap. hosshin ), the dharma-body of the three-body teachings of trikaya , (essential or metaphor adhesive) is identical to the person of Buddha Dainichi-Nyorai (the Adibuddha Mahä Vairocana Tathāgata ), the enlightened in a perpetual state of meditation the three major activities of esoteric Buddhism, which as it were the nature of the universe, d. H. to express oneself: thinking in the manner of visualizing structural, geometric symbols ( mandala ), speaking in the manner of chanting sacred syllables, microcosmic resonances of energy and matter as constituents of the basic elements ( mantra ), acting in the manner of performing sacred postures and hand gestures as constituents of the pattern of change ( mudra ).

The possible enlightenment of a single person resulted for Kūkai from the experience of himself and thus of the Buddha Dainichi-Nyorai in all these three dimensions. A purely spiritual insight would leave out essential elements of reality; only in the complete experience of the particulars is the totality of the cosmos adequately experienced.

For these reasons, Kūkai rejected atomistic and realistic (represented by the Jōjitsu-shū and the Kusha-shū), as well as nominalistic (Sanron) and idealistic (Hossō-shū) concepts. Most likely he was able to come to terms with the Kegon-shū in this regard during his lifetime.

Furthermore, Kūkai developed a theory of the ten levels of consciousness (十 住 心, jū jūshin ), which represent certain philosophical-religious basic attitudes and, building on each other, culminate in the Shingon doctrine:

  1. ishō teiyō-shin (異 生 羝 羊 心): vegetating, determined by instinct and desire
  2. gudō jisai-shin (愚 童 持 斎 心): Orientation towards ethics and culture ( Confucianism )
  3. yōdō mui-shin (嬰童 無畏 心) striving for immortality or rebirth ( Daoism )
  4. yuiun muga-shin (唯 蘊 無 我 心): insight into the insubstantiality of the ego (first Buddhist level, the Śrāvakayāna, Japanese 声聞 乘, shōmon-jō )
  5. batsu gōinju-shin (抜 業 因 種 心): insight into the emergence in dependence (corresponds to Pratyekayāna, Japanese 縁 覚 乘, engaku-jō )
  6. taen daijō-shin (他 縁 大乗 心): Altruistic Mahayana spirit ( Yogācāra of the Hossō-shū )
  7. kakushin fushō-shin (覚 心 不 生 心): Insight into the eightfold negation ( happu ) ( Madhyamaka of the Sanron-shū )
  8. nyojitsu ichidō-shin (如 実 一道 心): insight into the original purity of consciousness ( Tendai-shū )
  9. goku mujishō-shin (極 無 自 性 心): Insight into the changeability of one's own nature ( Kegon-shū )
  10. himitsu shōgon-shin (秘密 荘 厳 心): enlightenment qua esoteric consciousness (Shingon-Mikkyō, as described above)

Middle Ages (1185-1603)

Kamakura period (1185-1333)

During the Kamakura period , a number of new Buddhist schools emerged, most of them founded by monks from the tradition of the Tendai-shu. For the first time, they were not only directed primarily to the nobility, but also to the common people as a whole, to whom they held out the prospect of salvation from their suffering in this world by means of new ideas of philosophical anthropology in a time determined by natural disasters and wars . The most important of these schools can be counted among the currents of the amidistic Pure Land and Zen Buddhism, which are still among the most influential Buddhist schools in Japan. You both particularly emphasize the disposition of the suffering beings to enlightenment through their own strength (自力, jiriki ).

Pure Land Buddhism

The Buddhism of the Pure Land focuses on the promise of the Pure Land of Buddha Amida , in which he is to live with a large number of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in complete harmony with the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama . In contrast to other schools of Amitabha Buddhism, the representatives of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism postulate the possibility of entering the Pure Land in this life and returning from it to this world in order to help those who are not yet enlightened to get to the Pure Land.

Strictly speaking, Pure Land Buddhism does not belong to philosophical Buddhism. Almost nowhere in the Japanese intellectual history is the difference between religious and philosophical arguments more pronounced than here, which is expressed in the emphasis on (unconditional) belief instead of the resolution of false views (as the first link in the twelve- link chain of emergence in dependence ) through correct knowledge. Nevertheless, this predominantly religious form of Buddhism contains a logical-argumentative core that is supposed to justify the turn to belief.

Shinran , a student of Hōnen (the founder of the Jōdo-shū ) and himself the founder of the Jōdo-Shinshū , criticized the traditional view in Buddhist practice that enlightenment can be achieved through conscious practice of the Buddhist disciplines (meditation, reading classical texts and singing), because this presupposes an ego , which the traditional doctrine of enlightenment promises a reward and which thereby understands itself as unauthorized, but which ultimately the ego, also in the Buddhist tradition, understood as the greatest obstacle on the way to Enlightenment, only strengthening.

However, only through the consequent abandonment of the idea of ​​an autonomous ego and the possible complete surrender (as an entrustment with a pure heart and mind (信心, shinjin ), which does not presuppose subject or object) to the Buddha Amida and his promise to all To redeem suffering beings, enlightenment is attainable in this life. With his conception of shinjin , Shinran established a new understanding of belief that stood in contrast to the previously traditional terms: shinrai (信 頼, a pragmatic belief based on experience and probability) and shinkō (信仰, an upward-looking belief based on admiration Faith; the term common up to Shinran and used both by Hons and in the translation of the Christian Bible into Japanese in connection with religious matters).

Zen Buddhism

In contrast to the doctrine of the Pure Land, Zen master Dōgen (1200-1253), who founded the school of Sōtō-shū introduced from China in Japan, had an affirmative orientation towards Buddhist practice. However, this is not a means to an end, but the goal in itself. Seriously stated, this practice is in a position to allow everyone to participate in their already existing but not yet manifest enlightenment. Since the ego is unable to determine the perspective of experience in a state of uncontrolled absence of thought, an immediate insight into the true essence of things and phenomenal reality is possible. Because the ego is absent in this state, according to Dōgen it is identical to the state of enlightenment.

By transferring this meditatively experienced practice of the absence of thought and thus also of given meaning into the reality of everyday life, there is also a possibility of breaking the cycle of self-affirming prejudices of the ego and the true relative appropriateness of the meaning of experience in the To understand the constant change of the contexts of reality (see Anicca ), which enables a permanent enlightenment beyond the meditation of zazen .

Although Zen Buddhism often rejects philosophical reflection, its general distrust in knowledge qua language means that it has a special philosophical means: the koan as a paradoxical formulation, the resolution of which can help those who reflect on it to real knowledge. However, especially in the case of dogens, it can be shown that koans are in turn integrated into a quasi-philosophical text.

Other important representatives of Zen Buddhism according to Dōgen were u. a. in the early development Eisai (1141-1215), and later Takuan Sōhō (1573-1645) and Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769).

Edo period (1603–1868)

After the Kamakura period until the unification of Japan brought under the military rule of the shogunate of the Tokugawa a long, steady state of peace, the Edo period rang. Extensive political reforms have been carried out towards a highly centralized administration of the country in all areas of social life. A few decades after the start of these measures, the closure of Japan was also implemented, which was to shield the island kingdom almost completely from all external influences for almost 200 years.

Encounter with western philosophy

In the second half of the 16th century, with the introduction of Christianity in Japan by the Roman Catholic mission , Western philosophy was also introduced to Japan for the first time (at least partially through translation of classics such as Aristotle 's De Anima , Augustine of Hippos Confessiones and Thomas Aquinas " Sums ", which were used for intellectual confrontation with Buddhist scholars) known, which were initially summarized with other Western ideas under the name yōgaku (洋 学, about" Western teachings "). After the prohibition of Christianity and the closure of Japan, the preoccupation of Japanese thinkers with Western doctrine and philosophy, since an edict of Tokugawa Yoshimune of 1720, only took place through the officially conducted but not publicly operated Rangaku studies and, from the Bakumatsu period, through the O-yatoi gaikokujin . German philosophy in particular was well received by Japanese scholars.

The term kitetsugaku (希哲 学; roughly: "Greek clear teaching"), coined by Nishi Amane (1829-1897; he studied for two years at the University of Leiden and translated , inter alia, Kant's lectures on anthropology) comes from the late period of the shogunate of occidental thinking in contrast to eastern philosophy. Over time, this term eventually became tetsugaku (哲学) by omitting the Kanji for “Greek” , which from then on became the Japanese term for philosophy in general.

Neo-Confucianism

For the task of organizing the Japanese empire according to the principle of a new order, the neoconfucian texts brought to Japan by the Zen monks in the 15th and 16th centuries were used. Important Chinese authors such as Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming (their Japanese students were known as shushigaku (朱子学) and yōmeigaku (陽明 学) , respectively ) were received in order to develop the new rules for an obligatory and (unlike in Buddhism) secular social philosophy, as well as being able to justify this metaphysically, a quality that Confucianism, which has always been widespread in Japan, was still missing.

Two processes favored the general development of philosophy:

  • On the one hand, it was necessary to integrate a whole series of new findings, especially in the natural sciences, into the existing rational worldviews that came about despite the isolation of Japan within the framework of the Rangaku and, in the later phase, through the O-yatoi gaikokujin. Important thinkers for the motivated neoconfucianism were above all representatives of the shushigaku , e.g. B. Fujiwara Seika (1561–1619), Hayashi Razan (1583–1657), Kaibara Ekken (1630–1714) and other naturalistic philosophers such as Miura Baien (1723–1789), who deal in particular with the relationship between the ordering and structuring principle the ri (chin. li ) and the life force or materially manifest energy ki (chin. qi ).
  • On the other hand, especially in the urban centers ( Kyōto , Osaka and Edo ) the interest of the samurai and merchants of the four-tier system in a higher education containing ethics and moral philosophy increased. This was supposed to secure the former positions in the Japanese civil service during the peacetime, and to enable the latter to adapt their social level to their rapidly increasing material-economic level. The first important representatives of this direction were the philosophers of the yōmeigaku , so z. B. Nakae Toju (1608-1648), Kumazawa Banzan (1619-1691), Oshio Chusai (1794-1837), and Sato Issai (1772-1859).

In contrast to the metaphysical neo-Confucianists of shushigaku and yōmeigaku , a new school (古 学, kogaku , for example: doctrine of the old ) emerged in this context at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century , which is based on intensive philological and exegetical Studies again devoted to the old texts of Confucianism, especially the analects of Confucius , in order to develop appropriate rules of virtue and character formation for the Japanese people and to re-establish a teaching that has been purified from Daoism and Buddhism. Important representatives of this school were u. a. Yamaga Sokō (1622-1685), who, in the connection of neo-Confucian values ​​with military traditions, devoted himself to the re-establishment of a warrior ethic for the samurai in peacetime, which subsequently led to the development of the so-called bushidō , Itō Jinsai (1627-1705) and Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728).

National Studies and Shinto

The methodological approaches of the doctrine of the ancient, the kogaku , indirectly prepared the emergence of the doctrine of the land, the kokugaku . This source-critical school of philologists focused less on the true meaning of the Chinese classics than on the emancipation from them by highlighting and identifying the genuinely or “pure” Japanese classics of Japanese intellectual history, with many representatives showing a high degree of arbitrary interpretive power Let mystification prevail. They theoretically prepared the Japanese nationalism that emerged in the Meiji period , which ultimately culminated in the deification of the national system of Japan ( kokutai ) in state Shinto . In particular, the neo-Confucian-inspired social and state philosophy of Japan entering the modern age saw Shintō, which was constructed and praised as purely Japanese, as the ideal spiritual complement to the secular organization of the new Japanese nation-state. Similar ideological propagation of the Japanese nation-state, however, also existed in different forms on the part of Japanese Buddhism (especially Nichiren Buddhism ).

As a school, the kokugaku produced only a few genuine philosophical approaches, but was decisive for the theoretical-ideological construct that was to determine the further philosophical development in Japan until the post-war period. Only in the category of aesthetics, especially poetology , did kokugaku produce new ideas, such as the term mono no aware invented by Motoori Norinaga and the newly interpreted term kokoro (or shin ; for example: heart and mind ) as one of all beings inherent disposition to sensitivity that may be exposed through serious poetry or religious activity throughout the real world.

Modern

Meiji period until the end of the war

With the forced opening of Japan to international free trade by the black ships of the US Commodore Matthew Perry , the complete modernization of society had become an inevitable necessity for Japan in order to avoid the threatening colonization by the Western powers, which already had a large part of Japan's Asian neighbors had subjected. The associated import of western inventions and discoveries, which increased massively at the end of the shogunate period and which included a broad layer of the population in the Meiji period , led, in philosophical terms, to the first active and direct confrontation of Japanese thinkers with western philosophies.

This happened first and foremost in the universities that were newly set up based on the western model, at which foreign professors also taught. The most up-to-date thinkers and philosophers of the western, especially the English-speaking world at the time were translated into Japanese and studied at the same time. B. John Stuart Mill , Bentham , Spencer , Darwin , also French philosophers were translated into English. B. Rousseau , Montesquieu , Comte .

The reception of Western intellectual tradition also took place in the liberal intellectual society of Meirokusha . The majority of its members came from the lower nobility and were classically educated and familiar with the Western languages. Especially during the time when the Meirokusha published its own magazine ( Meiroku zasshi ) due to liberal press laws (February 1874 to November 1875), the company was something of a central point of contact for questions about Western culture and modernization. With the tightening of the press laws and the suspension of the newspaper, however, the intellectual influence declined noticeably, although members of the Meirokusha continued to meet more or less regularly until around 1900.

Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) and Nishi Amane (1829–1897) are among the outstanding thinkers of the Meiji period . Fukuzawa, who was received primarily on a political level, represented a historical approach to progress in the spirit of Comte. He diagnosed the feudalist Japan of his time as a "semi-civilization" to be followed by the age of liberalism in which civilization would be completed. Nishi can be considered the founder of Japanese philosophy - the Japanese expression for philosophy ( tetsugaku ) also goes back to him . He also turned against traditional thinking, above all against neoconfucianism, which was coupled with a cyclical understanding of time, since this did not provide any terms for a temporal linear progressive thinking. Nishi's efforts were aimed at giving objective knowledge in the sense of modern natural sciences an autonomy in relation to the neo-Confucian connection between knowledge and morality. He regarded the connection between ethical and ontological knowledge as outdated, as did the requirement that knowledge always relate to moral perfection. Based on utilitarian principles, on the other hand, he emphasized the right of the individual and the promise of knowledge, prosperity and health linked to progress.

The imperial universities in particular were strongly influenced by German philosophy. At the Imperial University of Tokyo (now the University of Tokyo ), the German philosopher Ludwig Busse (1862–1907; student of Rudolf Hermann Lotze ) was the successor of the American philosopher Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908). He gave lectures on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason , introduced Neo-Kantianism, and emphasized the importance of the history of philosophy for the study of philosophy. The Meiji government encouraged the discussion of German idealism , as it saw in it a counterweight to the liberal civic spirit awakened by Western ideas.

Busses successor to the chair of philosophy at the Imperial University of Tokyo was Raphael von Koeber (1848-1923), who had a doctorate on Schopenhauer and in particular taught his ideas and the philosophy of the Middle Ages .

With the end of the Meiji period , the phase of intensive acquisition of Western spiritual tradition can be seen as largely completed. From now on, a critical examination of the occidental culture became possible. Important positions in the philosophy practiced in Japan in the first half of the 20th century, also known as the beginning of the so-called "modern Japanese philosophy", consisted on the one hand in the adoption of ideas and concepts from traditional Eastern philosophies and on the other in connection with them brought Western, particularly contemporary philosophical currents like the Anglo-Saxon pragmatism and evolutionism , the utilitarian ethics and social philosophy , the German idealism of Husserl's phenomenology , of Jasper's and Heidegger's existential philosophy , as well as a humanistic oriented neo-Marxism .

Kyoto School

Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945) is widely regarded as one of the most important modern Japanese philosophers. Around his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of Kyoto from 1914 to the end of the 1920s, the so-called Kyoto School was formed (only from 1932), depending on the definition, consisting of Nishida and his most important students, Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962) and Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990) or, in the broadest sense, from all of Nishida's students and also from their students as well as the students of the students etc.

One of the central philosophical topics dealt with by the Kyoto school is that of the absolute nothingness ( zettai-mu ), in particular with reference to the philosophy of Pure Land Buddhism and Zen Buddhism (especially through the traditional terms kū and mu ) on the one hand and ontologies in the works of Western thinkers (e.g. by Meister Eckhart and Heidegger) on the other hand. Other topics of the Kyoto school were and are u. a. the development of a logic of place (basho), a logic of self-identity of absolute contradictions, the idea of ​​subjectless self-consciousness ( jikaku ) and the relationship between religion and philosophy. By conveying these ideas, the Kyoto School shaped the reception of philosophy in Japan in European and American discourse for several decades.

After the Second World War , the Kyoto School came under increasing criticism for having legitimized nationalism, totalitarianism and bellicism in the late Japanese Empire through its ( culturally relativistic ) philosophy .

Post-war to the present

The post-war period since the capitulation of Japan has produced a plethora of different new philosophical approaches in Japan, many of which are still too young to adequately and objectively assess their relevance to the global history of philosophy.

But z. B. intensive discussions of Japanese philosophers with the philosophy of science (which had already existed in the beginning at the beginning of the Meiji period), which continued with the introduction of logical empiricism in Japan.

Analytical philosophy was also only dealt with in Japan after the end of the war .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted from Gregor Paul 1993, p. 51.
  2. ↑ Quoted from Gregor Paul 1993, p. 273.
  3. ↑ See Müller (2013), pp. 322-367; for a comprehensive analysis of Dogen's linguistic thinking cf. ibid. pp. 241-321.
  4. ↑ Gregor Paul (editor): Meirokusha 明 六 社 and Meiroku zasshi 明 六 雑 誌 ( memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eko-haus.de
  5. ↑ Cf. Peter Pörtner and Jens Heise: The philosophy of Japan: from the beginnings to the present. Stuttgart 1995, pp. 325-332.
  6. ↑ Cf. Peter Pörtner and Jens Heise: The philosophy of Japan: from the beginnings to the present. Stuttgart 1995, pp. 335f.