Modern Japanese Philosophy: Historical Contexts and Cultural Implications

Abstract

AbstractThe paper provides an overview of the rise of Japanese philosophy during the period of rapid modernization in Japan after the Meiji Restoration (beginning in the 1860s). It also examines the controversy surrounding Japanese philosophy towards the end of the Pacific War (1945), and its renewal in the contemporary context. The post-Meiji thinkers engaged themselves with the questions ofuniversalityandparticularity; the former represented science, medicine, technology, and philosophy (understood as ‘Western modernity’) and the latter, the Japanese – ‘non-Western’ – tradition. Within the context, the question arose whether or not Japan, the only non-Western nation to succeed in modernization at the time, could also offer a philosophy that was universal in scope? Could Japanese philosophy offer an alternative form of modernity to the global domination of Western modernity? In this historical context, the philosophies of Kitaro Nishida and Tetsuro Watsuji, two of the tradition's most prominent thinkers, are introduced. Nishida is considered the ‘father of modern Japanese philosophy’ and his followers came to be known as the ‘Kyoto School’. The essay ends with a brief reflection on the influence of philosophy on culture, focusing on the aftermath of the tsunami catastrophe in 2011.